Everything here either covers several games at once or examines a single technique closely. Full game verdicts live on the reviews page.
The complete mix balance table. Quiet dialogue against loud combat at a single reference level, with the gap in decibels and a note on whether a dialogue slider existed to correct it.
Every game in our table graded on subtitle size, contrast, speaker labelling and whether sound effects are captioned. Nine passed on all four counts, and four failed on contrast alone despite offering three size options.
Five city-builders measured for alert frequency against city size. The worst reached one interruption every eleven seconds at moderate scale, which stops being a soundscape and becomes an appliance failing.
Continuous noise without rhythm is hard to make interesting and easy to make exhausting. Four mountaineering games produced four different failures, and the best result came from a game that simply used less of it.
Review
We completed two sections by ear alone to test whether the positional claims held. They did, and the exercise revealed a detail in the mix we had not noticed while looking at it.
Review
Signal Hours ducks everything when the radio speaks. We measured the effect, admired it, and then counted how many times it repeats without variation before it stops working.
