I don’t know about this one. My wife and I were just struck when playing God of War that a lot of the sounds were just like the sounds in Baldur’s Gate (broken pottery, sword hits, etc.) and the textures and colours seemed very similar. I really thought this was designed by the same studio but it turns out God of War was done by SCEA in Santa Monica and Baldur’s Gate was done by Snowblind Studios in Seattle.
Does anyone know if there is a link between these studios? Are some of these sounds and textures canned? Or perhaps it’s something as simple as the sound of broken pottery being the same even when recorded in different places, heh…
A lot of games use standard sound libraries for common sounds like the creak of doors opening or chests opening or things being broken. I think they do this to save time developing custom sounds. They just pay a licensing fee and they get the sounds to use. I am sure if DaveC is around he can probably elaborate on this.
Pretty sure Snowblind Studios did BG:DA, not Starbreeze. Snowblind dropped the BG:DA series after the first one to work on Sony’s Everquest franchise Champions of Norrath (which I thought was an awesome of game).
The sequel to BG:DA was done by Blackisle in house I believe.
You know, I was actually remdined of BG:DA in God of War a lot too. I didn’t even think about the sound effects till you mentioned them (which can be explained by common licensed sound libraries), but the overall feel of the environment felt like someone had taken the BG:DA engine and sort of opened it up to more variation. The textures in caves and outdoor areas, as well as the sort of movement in general had a similar feel. I’m just surprised to find someone else felt sort of the same way.
I really don’t see it. The sounds are obviously taken from common sound libraries (I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the RE door slam or the Doom door open sound in other games and films), but I just don’t see any similarity between BG:DA and GoW, visually. They both have a relatively distant camera view and lots of shiny stuff, but GoW looks and moves exponentially better, with far more complex geometry all around.
Of course, I don’t know what engine they used, and considering Snowblind’s close relationship with Sony, it’s entirely possible they did indeed lend Sony Santa Monica the engine for use in GoW. If so, SSM must have really pushed that thing to the limit.
Speaking of common sound libraries, why do so many movies use that scream? You know the one. The one that doesn’t even sound like a person. It’s like one long scream, then two much higher pitched distorted ones. And it is the worst scream ever. And everyone uses it. And I get angry whenever this happens.
My favorite canned sound, for sheer longevity, is the “goblin death cry” that you can hear at least as far back as Fantasy General and as recently as the opening level of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
You hear the Doom door-opening noise on TV whenever a sci-fi door opening noise is required. The Xcom 1 door noise gets used a lot, as well as the menu selection sound.
