Every piece of entertainment is greater than the sum of its parts, and the more parts there are, the more ways it can fail. Books rely on characterization, imaginative prose, and a narrative, while video games add factors like acting, music, mechanics, and sound design. The end result is a Rube Goldberg machine that can grind to an anticlimactic halt if one piece is missing or poorly implemented.
In video games, audio can mean the difference between enjoyment and the desire to seek a refund. A powerful soundtrack can provide a sense of beautiful, alien calm or accentuate a heart-pounding race against oblivion, but a horrible song makes ears bleed. The same applies to other audial aspects of video games, as sound mixing and effects can make or break even the greatest of video games. Even if a game’s story and set pieces are award-winning, yet the protagonist’s fists unleash a generic “splat” effect whenever they hit an enemy, virtually nobody will want to play the game for an hour…
Source: N4G PC Great games ruined by terrible audio