lookin' under the hood

Today I got a peek into the audio guts of Mortal Kombat -- we're not talking about the gloss and finery that you as the player hear -- we're talking about the actual implementation, design, and file management that goes on behind the scenes. It was, in a word, mind-blowing. Spreadsheets that would befuddle the shrewdest corporate accountants. Organization that would send a Fortune 500 CEO on a Harvey-Wallbanger-and-super-glue bender. Intricacies that would make a Swiss watchmaker blush. It's a very slick operation, and I don't care what it is -- it can be a Bartok string quartet or a Wankel rotary combustion engine -- I do love learning to understand the complicated inter-workings of a well-designed machine.