Game Title: Bubble Bobble
Your name: Wesley Schouten
Pretty or ugly: Pretty
Description: A very catchy and happy tune.

The sound effects are very warm and gives the repetitive song a little variety.

Nicely balanced game audio.

Game Title: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Your name: Wouter van Dongen
Pretty or ugly: Pretty
Description: The music of this game (1994) captures the setting and story very good. Even today it can be an immersive experience for the player. At least it was for me.

The voice acting was also very good at the time. The intonation really comes out, even though the sound quality was limited.

The sounds of objects and actions are supportive. Some aren't very realistic, for example the stone discs. it sounds more like shifting sand instead of stone.

I think this game can be considered high quality. even today… for those who don't mind the lower quality compared to todays games.

Game Title: Stuntman (GBA)
Your name: Wouter van Dongen
Pretty or ugly: Ugly
Description: At first the sounds quality is pretty good. It is annoying though that the music restarts every time the use enters another menu. It is also very repetitive.

The voice acting in-game, is horrible. Sometimes you can't even hear what it is saying. The sound of the car engine can be very annoying too as it's a very short and dominant loop.

Game Title: PixelJunk Monsters
Your name: Mick Vermeer
Pretty or ugly: Ugly
Description: When you check this video you'll probably think: Why is this sorted at ugly?

It is for this reason: When you hear that high pitched tunes for over an hour, you will get an enormous headache!

I always play games with sounds on and BGM on. But I make a exception for this game…

Game Title: Flower
Your name: Mick Vermeer
Pretty or ugly: Pretty
Description: The BGM makes the player feel very relaxed. It creates harmony. The sound of the wind

strengthens that feeling.

When you collect the leafs of flowers, you get rewarded with sounds. Something I like very much.

The music and sounds strengthen the experience of Flower.

Game Title: Battletoads
Your name: Christiaan Ribbens
Pretty or ugly: Ugly
Description: This game is awesome, but it has one flaw and that is the music during the pause screen. Normally during the pause screen everything stands still and there is no music. But with Battletoads the music during the pause screen is even louder than the background music of this game. Bad choice of audio design to put some loud music during the pause screen.

Game Title: Patapon
Your name: Christiaan Ribbens
Pretty or ugly: Pretty
Description: The music in this game is a great combination of gameplay and music. By hitting the buttons on the ritm of the music you give your patapons commands. The music gets better when you make combo’s. Great example of how to use audio in games.

Game Title: Resident Evil
Your name: Jens Wouters
Pretty or ugly: Ugly
Description: Although it is now one of the most well known franchises and it spawned the survival horror genre, the first, original Resident Evil had something very, very wrong. In fact, so horrible, I think it would have killed the game if it would have been a then known genre. I’m talking of course, about the voice-acting.

They are even worse than a low budget B-movie. In fact, they are so worse, you just have to laugh about it. Something I think doesn’t really fit into a game where you want to create suspense and horror.

Until this point, I have never owned a Playstation console. But I was glad to hear the DS version of Resident Evil was almost a port of the Playstation version and even included the bad voice-acting. Because I was hooked that time on Resident Evil 4, I wanted to play the first game in all its original glory. The voice-acting just cracked me up. Even the intro movie is horribly, horribly bad, sad even.

I have chosen this movie because the intro dialog after the intro movie just gives you a proper idea of how the quality of rest of the game is. Also, this version is pure and game only, no interruptions.

I certainly recommend to also watch this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41TAy7RfVI&feature=related

I think the worst acting of all is the one you can see at 2:42 of the above link. It’s so hilarious if you think of the condition of the guy lying on the floor and how he talks.

Game Title: Unreal Tournament 2004
Your name: Jens Wouters
Pretty or ugly: Pretty
Description: UT2004 is the first FPS where I really paid attention to the sound. The quality just blew my mind.

The music is very epic and sounds very full. The more relaxing music, named Level8, also has the same quality feel, although it differs from the otherwise adrenaline pumping epic music.

The two sounds I’m the most impressed with are these from the shock rifle combo and the explosion of the core in the Onslaught mode. These explosions sound as explosions are meant to sound. Of course, to fully enjoy these sounds, you need a decent soundcard and speakers/headphones.

In the past, I actually played some matches pure to enjoy the sound. I did a deathmatch with robot only bots and the instagib mutator. If you were playing a small map, the map was constantly filled with the sound of metal pieces flying around.

The movie above doesn’t do the sound justice. In fact, this movie is the only one where the sound is decent enough to hear it, but it’s a bit too strong, causing it to distort a bit.

For the real experience, go play the game yourself with a good sound set-up. If you want to listen to the music, you just can go to the music folder of the game and open them with any media player that is capable of playing the ogg vorbis codec.

Game Title: World of Warcraft
Your name: Jordi de Rijk
Pretty or ugly: Ugly
Description: The login screen is one of the times I am very annoyed with the sound in this game. Each time I start it up, I hear that terrible dragon shriek through my speakers and it horrifies me each time. The sound is just unbearable!