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Shepard gets more extreme - summary executions!

Blacklung

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The eXtremism debate is just silly, so I'll let the sarcastic and the clueless wallow in that mud.

The choices seem rather nice though now. Pretty standard for Bioware, but it does seem like there are more consequences tied to what you actually say. No longer does it appear that it's black white neutral with the same response no matter what, which has mostly been the case before hand. The greater addition of charm/intimidate is also quite welcome. This seems hopeful, but then again these are chosen clips released to the public so the verdict is still out.

The voice acting actually seems decent to my ears. Garrus has a very reserved, analytical voice, a bit like a 'Spock' or 'Data' kind of character. The female seems a bit nonchalant, straight forward, as they said she would be. And I think the Shepard voice is quite fitting...at least for the face they've chosen (not sure how it would work on characters with different ethnic descent or a burlier or thinner man). If anything I'm tired of the over-the-top gruff voice acting for every single character these days. Does every action hero need to sound like they've either been smoking 3 packs a day for the past 10 years? I find it annoying, not extreme. A medium baritone, stoic voice seems to work much better. If anything, a baritone voice can be much more scary since the intonation is much more noticable. A deepening to bass shows that the person is certainly more angry, raising to a tenor evokes a more open type of emotion. It works rather well to give a voice a broader range.

Actually the only truly hokey voices I've heard so far have been the admiral and some other non-important NPC. Perhaps Wrex.

Facial expressions are the best I've seen for something with this much dialogue. All the other 'RPGS' that have used this seem to have made vain attempts by switching the faces only when a whole new paragraph is spoken. The characters here show constant switching that fits fairly well with the words being spoken. I'm not sure what else you want right now without full CGI and an unreasonable amount of work and money. This comes pretty damn close to HL2 at least before episode 1 (it seems they were able to put much more effort into Alyx's face in that one). If anything, I'd say Shepard has too much eXtreme wrinkling on his face for waaaaay too long. I suppose that's partially due to the downtime during the choice selection. I'm betting if they had already known exactly when to pull off the lines, the emotions would have come off better. You don't normally see someone hold a emotion so solidly like that in real life because the words they speak are altering they're face and the emotional context at a much faster rate...Unless they have an extremely low IQ.

The combat does seem a little slow for the FPS stuff they've put into it. Furthermore, the NPC's don't seem to grasp the idea of cover that well. Garrus was just standing out of that corner and getting shot up to high heaven...Seemed only the PC was capable of using advanced tactics, the AI having little concept of explosives or other techniques to flush the opponents out.

Lastly, I like the way they did the execution part. The stone cold killer approach seems much more eXtreme and frightening than an over the top 'Punisher' execution. Shepard says his lines convincingly in a stoic, matter of fact way, and pulls the trigger. 'what the first thing you feel when you kill somebody? Recoil.' They don't even show the body get hit or drop. Exactly. What person? Oh yeah, another dead guy who gave me what I needed. Afterall, Shepard has already seen heavy combat in his past, plus the 50 odd guards he killed. Aren't you the same guys who complain about the psychotic bad guy choices in so many other RPG's?
 
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Strap Yourselves In Codex+ Now Streaming!
blabla. Spacemoose is absolutly correct, Shepards voice sounds totaly pussified, his faical expressions and body language are not existant.

Just look at the scene where he says "Ive killed 50 bodyguards to get in here, what do you think I will do with you?"

Idealy, his voice should sound deep, angry and intimidating in this situations. He body language should be agressive and hostile, he should grap at least one of the guys by his collar and throw them around. His facial expression should reflect his anger.

I couldn't find something better on the net rigt now, but look at this picture:
B0009QTS1M.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


This is how someone should look who is agressive and ready to kill the person in front of him.

Instead, Shepard looks like this all the time:
72297-MassEffect_Shepard_100b.jpg
 

elander_

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Yes it's a nice tech demo showing cool next-gen special effects and facial animations. Hurrah for their great artists and programmers. On the creative department there's ONE lousy writer with no name hired to write the dialogs and i doubt they have hired a movie director or an actor to make those scenes play naturally (since this is practically an inter-mixed fps/rpg/cg movie we are talking about). Anyone with one brain would already get the clue.
 
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Strap Yourselves In Codex+ Now Streaming!
Now that you say it...yep, everything in that dialogue was top notch. Excellent writing and superb voice actor.
 

Naked Ninja

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Thinking back Jack really was one of the highpoints, for me, of RPG characters. Great personality, great lines, and best of all the dialogue didn't feel forced or unnatural. Which if you think about it is quite an achievement for a character that takes you through the "hold your hand through the basic game actions" tutorial.

And agreed about the voice actor. Anyone know who did his voice? Even though the general concensus is voice acting isn't necessary, for core characters like that it, with talent like that behind it, it is definately a worthwhile addition.


Thinking about it makes me sad for the loss of Troika. I know it's territory thats been trod a hundred times but....sigh.
 

cardtrick

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TalesfromtheCrypt said:
I couldn't find something better on the net rigt now, but look at this picture:
B0009QTS1M.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


This is how someone should look who is agressive and ready to kill the person in front of him.


Actually, that is how someone should look in the middle of singing an aria in an opera.
 

cardtrick

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Naked Ninja said:
Reading this thread, oh man how I'd love another VtM:B. The first dialogue with Jack was just brilliant.

QFT.

The dialog in VTM:B is second only to PS:T, I think. It's just so natural and engaging. Characters have unique voices and mannerisms, unspoken (but hinted at) motives, clever turns of phrase, and the funny characters are actually funny! It's brilliant. It would have been great without voice acting, but almost every single voice actor in the game was fantastic. I would kill for a similar game. There has never been one. Mass Effect looks like it will be the closest, and it's so far away.
 

Inziladun

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cardtrick said:
I would kill for a similar game. There has never been one. Mass Effect looks like it will be the closest, and it's so far away.

What? Why would Mass Effect be closest? I don't get it, Mass Effect is effectively destroying all dialogue in an attempt to make it short and straight to the point. I don't understand how Mass Effect is going to be the closest game ever to achieving what VtMB did. You can name just about ANY game with good voice acting that'd be miles ahead of ME in that department. And any game on the source engine has better facial animations than anything ME can hope to put out...
 

Callaxes

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Fallout 3 is shaping up to look more and more like Bloodlines, but we would be lucky to get that kind of quality from Bethesda.
 

Neverwhere

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TalesfromtheCrypt said:
Idealy, his voice should sound deep, angry and intimidating in this situations. He body language should be agressive and hostile, he should grap at least one of the guys by his collar and throw them around. His facial expression should reflect his anger.

I couldn't find something better on the net rigt now, but look at this picture:

utg-04-11-22.jpg
 

Blacklung

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I'm still in the mindset that quiet stoic anger or intimidation is more frightening. When I used to take martial arts, the guys who got angry and tried to act tough were easier to control during spars. The masters, however, were always very calm, looking you in the eyes, giving you that impression that you better be damn fast because they were ready to anticipate what your next move. I'd rather get kicked by a raging imbecile then quick knee or elbow by a calm intelligent fighter any day of the week.
 

RK47

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he doesnt 'look' like a master to me.
you are talking kung fu, this guy's toting pistols and someone just walks into the room, guns still in the holster and in a flat delivery half joking way said 'he killed 50 people to get there' would you :
1. Shoot him on the balls?
2. Cower ?
3. Depends on his intimidation skills?
 

Blacklung

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Oh don't get all silly nitpicky on me here. It was merely an example to explain that the calmer person is more likely better trained and more able to handle themselves in a fight. In this case it's a fellow with future army gear with the look of a soldier pointing a gun at two scared warehouse workers with pistols. I'm sorry, but if I was in their place, I would probably say screw it too. I'm pointing a pistol at him, and he's just standing there, talking to me like it's no big deal. He's not even bothering to hold his gun at me. That strikes me as quite odd and scary.

If anything I think the fault in the movie is with those warehouse workers. They don't seem scared after the delivery, only before it. I want them to be running like scared little school girls, not walking away like, 'time to clock out for lunch.'
 

TrustNo1

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What is the point of saving these two when you just killed 50 guards to get there? An interesting gameplay decision would be a way to get past the small army guarding the place without actually killing them, but somehow I sense that will not be a possibility. Then they just put in this meaningless encounter to give us a "choice"?

Haha it is just like that thing in NWN, where you talk your way past this guard at the door of this mansion, only to proceed to slaughter every last guard inside.

Violence isn`t allways the answer, but in 96% of the cases, it is.
 

Neverwhere

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TrustNo1 said:
What is the point of saving these two when you just killed 50 guards to get there? An interesting gameplay decision would be a way to get past the small army guarding the place without actually killing them, but somehow I sense that will not be a possibility.

This would be a mildly interesting dialogue option in case you actually did not kill 50 guards to get in. Yet somehow my mind tells me that this will not be the case...
 

Dark Matter

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TrustNo1 said:
What is the point of saving these two when you just killed 50 guards to get there?
Are you actually complaining about the fact that they give you a choice to avoid fighting them? And what's the point of killing them? Wouldn't his job be easier if he avoided an unecessary fight?

Then they just put in this meaningless encounter to give us a "choice"?
And what's wrong with that? It probably won't have a huge effect on the way the game turns out, but collectively, I presume that this sort of stuff will have some impact on the interaction with your party members and that sort of stuff. For an action RPG, that's pretty good. But really, didn't the Codex already decide that ME is just basically a shooter with stats? Shouldn't all this stuff just count as a bonus for you guys? Concluding that something is simply a shooter and then judging it as if it's a Fallout-esque game is pretty dumb, IMO.

This would be a mildly interesting dialogue option in case you actually did not kill 50 guards to get in. Yet somehow my mind tells me that this will not be the case...
What was the point of that?
 

RK47

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'but they still let you pick chili or tomato ketchup for your default french fries, isn't that awesome?!'
 

TrustNo1

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What I meant was that it would be more interesting to find a way inside without needing to kill 50 guards to get there. The option to save these two wouldn`t really make his job any easier, (or harder) he could probably just walk all over them. The point is that it is just a trivial drop in the sea after an endless stream of encounters where you only got the option to fight.

But as you said, it is an action rpg, so I guess that is how it is supposed to be.... but it still doesn`t suddenly make the game an oasis of interesting gameplay decisions.
 

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