For sound design Bioshock

1. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
Bioshock: Welcome to rapture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVR2gZANx10 - starts at 0:18
Game Title
Provide detailed descriptions from chosen examples that
establish…
Clearly state what production technique(s) you think have
been used to create specific soundtrack elements
Setting
In the setting, the player is being submerged
underwater in a bathysphere so the sound of
water flowing over you fills the scene and you can
also hear the sound of bubbles escaping to the
surface as you get further down.
They could have dunked water proof
sound recorder underwater to get the
water flow sound and the same goes for
the bubbles.
Mood
When the screen comes up to show the
movie of Andrew Ryan speaking, it starts
off with a cheery tune like a PSA would,
but lowly fades out when hi starts getting
more and more foreboding. Soon a single
violin starts playing giving his speech an
eerie feel. It gets louder and louder until
the city of rapture is revealed where a
small orchestra kicks in to convey the
magnitude of the city.
Since it sounds like it was recorded on an
old device, they could have recorded the
tune themselves using instruments and
used various sound effects to muffle and
reverb the sound to give it that old feel.
For the orchestra, they also could have
recorded the instruments being played
except this time with no effects as the
music isn't part of the movie its a sound
only heard by the audience to make the
mood more foreboding.
Game genre
Bioshock's genre is a kind of survival horror action
adventure game and this is shown at 2:59 where
there is the sound of a man being killed in front of
us and the sound of the killer jumping on top of
our bathysphere and trying to cut through with
For the man being killed they could have stabbed
a fruit in a recording booth to get the stabbing
sound and the death shouts were recorded by a
voice actor. The scrapes and sparks were more
than likely taken from a sound library .

2. Salford City College
Eccles Sixth Form Centre
BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN
Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games
Narrative
the sound of scrapes and electric sparks.
This scene has some great narrative with powerful
lines such as 'Is a man not entitled to the sweat of
his brow?
"No" says the man in Washington, "it belongs to
the poor"... "No" says the man in the Vatican, "it
belongs to God"... "No" says the man in Moscow,
"it belongs to everyone."
I... rejected those answers, instead, I chose
something different. I chose, the impossible... I
chose; Rapture.'
The voice actor for Andrew Ryan is Armin
Shimerman and his dialogue was no doubt
recorded in a sound booth with normal voice
recording equipment.