Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games

Game Title Heavy Rain – Jason’s Death

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

(Note: the scene I am analysing takes place from 0:20 – 1:26 of the video) The scene takes place near the start of the game, where the protagonist Ethan Mars is out with his wife and 2 children at a shopping centre, however one of his children called Jason walks off and Ethan loses him in the large crowd of people in the crowd. After rushing through the crowd looking for him he finally finds him across the road from the shopping centre, in which Ethan shouts him, but as Jason starts running across the road Ethan notices a car driving down the road which is going to hit Jason. Ethan runs up to Jason and tries to protect him by putting his body in the way of the car, and the car hits both of them. Ethan’s wife then comes out and notices and cries when she sees Jason (who is not seen for the rest of the cutscene), who presumably dies from the impact, Jason’s balloon he got at the shopping centre is then seen floating off into the sky as Ethan’s wife is heard crying and the scene fades to black.

When the scene starts there is lots of frantic music playing to symbolise what is going on and the panic Ethan is going through in trying to find his son. Then as Ethan notices the car and tries to use himself as a shield for Jason the music builds up and goes louder and higher pitched as the scene goes in slow motion as it builds up to the car hitting them. When the car finally hits them the music quickly stops but when Ethan’s wife notices Jason and screams out the music very quickly goes sombre as the balloon is seen floating into the sky, this creates the element that something tragic has happened and the music is used very well to symbolise this.

Mood

When the cutscene starts the mood is very panicked as Ethan is trying to find his son and when he notices him across the road, this mood picks up considerably when Ethan runs to protect his son from the car and then transitions to a “oh my god” mood as they are hit by the car. Then for the rest of the scene the mood turns very sad and sombre as Ethan’s wife notices Jason and Jason’s balloon is seen flying to the sky.

To signify the panicked situation the music has an orchestral building tone with a violin playing, possibly to show that the longer it takes for Ethan to find Jason, the more danger he is in, also to note is a low violin note as well that plays every few seconds, maybe to signify the seconds going past. When the car is about to hit Ethan and Jason the orchestral music builds and goes very high pitched, more than likely to build up to when the car hits them. When Ethan’s wife start’s crying the music has a lone piano playing sad music, this is used to show what has happened and how it has affected the characters in the scene.

Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games

Game genre

Heavy Rain is a drama action-adventure game with noir-thriller traits added into it.

As they are many action packed dramatic situations throughout the game, the game shows this with the majority if not all the music with an orchestra, this is probably used because it can be used to add a significant added effect to the dramatic used due to the scale of sound and amount of different instruments used.

Narrative

There is not much narrative throughout the scene; the only narrative shown is when Ethan is shouting out to Jason and when Ethan’s Wife is crying to Jason.

Ethan has a very panicky tone to his voice to signify the situation and Ethan’s Wife has a loud, sad, panicky voice to signify how affected she is by the loss of Jason.