Personally I've made closer sounds in the bathroom. Sorry, just hearing that makes me a bit sick.
Someone mentioned about 2 ears 2 eyes, and the 50% that sound plays. Well if you study a Movie for instance, sound is very important. To quote a random filmmaking site:
The sound in a motion picture is composed of dialogue, music and sound effects. The most important thing that film
students must learn is 90% of a motion picture is sound.The picture is far less important than the sound. Here is why:
The audience can only look at one picture at a time. Yet the audience can hear dozens of distinct sounds all at the same time and separate and process all that information... if it is done correctly. Therefore, much more information can be transmitted from the filmmaker to the audience via sound than via picture.
Reference:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Movie_M...l/Sound_Design
This isn't always exactly how it is in reality the way sound is portrayed in movies, but should a simulation be any different? We have things like simulated head shake, force feedback, red outs/ black outs on the screen, all to represent what is happening in the simulated world.
So why is sound cut short with the il2 games, and particularly COD? We have outstanding visuals, as we should in this day and age, but sounds from 10 to 15 years ago?
Referring to the filmmaking quote above, sound is actually more important than the graphics, since sound can portray more of the world around us than what we see, it adds depth and emotion to what we experience with our eyes.
I am not implying that the sounds should not be realistic, but they can and should be exaggerated from time to time to convey the emotional response as if you where really there. The power of an explosion, the creaking and stuttering of the metal stress in a dive, the sound of a flypast, these sounds should aw us, startle us, and help us to realize action needs to be taken.
Just as a for instance, we have all seen the movies that have been put together with the old il2 series. The graphics where pretty good for the time as we already know. But when they added real engine sounds and some exaggerated explosions along with a few visual effects, you would pretty much forget about the older game graphics, and think, wow what a great movie. A lot of credit must go to those that put these movies together!
So sound in a movie OR a simulation is just as or more important to the immersion factor as the graphics.
Let's hope that in a short while these will be addresses by the devs and the community.
Ok, stepping down from my soap bow now.
Thanks for reading.