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Interactive music is a hot-button item for game audio these days. It could well be the most important development in game soundtracks since, well, games began having soundtracks. The promise is that the soundtrack will be as responsive to the player's actions as the visuals or the game play, and more immersive than linear music could ever be. The potential impact on the gaming experience is enormous, to say the least. But so is the potential impact on game development, as new tools and technology become available. Much of the excitement around this idea is being generated by Microsoft's forthcoming DirectMusic technology.
However, there is a chance that DirectMusic might not be the great panacea that it's touted to be, and betting a development project on largely untested technology is unwise. When DirectMusic ships, will it deliver on its great promise? If this technology doesn't live up to the hype (you can read more about it Tom Hays' article on page 20), don't forget that there are other audio engines with proven track records. In this review, I look at two of them: the Miles Sound System 4.0 (MSS) and the Headspace Audio Engine 1.0 (HAE).
Both of these engines are mature, have been used in an incredibly diverse collection of products, and were built by programmers who have listened to user feedback and have maintained an interest in keeping their products vital and relevant. That said, each product comes with its own set of particular strengths and weaknesses, and I'll explain those as I go along.
I approached this review as a composer and sound designer working in games - I'm not a programmer. So my perspective of these products is from the standpoint of someone who creates content to be submitted to the systems. As such, I'm in a position to judge the quality of the audio produced by these engines. However, as these are both fundamentally programmers' tools, I teamed up with a game programmer who put together some demo applications, analyzed the documentation, and generally gave me a feel for working within these environments.
The Miles Sound System 4.0
John Miles introduced the Miles Sound System in 1991 and RAD Game Tools now distributes and supports it. The MSS technology is...