Adding sound to next-gen racing games isn’t just about coming up with five kinds of “vroom”. No one knows that better than Sound Design grad Nassim Ait-Kaci. He’s the guy tasked with populating an entire world for players to barrel through at 196 miles per hour.

In the four years since he graduated from VFS, Nassim’s career has taken him ever southward – from Seattle with Microsoft, then to Neversoft in Redwood City, and finally to San Diego with industry trendsetters/badboys Rockstar Games, working as Audio Lead on the next installment in the Midnight Club street racing series.

It’s been a winding road.

“Since VFS, I have worked on nine titles for six console platforms. I was lucky to have started my sound design career with Microsoft, as the amount of games I was able to work on there kick-started my career.”

But when he landed at Neversoft, working on the developer’s venerable Tony Hawk skateboarding series, he had to ask himself the hard question – would a career built around the finer sonic differences between ollies and nollies be enough for him?

“I wasn’t feeling challenged enough at Neversoft. Their major franchise, the Tony Hawk series, was boring me. Rockstar Games, on the other hand, had a large array of interesting titles to work on.”So off he went to Rockstar San Diego, the developer behind Red Dead Revolver and the acclaimed Table Tennis.

“I chose the San Diego studio not only for the location – best weather in North America, year round! – but because it’s a rewarding place to work. The studio has the best tools department in the company.”

On tap, Midnight Club – Los Angeles, slated for an ’08 release. Good thing Nassim’s no stranger to the genre. This is his third racing game, having cut his teeth on Forza Motorsport and Rallisport Challenge 2.

Anyway, Nassim wanted a challenge, and he got it. “On one side, we have a world-class sound studio and a budget allowing us to smash cars, record Ferraris, and license music. On the other, high expectations in a game’s sound design fuel the audio department to innovate, develop, and create under the pressure of an unforgiving schedule.”

His industry experience meant it was his responsibility to head up the team, coordinating all the different elements into a seamless soundscape.

“Working on a next-gen street racing game differs from most games,” he explains. “For starters, most car games sound crappy. We wanted to change that.”

“Through over a year of audio research and development, we prototyped systems and DSP [digital signal processing] techniques, allowing us to simulate the aggression and roaring of engines in an interactive and virtual environment.”

Nassim’s background in racing games was paying dividends, allowing him to make the most of all the resources at his disposal. “Once we developed our magic black box, getting to record $500,000 cars at ultra-high fidelity was the next step,” He says. “Learning from the mistakes made during the recording for Forza and RC2 really helped out.”

Without a doubt, Rockstar is most famous for developing the Grand Theft Auto franchise, games known for their rich sound design, from squealing tires to talk radio. It sets a high standard and presents unique challenges for the Midnight Club - LA sound team.

“The fact that our city is comparable in size to the vast cities in the GTA series really increases our workload. Most games have levels that focus on a small playable area. Since it is a streaming game, the user is not restricted to small parts of the city, but is encouraged to explore it in its entirety.”

In other words?

“Bringing Los Angeles to life is no easy task.”