Opinion: ME2 and DA2 had the best sound design of all BioWare games (Wear headphones or good audio)
Mar 10, 2017 22:06:52 GMT
Darth Dennis, Hawke, and 1 more like this
Post by Link"Guess"ski on Mar 10, 2017 22:06:52 GMT
It's no secret that great, strange atmospheric sounds aside ME1's sound design was pretty ass. All the atmosphere inside UNC bases was the sound of Shepard's footsteps and the mysterious music. ME2 and 3 upped the ante big time when BioWare hired Rob Blake to make a proper system for sounds and with his expertise of soundmixing and mastering the sound-department got a huge facelift.
But honestly I think ME2 had much better sound design than ME3 and thus far MEA, because I've noticed a strange trend in BioWare games shipping after ME2 and DA2 that both had similar mixing; it's too bass-y and too stylish but still, they're lacking subtler details. Listen to the sound in this video. It's one of the better moments of ME3 where there's silent but still sounds here and there around the dialogue
Notice the details? There's a slight echo on the voice acting to emulate the acoustics of the area they're in. You can hear something like bird-chirping and tropical animal sounds and the sound of busy Salarians comms chatter. It's pretty good. For a quiet moment it's very well done actually but it's definitely lacking something that was a subtle but cool detail in ME2.
Just let that play for a bit. Notice something? The atmosphere is also there, there's the sound of a crowd and space car traffic, we can hear it's Illium for sure. When either character gestures their movement makes sounds which they didn't really do for minute sequences in ME3. As Shiala gestures you can hear her scientist uniform make slight noises and when Shepard gestures you can hear the scratching and squeeking of the material underneath his armor. For whatever reason, maybe another RAM limitation those subtler sounds were not there in ME3 which would explain why I've often felt that game has a strange derpyness to it during conversations that wasn't there previously (only in ME1 maybe).
And a more subjective thing is just the way the voice recordings sound in the mix. I've found in ME2 and DA2 the sharper noises sound a bit muddled but there's a crispness to it too and it ends up sounding organic to the soundscape. Lower noises like vowels and deep voices have appropriate bass to it as well but it doesn't go too much in the deep end and become intrusive. In ME3 there's a strange roundness to the sound, as if everything is slightly amplified and I find at times it does sound like people talking into a Mic rather than being in the world and this is an issue that's there in DA:I and now MEA as well. It also got too much when using Biotics I thought, where everything has to have some "drop" effect to it. It's a bit too extreme and sometimes sounds like it's been over-tinkered so every sound has flashiness to it.
Biotics in ME2
Notice how clear all the sounds are and how much impact they still have, also Shepard's armor making rustling noises
Biotics in ME3
Notice how vague the sound of Shepard running is in this game, how intrusive the Brute noises are and how ear-rapey the biotics are. It sounds cool enough but for several hours it's just too much.
And lastly, if you notice all MEA's trailers, it's just so full of "cut to black - BOOM" so on and so forth it's starting to become corny. The sounds had texture and richness to them in ME2 but they've gotten lazy since then and just added a lot of bass to it to make it sound "good" in my opinion whilist dropping smaller details in ME3 and onwards. Inquisition had the same issue where simply doing a two-handed ground pound triggered an overabundance of bass-noises; it's too much. The Do you agree, or was ME3 and future BioWare games a definite improvement in terms of sound, to you?
But honestly I think ME2 had much better sound design than ME3 and thus far MEA, because I've noticed a strange trend in BioWare games shipping after ME2 and DA2 that both had similar mixing; it's too bass-y and too stylish but still, they're lacking subtler details. Listen to the sound in this video. It's one of the better moments of ME3 where there's silent but still sounds here and there around the dialogue
Notice the details? There's a slight echo on the voice acting to emulate the acoustics of the area they're in. You can hear something like bird-chirping and tropical animal sounds and the sound of busy Salarians comms chatter. It's pretty good. For a quiet moment it's very well done actually but it's definitely lacking something that was a subtle but cool detail in ME2.
Just let that play for a bit. Notice something? The atmosphere is also there, there's the sound of a crowd and space car traffic, we can hear it's Illium for sure. When either character gestures their movement makes sounds which they didn't really do for minute sequences in ME3. As Shiala gestures you can hear her scientist uniform make slight noises and when Shepard gestures you can hear the scratching and squeeking of the material underneath his armor. For whatever reason, maybe another RAM limitation those subtler sounds were not there in ME3 which would explain why I've often felt that game has a strange derpyness to it during conversations that wasn't there previously (only in ME1 maybe).
And a more subjective thing is just the way the voice recordings sound in the mix. I've found in ME2 and DA2 the sharper noises sound a bit muddled but there's a crispness to it too and it ends up sounding organic to the soundscape. Lower noises like vowels and deep voices have appropriate bass to it as well but it doesn't go too much in the deep end and become intrusive. In ME3 there's a strange roundness to the sound, as if everything is slightly amplified and I find at times it does sound like people talking into a Mic rather than being in the world and this is an issue that's there in DA:I and now MEA as well. It also got too much when using Biotics I thought, where everything has to have some "drop" effect to it. It's a bit too extreme and sometimes sounds like it's been over-tinkered so every sound has flashiness to it.
Biotics in ME2
Notice how clear all the sounds are and how much impact they still have, also Shepard's armor making rustling noises
Biotics in ME3
Notice how vague the sound of Shepard running is in this game, how intrusive the Brute noises are and how ear-rapey the biotics are. It sounds cool enough but for several hours it's just too much.
And lastly, if you notice all MEA's trailers, it's just so full of "cut to black - BOOM" so on and so forth it's starting to become corny. The sounds had texture and richness to them in ME2 but they've gotten lazy since then and just added a lot of bass to it to make it sound "good" in my opinion whilist dropping smaller details in ME3 and onwards. Inquisition had the same issue where simply doing a two-handed ground pound triggered an overabundance of bass-noises; it's too much. The Do you agree, or was ME3 and future BioWare games a definite improvement in terms of sound, to you?
