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    <title>Music Hellblade</title>
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          alt="A reocurring gif of my initials, NTK, with a red heard above and a black and blue audio wave below in a grey white-outlined circle. The circle slowly appears in a blue backgrounded square along with purple and pink hearts in each corner."
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        <h3 class="textCenter" style="padding-left: 6%; text-shadow: 1px 1px white; font-size: 1.2em;">HELLBLADE</h3>
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        <li>
          <a href="Video Games.html"> <-- Video Games</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeIntro.html">Intro</a>
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        <li>
          <a href="hellbladeStory.html">Story</a>
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          <a href="hellbladePsychosis.html">Psychosis</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeCombat.html">Combat</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeVisuals.html">Visuals</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeMusic.html">Music</a>
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          <a href="hellbladeFinal.html">Rating</a>
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      <h1 class="textCenter" style="font-size: 25px; padding: 5px;">Music & Sound</h1>

      <p>The music for Hellblade was composed by Andy LaPlegua, a Norwegian heavy metal, electro-industrial, rock musician with the help of the game’s audio lead, David Garcia, a singer/songwriter and producer. Andy incorporated his Norwegian language and organic sounds to create a unique, Viking inspired soundtrack. Andy described the Viking battle tracks as being something alien to Senua, while he created more folk and familiar songs for the rest.[2] The team at Ninja took him through the different characters and how the game would unfold, to help him compose the songs. Throughout the game and in a few songs, the team used a method of binaural recording which is a method of capturing sound with two mics that mimics a person’s head and in doing so, emulates how someone would hear. This allowed them to explore a 3D sound and incorporate auditory hallucinations (commonly known as voice-hearing) as if they were surrounding the player.
      </p>

      <p>
    A mental health specialist says, “these voices can be in many different forms. They can be talking to or about the person. They can be very critical and unpleasant, persecutory, or kind, and they can offer advice (Fletcher).”[2] This quote is true to what Ninja Theory included in the game. In Hellblade, Senua hears the voices of characters that are based on people she knew such as her old friend Druth, her mother, her father, and her lover Dillian. She also hears the narrator along with the furies, which come from Greek culture. The furies were played by several actors and would utter phrases and sounds that tormented or assisted Senua. Some things they said were, “look at her, she’s so scared” once walking across a plank or “they’re winning” when Senua is near being defeated. Within the games, these voices and sounds in general are very important. As represented through what they say, these voices react with the player and give instructions or act as a guide to Senua when her other senses are weakened. There is one section of the game, for example, where there is minimal light around Senua, and she must navigate through the dark past creatures and through buildings with only sound to guide her. It provides an interesting and unique experience to the player.
      </p>

      <p>
    For the music in Senua’s Sacrifice, I enjoyed the use of different languages and the Viking feel to it. However, it reminded me of Skyrim’s soundtrack (which happens to be my favorite videogame soundtrack) so comparing those two, made me not enjoy Hellblade’s soundtrack as much. I also think, however, that a lot of the music is made to focus on telling the story with voices and effects, rather than providing award-winning tunes. Basically, out of context, the soundtrack is less appealing but that is because the soundtrack is made to support the game. If you take a few pieces out of a puzzle, those pieces won't always look as good as they did in the puzzle. This isn’t necessarily a bad or wrong thing, just something important to point out. A lot of the music, for example, ends up sounding more like ambiance or is purely voices rather than music. A lot of the tracks also end up sounding the same as the same key is used throughout the soundtrack along with similar vocals, percussion patterns, and sounds. Again, in the context of the game, it is not a bad thing to have a unified soundtrack to convey a similar feeling throughout the game, yet to add more to the soundtrack, having different progressions and patterns or even keys would be beneficial in my opinion. For my favorite song on this soundtrack, it would have to be the “Surtr fight” song. It is in 6/8 (which I somehow only use), and I like the percussion and Norwegian vocals Andy does on the track. It feels and sounds like the music is engulfing you, and portrays the feeling of the in-game fight, or a battle in general. The sound quality of the game itself is great and the use of binaural audio for the auditory hallucinations was very well done, produced, and matched with the cutscenes well in that they were placed in the space correctly. The sound effects are also good, though some didn’t match the visuals like the sound of waves were too violent for the calm waters in the game. I overall thought the sound quality was very good yet I wished there was a bit more coming from the soundtrack.
      </p>

      <h3 style="padding-top: 1%;">CITATIONS & RESOURCES:</h3>
      <p>Mead, Fran. “Ninja Theory Official Site.” Ninja Theory Ltd, <a href="https://ninjatheory.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">ninjatheory.com.</a></p>

      <p>
        “Hellblade Development Diaries.” Edited by Melina Juergens, Youtube Playlist, Ninja Theory, 2017,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG-RoUOQ6BJRXp" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG.</a>
      </p>

      <p>
        “Professor Paul Fletcher (Hellblade Clinical Consultant) Keynote Address.” Performance by Paul Fletcher, Youtube.com, The International Games Summit, Oct. 2019,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRMwq4T9gU." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRMwq4T9gU.</a>
      </p>

      <p>
        “Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis | Mental Health Feature.” Youtube.com, Ninja Theory, Oct. 2018,
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.youtube.com/watch?v=31PbCTS4Sq4.</a>
      </p>

      <p>“Psychosis.” NHS Choices, NHS, Dec. 2019, <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychosis/." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">www.nhs.uk/conditions/psychosis/.</a></p>

      <p>Community Written. “Northmen.” Hellblade Wiki, <a href="https://thehellblade.fandom.com/wiki/Northmen" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">thehellblade.fandom.com/wiki/Northmen</a></p>

      <p>“Hellblade Official Site.” Hellblade, Ninja Theory, <a href="https://hellblade.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://hellblade.com/</a></p>

      <p>Hellblade Soundtrack (headphones recommended for 3D sound): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZKRPcWLms." target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jZKRPcWLms.</a></p>

      <p>Hellblade Gallery: <a href="https://hellblade.com/gallery" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.hellblade.com/pictures/.</a></p>

      <p>Buy the game! <a href="https://hellblade.com/buy" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="norefer">https://www.hellblade.com/buy.</a></p>
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