Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Playing With Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games . By Karen Collins . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press , 2013. 192 pp. ISBN 9-780-262-01867-8
Reviews
Game sound is the focus of growing academic interest, inspiring studies which encompass multidisciplinary perspectives on the player and the role of sound and music on the game play experience. However, the focus of the majority of text books in the area is on the wide and varied practical aspects of games audio and sound design, exploring factors such as sound creation, integration, field recording, sound processing, music composition techniques, hardware issues and dialogue systems (Childs 2007; Stevens and Raybould 2011; Marks 2013). Fewer authors have emphasised theoretical approaches to studying game sound, with notable exceptions which encompass a mixture of theory and the practical (Grimshaw 2013) and those who focus purely on the theory (Jorgensen 2009). Karen Collins has been a proponent for the study of games sound and the adoption of interdisciplinary perspectives since at least 2008 with From Pac Man to Pop Music and Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. The latter was a broad overview of games music and sound, ranging from hardware limitations to individual roles in the game production process. This text did, however, introduce key theoretical issues surrounding the player experience of, and interaction with, games music and sound - in particular, the non-linear characteristics of games, player interaction with game sound elements, and the player's resulting perception and experience. In Playing with Sound, Collins aims to develop a theoretical framework for the study of games sound from the perspective of the player. The approach she takes is broad, and ranges beyond the player's experience of sound...