While a game's visuals and gameplay usually get the lion's share of attention, the music and the sounds are important as well. Just ask Akira Yamaoka, music composer for Konami's Silent Hill series. With Silent Hill 5 (PS3, Xbox 360) currently in development, Mr. Yamaoka shared his insights on what it was like to come up with the music for the Silent Hill movie and games.

Find out what Mr. Yamaoka had to say after the jump!

For the first time, a major entry to the Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 5 (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3), is being made by an American team. Consequently, producer and composer Akira Yamaoka has to work with new people in a new environment. His thoughts? "Japan is in trouble."

Find out why at the full article.

Famed Japanese game music composer Akira Yamaoka of Konami's Silent Hill fame has announced that he is currently working on a new project. He has expanded his role to overall supervision and is now exercising a great deal of creative control on game design. He has also finished work on the anticipated thriller Silent Hill 5 for the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360, a game whose musical score he describes as Dolby-quality, but not quite revolutionary.

See the full article for details on Yamaoka's new project at the full article.

Konami's resident musician and video game composer Akira Yamaoka recently talked about PlayStation Portable title Silent Hill: Origins. Aside from composing 15 songs for the official game soundtrack, Yamaoka is also responsible for overseeing all parts of the Silent Hill franchise.

Anyway, Yamaoka shared that he wanted to do the music of Origins since day one because the story in this particular title will catapult the events of the other four games in the series. The musician said that he wanted to be sure that it will have the same feel as the first Silent Hill game.

Akira Yamaoka then revealed that Silent Hill: Origins has been a great challenge to them because its quite hard to terrify people using a small screen. He discussed:

The main challenge was to keep terrifying players on the handheld. It's much easier to do that on the console. We adjusted the combat system so that all players can feel the horror. On a small screen, it's a bit harder to keep everyone focused on the world of Silent Hill. That was the biggest challenge.

The musician then said that he feels like they succeeded in hurdling that challenge. "I'm very confident that we've done a good job and that players will be scared by this title. Silent Hill: Origins has some keys to understand the entire world of Silent Hill and the other games. Playing this game will help people better understand those mysteries", he concluded.

Silent Hill: Origins is expected to be released on November 6 in North America, November 15 in the whole of Europe, and December 6 for Japan.

When it comes to survival horror video games, Silent Hill is definitely one of the many titles that have made its mark on the genre. With grotesque monsters, eerie backgrounds and spine-tingling music, the game has given us many not so fond nightmares after playing through the games many iterations through the past few years.

We owe many of our sleepless nights to Akira Yamaoka, the renowned musical composer for the Silent Hill series. The chilling soundtracks he's provided for the games definitely sets the mood for a good night of fear-induced gaming. In an interview conducted during the E for All Expo 2007, he talks about how his role in the series has evolved through the years and how game music for the survival horror genre has changed.

The long-time video game music composer stressed how he wanted his music to sound unique and not just like "regular video game music". He also mentioned that interactivity lends a big role in how it sets the proper mood for any game or even any entertainment medium like movies or DVDs.

After being involved with Silent Hill 3 as its producer, Yamaoka is looking to make the music for future video games which can give a total interactive experience for the player. He considers video games today as something that can be expressed in ways more than just visual means. He ended the interview saying that he aims to create music which evokes a lot of emotion for the gamer while playing.

Silent Hill 5 is the latest iteration to the franchise and is set to be released sometime next year for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. While Yamaoka mentioned the possibility of the game going live on the Wii platform, there haven't been any definite plans so far regarding the matter. In the meantime, you can take a look at the video interview of Akira Yamaoka below.

 

The Silent Hill series from Konami has always been a staple in the videogame world, ever since Harry Mason and his various workshop tools of death took us on our first trip into the disturbingly bloody and rusty hellhole that is...well, Silent Hill. And for a goodly amount of its iterations, the series itself had been exclusive for the Sony PlayStation range of consoles. This generation, however, saw it also being prepped for release on the Microsoft Xbox 360, with Silent Hill 5 being developed by a completely different team other than Team Silent.

The question is, will we ever see what's touted to be one of the best horror game franchises ever to have an iteration on the Nintendo Wii? Akira Yamaoka, the musical genius behind the series' haunting soundtrack, offers us the half-maybe, half-no answer: he thinks there's potential for a Silent Hill with waggle, but there are no plans yet. The reason? The Wii player is not a hardcore gamer.

While we do acknowledge the fact that the target demographic for the Wii are casual gamers, the machine itself isn't specifically tailored to be casual. After all, games like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess aren't necessarily casual games - as it takes a hardcore gamer to hunt down every missile expansion pack or every heart piece.

And with other hardcore titles like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and No More Heroes coming up proves that there is a hardcore audience, and the Wii player can be a hardcore gamer. It's just that developers have to make more games for this audience. In any case, here's hoping that there is a Silent Hill for the Wii in the horizon, and you can check out the full interview in the read link below.

We came across some good news for horror/survival fans today. In a recent interview with GamePro, Akira Yamaoka revealed a few of their plans for the next installment in Konami's popular Silent Hill series. Yamaoka producer the PC version of Silent Hill 3 and also worked as a sound director on the series.

According to Yamaoka, Silent Hill 5 will more or less resemble Silent Hill 2 " in the terms of the way the player is directed and the characters' behavior." There's also a strong chance that the game will be losing the camera angle used in Silent Hill: Origins. "I like it and agree with the choice for the [PSP], but I don't think that's the camera angle we want on a home console," said Yamaoka. "That way you don't see enough of the surroundings that really mean a lot to the player in Silent Hill."

As for which console the game will be released on, Yamaoka said that while details have yet to be finalized, they are currently thinking of putting the next canon game on next gen consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360. "We have had a good past experience with Playstation," said Yamaoka, "and we hope to continue that trend, but there are no definite plans as of yet."

You know how everything - even a cuddly, snow-white, red-eyed bunny -  looks scarier in the dark? That's why very few horror movies ever take place in the day time. In fact, we can't think of any except Mariah Carey's "Glitter" which is not really a horror movie but rather a horrific one.

Anyways, in an interview with Famitsu Mag, game music composer Akira Yamaoka revealed a very ambitious target for Konami's Silent Hill 5. According to Yamaoka, the Silent Hill 5 (rumored to be released on PS3 and Xbox 360) team is working on making it scary even when the scenes take place in broad daylight. Let's call it Daytime Fear Factor.

When pressed to elaborate on Daytime Fear Factor, Yamaoka says it's hard to explain. But he likened it to the Resident Evil 5 trailer where the scene takes play in the daytime but the fear still kicks in. "It will not be the same but that is an explanation of the idea of having fear in daylight. It is a concept that we are working on at the moment still." That means we need to wait a while to see this Daytime Fear Factor can give us the heevie jeevies even when not cloaked in darkness.