Burnout 2 is All Revved Up
Supports Dolby’s Pro Logic II and Renderware.
October 10, 2002 - The first title to celebrate the integration of the Dolby® Pro Logic® II Interactive Content Encoder and RenderWare® Audio 2.0 is Acclaim's Burnout" 2: Point of Impact, which became available at retail for the Sony PlayStation®2 last week. The combination of the two technologies allowed the development team to program in rich, full, enveloping sound for the game in a tight, cost-effective work environment.
"Our goal with RenderWare Audio 2.0 is to provide audio teams the very best tools and technologies with which to deliver superior quality, cinematic sound in their games. Dolby's Pro Logic II technology is the leader in its field, and it's a natural step for us to have integrated it into RenderWare Audio 2.0," said Stephen Root, head of audio for RenderWare.
"Dolby Pro Logic II technology, combined with RenderWare Audio, version 2.0, allowed the Burnout 2 development team to concentrate on creating realistic, full multichannel sound and invest even greater resources in the crucial creative elements of the game," said Fiona Sperry, vice president of Criterion Games, developers of Burnout 2.
"As more and more gamers plug their next-generation consoles into the backs of their home theater systems enabled with Dolby technology, the call has gone out for cinema-quality sound in games," said Jack Buser, manager of game developer relations at Dolby. "Dolby is bringing the magic of Hollywood to gaming by integrating the Pro Logic II encoder technology with Criterion's middleware for the games like Burnout 2 to meet and exceed the expectations of both the development teams and the game players."
Audio encoded in Pro Logic II carries five channels of sound in a traditional two-channel stereo audio signal, which is then decoded back to five speakers by using the Dolby Surround Pro Logic II decoder found in the Sony PlayStation 2. Pro Logic II's advantages in game applications include minimal latency, full frequency range, compatibility with existing cables, and backwards-compatibility with stereo and surround equipment.
RenderWare Audio 2.0 simplifies the process of generating rich, exciting multichannel audio, and further enables developers to invest even greater resources in the crucial creative elements of the game. It is modular and entirely open, so developers are able to provide cutting-edge audio to their game's runtime engine "straight from the box" with minimal programmer dependency
About Criterion Software Criterion Software Ltd is the undisputed world-leading provider of middleware solutions for the game development industry. Founded in 1993, Criterion Software Ltd is a rapidly expanding organisation that today employs over 200 people in its software technology and game development divisions and is headquartered in Guildford UK, with offices in Tokyo, Austin, Paris and Derby. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon Inc. Further information on Criterion Software Ltd can be found at csl.com. 
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