Tom McCaren's Blog

Mass Effect 3 Trailer - Sound Design Demo

Well I thought that as I haven’t put together any demo videos for a while that I’d flex my creative muscle and redo the audio for this Mass Effect 3 trailer…Plus it also gave me a great opportunity to test out my new headphones, (some Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros) which are brilliant!

I chose this clip as I’m actually playing Mass Effect 3 at the moment and am thoroughly enjoying it so far (no spoilers please, I havent’ completed it yet).

As with all Mass Effects games, it’s got some great sound design in it, I’ve always been impressed with the way that dialogue is handled in the Mass Effect games and this title is no exception, the great voice acting and eloquent dialogue trees help make the whole experience engaging and a lot less linear than you’d expect in a game like this, whilst at the same time helping you to emotionally invest in certain characters along the way and suck you in to their world.

The reapers themselves also sound brilliant, (I read somewhere that the main reaper noise was created by recording a creaky dustbin lid!?!) with their eery motifs and garbled electronic vocalisations and they make you feel genuinely scared in places.

This game is more battle orientated than the previous games in the series and the battlefield ambiences are really well put together, I chose this particular video clip as I think it represents the game as a whole pretty well. i.e. Lots of action, big bangs and a ton of scary, freaky looking (and sounding…) aliens.

Anyway, constructive criticism is always welcome,so let me know if you think there’s anything I could do better. I’m always interested in sharing sound design tips and techniques. Enjoy!

F1 Race Stars - First Look

Here is the first look at F1 Race Stars, a game that I worked on the audio for at Codemasters.

In this video, Chris Gray, the Senior Producer on F1 Race Stars, talks about some of the gameplay elements of Race Stars and shows off some in-game footage of the Germany track.

The Germany track was playable at Gamescom 2012 where it received a lot of praise and has even been nominated for the IGN People’s Choice Award so please head on over to the IGN People’s Choice Award Website where you can vote for F1 Race Stars. 

The game is due to be released for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in November. For more information on the game, check out the official website at www.F1RaceStars.com.

Announcement Day!

Well today’s the day I can at long last talk about what I’ve been working on so hard on these past months at Codemasters. The name of the game is… (Drum roll please)

Formula 1 Racestars!

“F1 RACE STARS will deliver formula fun on every straight, hairpin, jump and loop-the-loop with super-fast racing and a range of power-ups for players to collect and deploy as they sprint for the chequered flag ahead of their rivals.

F1 RACE STARS will take players on a world tour of iconic FORMULA ONE locations, including Monaco, Silverstone and the new Circuit of Americas in Austin, Texas, recreated as fantastical racing circuits built for speed and wheel-to-wheel competition. Friends and family can share the fun too; F1 RACE STARS will deliver 4-player split-screen racing and 12-player competition alongside an extensive career mode featuring a number of Championships.”

The game’s going to be released for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC and is due out in November. there’s no gameplay footage that we’re allowed to show yet, so in the meantime head on over to the website (www.F1Racestars.com) where you can check out the announcement trailer to give you an idea of what it’s all about.

More to follow…

Codemasters Job: Update

Well I’ve been here a month now and I have enjoyed every second of it so far. I’ve had to work extremely long hours as there is so much to do in such a short space of time and I have learned a ridiculous amount but I feel all the better for it. 

I already feel like my knowledge and skills have improved ten fold since I’ve been here and I can’t wait to see where I’m at by the end of the contract.

I still can’t say anything about what I’m working on but hopefully that won’t be the case for too much longer, so watch this space as I’ll let you know as soon as I’m allowed to…

Anyway, I was lucky enough to go to attend a BBQ at Codemasters last week to celebrate the launch of their latest game, Dirt: Showdown which is available to buy now for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The party was a lot of fun and I can certainly think or worse ways to spend a Friday afternoon! Here’s a video of some of the highlights.

EXSTATIC - Update!

I’ve been working on a games project called Exstatic for some time now and I decided it was about time for an update. For those of you who haven’t read my previous posts about it, Exstatic is a 4 vs 4 online shooter aimed at the professional gaming community. 

We are working hard to create as good a game as possible and have thought long and hard about how we can attempt improve upon the current calibre of online shooters by focusing on gameplay mechanics. Specifically things such as weapons balance, the aiming and movement systems and maps (not forgetting some kick ass sound design of course!) have all been created with hardcore gamers in mind and are all things that have been given a lot of thought and we’re hoping that you’ll be as excited about this game as we are. 

We’re aiming to release Exstatic via Xbox Live in time for the Dream.Build.Play 2012 competition in June (see www.dreambuildplay.com for details) so watch this space for more details.

On a different note, We have recently welcomed a new member to our team,  artist Aaron Foster who has been churning out artwork by the ton! He’s been doing a great job and we’re all very excited with how things are coming together. You can see some examples of his own work on his portfolio website (http://www.razorb-art.com/) but the artwork that you can see in this post is all his. 

We’re hoping to give the Exstatic website a bit of a revamp soon as it’s been a while that it’s been updated and we’ll include more of Aaron’s work there and maybe an early gameplay trailer or two. I’ll post another update when that’s all been done.

Operation Flashpoint: Red River Sound Design Demo

A while ago I got the opportunity to do a work placement with the audio team at Codemasters and to work with the action team on their latest offering, Operation Flashpoint: Red River. I had lots of fun creating ambiances for the final level in the game and some bullet impacts too. 

This video shows some gameplay of some parts of the game that use my sound design.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas Everyone…

A couple of weeks ago I had the idea that creating a festive video with all my delightful work colleagues would be a great way to add a bit of fun to the work place (in our own time may I add) during an otherwise demanding time of year.

Anyway, under the pretence of it being a great “team building exercise” (and with a drink or two thrown in for good measure) I finally got them to agree to it…

So here it is, our tribute to the Shakin’ Stevens song Merry Christmas Everyone…and yes that’s me, the elf with the guitar…

Enjoy!

Subvert Timeline Trailer Sound Design

This is a trailer for an upcoming game that I am working on that I offered to rework and add some sound design to. The music was put together by a composer called Peter Kim and vocals had already been recorded but I added every little beep, squeak, roar and gunshot that you hear.

All of the computer/glitch sounds I put together using my Waldorf Blofeld synth along with the ES2 synth in Logic Pro. I used a variety of plugins including noise gates, high pass filters, bit crushers, vocoders, flangers and pitch shifters as well as a few others to create the majority of the special effects for the clip.

For more information about the game please go to www.subvertgame.com or find us on twitter at www.twitter.com/subvertgame.

For the best quality, please watch in HD.