One thing I would like to see modded are the in-game voices. I do think the quality of voice acting is high (but not excellent). The voices are distinct and clear, they are mildly gimmicky but not over-processed, and they do the job. Kudos to the voice actors. Where I feel the voices stumble is in their direction. In my opinion, either the dialogue editor/director was too laissez-faire, or else the actors were allowed to think up their own stuff, or the most likely, the sounds were produced independently of the rest of the game direction, and were added in towards the end, when it would be too late to make constructive changes.
I am in awe of those people who wish to contribute new voices to Sins. I most highly encourage efforts to mod new voices in. Already, there have been a few volunteers, and I hope there will be more. There is a lot of untapped voice talent out on the Web.
What I want to do in this thread if offer some concrete directions for voice talent to follow when coming up with new voices. I think that the voice talent folks as well as modders should look over these ideas and add to them or change them as they can.
TEC: These guys are the take-charge military of the human race. The mistake in direction in Sins was to allow them too much "freedom of expression". Some of the ships sound like they are run by surfer dudes, while some of the cap ships sound like the Captain is a psychopath.
TEC voices should be terse and militaristic - I suggest a "Strong American" type of voice.
One trick to achieving a "Strong American" voice is to ALWAYS end the last syllable of your last word in your phrase on a downward inflection.
Stay away from James Cameron's "Aliens" as a source: the soldiers were largely undisciplined and inexperienced, and look what happens to them. That sort of folksy cameraderie works in the film because it makes the characters more individuals and more fallable. In a video game, you don't want an army of individuals, and silly dialogue sticks out and gets tiresome when it's repeated as unit voices.
Stick to bland, terse, strong commentary. "Roger." "Aye Aye" "Copy that" "Affirmative" "On my way" "Target is locked" "Phase jump in 3 - 2 - 1 - go" "That's a kill" This stuff can be as emotionless as possible, like an airline pilot who is announcing turbulence. "Ahhh, this is the Captain speaking. I've turned on the fasten seat belts sign. It ahhh, looks like we're going to have a bit of a bumpy ride for the next few minutes..."
TEC can get emotional when really crazy stuff happens, like the shields go down on a cap ship "Shields are down, sir! Raise the shields! Raise - The - Shields! Oh, God! Oh God!!!" Usually those phrases don't get heard all that much (not in my games anyways, wink), so they can have more emotion and action to them.
A General Rule: the more you hear a phrase, the more bland and ubiquitous it should be.
VASARI: These guys play out in Sins as Reptilian, but their dialogue verges on Klingon comic-opera arrogance. The problem that I see with the Vasari was that the voice was not consistent. "Phaaassse space" sticks out because it's the only time we hear the Vasari really stretch out their vowels.
VASARI: I would suggest that a Vasari voice be very deep, a low baritone or a bass, something to shake up the subwoofers.
A different accent from the TEC wouild be best.
Some voice processing like pitch bending or a hint of flange might be in order. Maybe a hint of an echo, to simulate that their ships bridges are massive and important.
Although the Vasari are on the run, they are used to being in charge of things. They do not get excited. I think that the "Landru" voice from Star Trek's "Return Of The Archons" episode would be something to shoot towards. A deliberate, cool, dispassionate voice that nevertheless in unequivocable about being in command at all times.
"By your command" "It shall be done" "I will make it so" "At once" "Entering phase jump threshold" "Increase speed to maximum" "I'm on the leader" "Our shields have failed" "None shall survive"
Other voices to consider: the Cylons from the 1980's Battlestar Galactica: Imperious Leader, Baltar, Lucifer. Also James Earl Jones from that same time period.
ADVENT: The Advent voices are difficult to pin down. The lore is confusing to me. On one hand, they are a cybernetic race, but they seem to be all twisted and unholy. They seem to be hedonistic pleasure seekers and introspective, not cold and calculating computers. On the other hand, here they are with an aggressive (and rather pretty) war fleet opening a can of whup-ass on anything that's bigger than dust. Sort of a cross between the Borg and the Romulans after a visit to the Adult Toy Shop, I guess. That's their problem, they combine too many divergent sience fiction cliches.
If the Vasari don't get flange and pitch bending, the Advent should.
ADVENT to me (and most Christians) is a word with religious significance. Perhaps the Advent should take their mechanization as religion, a Cult of the Machine. But the Advent are warped, and should have demented voices.
The Chaos Marines and the Eldar (big shudder here) from the Warhammer 40K videogame (also produced in Vancouver, but by a rival company!!) spring to mind as voices to follow. Maybe some will disagree, but the snivelling, smarmy Acolyte voice has a lot of over-the-top charm for me. Think of the bad guy "Benny" from The Mummy, Gollum, or better still, Peter Lorre...
"Yess, masster" "I hassten to obey you" "Pleasse command me" "Oh, YESSSS!" "(Evil chuckle)" "Look what I did for you, Masster" "We enter the Phasse Sspace for you" "Your will be done, Masster" "Such pretty lightss" "What have we done !? Our shields! Oh, noooo!!"
Altough a male voice could do a decent Gollum, what about a female voice, maybe with a sexy Canadian accent doing her best Peter Lorre "You've got to help me!"?
Another global issue I have with the Sins voices is that each race has more or less one voice doing all of the work. Perhaps voices should be given classes of ships rather than races. The cap ship voice does all of the cap ships across all of the races (but with different acting for the different races, naturally). All of the colonizers are female. Or something like that.
My thought here is to give some ideas and direction to the new Sins voices. It's free advice, so I would expect people to criticize, love, or hate it freely as well. What I want the most from this is to drive the new voice mods forward in a positive direction.
