On Oct. 6, North Carolinaâs Tobacco Road triumvirate of State, Duke and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill all played home games on the same day, and all of them won. Audio from all three games wil be in NCAA Football 14, on shelves in two weeks. Some of that may come from a microphone I held.
Eight months ago, EA Sports invited me along on a sound-gathering mission, to get a look at what goes into its efforts to put gameday realism into its college football title. The gameâs producer, Ben Haumiller, acknowledged to me that the 20-year-old series was suffering from a sameness problemânot only was the title indistinct year to year in its graphical presentation, but great games also sounded the same, whether you were playing at Michigan, USC, the Other USC, VPI or Clempson. Authentic crowd noise is one way to brighten the atmosphere.
Hereâs what made it:
Duke:
âWe got the âLetâs Go Devilsâ clap chant, and âLetâs Go Duke,â which are more upbeat offensive encouragement type chants,â Ben said. These are probably mine. I was stationed beside Dukeâs student section the entire game; Ben was covering the Virginia fans way to the other corner of Wallace Wade Stadium. The obnoxious fan hitting on the dance team captain all game was, presumably, omitted.
State:
âWe got the âWolf/Packâ call and answer chant,â Ben said. Again this might be my work. I was down in the corner of Stateâs student section at Carter-Finley Stadium, in good position to get both ends of this cheerleading staple.
UNC-CH:
âWe got âLetâs go Tar Heelsâ with accompanying drum hits, and a couple versions of the âTar/Heelsâ call and answer chant.â These sound like Benâs. I was in front of the end zone student section and would have only gotten one word off the Tar/Heels chant.
âThe biggest hurdle we are trying to overcome is getting any performance by the band cleared,â Ben reminded. âThere are so many chants that have the band playing along. Even if itâs a chant over a fight song we have the rights to, there are questions if we have rights to the actual band performance of the song.
âWe had to shelve an awesome version of Seven Nation Army that we captured, where a band was playing that opening bass line with their horns section,â Ben wrote. âSuper fast tempo, super upbeat, but we arenât able to get it cleared yet.
âThe other issue that cuts into a number of good samples is that damn P.A. announcer,â he added. EA Sports does not have the rights to any public address audio without a separate deal. At Kenan Stadium, the P.A. calls out a fresh set of downs by saying itâs âanother down for the Tar âŚâ and the crowd replies, âHeels.â So the front end of the chant is unusable.
âWe went to about 30 games last year, some for the first time, like South Alabama,â Haumiller said. Indeed, South Alabamaâs bawdy chant of âU-S-A! South in Your Mouth!â came through loud and clearâand cleared the ESRB prudesâand will be in the game. In some games they recaptured audio from a previous visit that had yielded nothing usable. EA Sports went to Penn State the day after Joe Paterno was fired, for example.
https://lastchance.cc/you-cant-say-that-in-a-video-game-why-someone-might-th-5949703%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
NCAA Football 14 will be available on July 9.
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Top image by Getty.
