I was just playing NFS-SE again last night with headphones, and was
reminded of just how good the sound was. EA does this really well
with most of their games, don't they? Their sports games really give
you that "you are there" feeling. As for NFS-SE, I have to admit I
never really heard all the sounds well before because I was hearing
it through the tinny little speakers in my notebook. Now I
appreciate the different gear sounds (like the metallic clink of the
Ferarri gate vs. the solid, Teutonic *clunk* of the Porsche box).
The engines are also beautiful and distinctive. It's nice to
recognize the sound of the fan in the Porsche, and the nice feral
shriek of the Ferarri, but what is the best.. *the best*... is the
sound on the overrun and downshifts. EA nailed this one, didn't
they? The Supra sounds beautiful as it burbles through what sounds
like a big, fat HKS exhaust. Big grins. I know this is old news for
most.
So, did they get it right in NFS3? I played the playstation version,
and the cars sounded generic and bland. Like big Hoover vacuums.
Stephen
p.s. anyone else notice how too much time spent playing F1 sims
"tunes" your ears to a whole different frequency range, so you mess
up all your downshifts in a road car sim? The rev frequency "tells"
you to downshift at about 10,000 in the F1 sims. It's a good thing
NFS-SE doesn't let you blow engines.
>So, did they get it right in NFS3? I played the playstation version,
>and the cars sounded generic and bland. Like big Hoover vacuums.
Yeah, the cars sound generic in NFS 3. The environment sounds are
fairly well done, but the cars are not as good as NFS 1.
Joe
Hmm,
Thought about this a bit and have to say, that generally, no, they got
it wrong (cue EA rep posting that they used real samples). IMO, the best
sounding cars are the Merc CLK CTR and the El Nino thing. Most all of them,
especially the class C stuff are very subdued and I suppose if you're after
realism, the /real/ Aston Martin, Jaguar, Merc 600, etc. /are/ very quiet to
drive. Personally, I like a more spine-chilling sound track when on the
road like in the real Diablo ("An industrial strength ***"), or the
fruity warble of an idle to the top-end snarl provided by a Ducati 996 SPS
;-)
Maybe it's due to the point you made in your PS, that ears become
attuned to the freer revving race cars; I certainly find myself revving the
***off of most of the cars in NFS3, except the GTR and maybe the R42 if
the set-up is right (read, 175mph/1:26 round Hometown)
The Corvette sounds nice on the overrun but the foot-down moments sound
pretty muddy and nothing like a tuned V8 on song :-( The Merc GTR OTOH
sounds quite like a subdued version of the real thing, minus the incessant
whine of the gearbox. Just crank the volume up, I guess.
Don't get me wrong, I love NFS3, though mainly 'cause it still runs
nicely on my Pentium Classic 200/Voodoo 1 box, but I think NFS2 sounded
better and NFS sounded best. Any one with a proper Dolby setup care to
comment?
Regards, Rik
P.S. I also use an SB AWE64
P.P.S. No animals were harmed in the production of this email.
