The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Would you guys please offer your services to some real gaming companies?  The voice-acting in UQM is better than most commercial video games.  The voices of commander Hayes and the Yehat were particularly well done.

No, "we" didn't. No offense to the topic poster but I tend to think the acting is lacking a lot.

Nope, it's the original voice acting from the 3DO version of the game.  Rather horrible in a lot of ways if you ask me.

Although there have been a few efforts (false starts?) by community members to re-do the voices.

Considering the vast amount of dialogue and absolute absence of visual cues, not to mention the budget, I think there are a handful of really great performances.  And most are at least DECENT.  I still say the Spathi, Orz, and Utwig are just plain embarassing though...

I think the voice acting is very good. Just listen to some dubbed anime to be convinced that there can be hell of a lot worse!

very true :D

Indeed.

I don't know what's the beef with the voice acting that some people don't like. It seems to be quite serviceable.

Besides, if someone changes the Spathi accent, there will be blood. BLOOD, I TELL YOU!

There's an accent? I thought it was just really, really, bad pitch modulation?  ;P

Well, I call it an accent.

Somehow, the Safe Ones just lose their charm when they don't have that distinctive voice. Hence why I say that someone is going to be so NOT SAFE if the voice is changed.

I absolutely adore the voices. Changing those would change my whole perspective of very cherished memories. To me, it just wouldn't be same. As you probably guessed, I hail from the 3do side of this game, not the pc.

I agree...BLOOD! Lot's n lot's of blood ;D

just because you can have worse doesnt mean these dont suck balls.

And they were made by 3do, not by fans...

I just finished this game and I think the voices are what make this game so enjoyable.
Because you can't take this game serious. The voices are meant to be silly, funny, annoiing, strange, etc. The voice actors did a great job on this (I hope they got paid) and atmosphere of the game thickens because of that.

On the other hand, if you want a serious game, SCII is perhaps not the right game for you.

IMHO, the majority  of the voice acting is okay.
With the Ur-Quan voice I have this problem: It annoys me every time the actor takes a breath to continue speaking! Weren't the able in those day to just edit the sound file and remove that?

I have never actually played the 3do game.

I played the original dos game way back in the day... And every few years since (by now I had to resort to dos emulators such as dosbox, but I still own the original game; and no, I am 21 years old not 50). I have had no problem getting the tone of the game from the ancient midi samples combined with the text. The liberal use of text spicing (things such as "*breep*" finding themselves into the text, use of capitalization, etc) has aided it further. While the voices are definatly ok and far better then most games, I disable voices in almost ever game. Voices have a tremendous ability to add to a game, you could go as far as saying that voice acting can make a game... mediocre/bad voice acting can ruin a game though. Take "septerra core: legacy of the creator". Awesome voice acting, very fitting for the characters. "Zork: Grand Inquisitor" was also well done.

When all is said and done... my first response was also "wow, this is rather good for fan made voice acting"... Everyone assumes it has been done by fans because it lacks any sorts of professionalism, there are cracks and hissess, sounds of people breathing on the mics (talking to close to the mic, because they dont have a recording room and a powerful mic) and many other such issues which should not be in a professionally made voice track.
Incidently, most voices were made by relatives of the 3do team or by the coders themselves... So calling it amatur voice recording is appropriate, they are coders not voice actors.

Moreover, each "actor" recorded voices for more than one races.

correct, and when a person does more then one voice it means they have to speak "funny" to sound different. Forcing themselves to make weirdly sounding voices is a surefire way to make shitty sounding recording unless you are talented in mimicking.

"Incidently, most voices were made by relatives of the 3do team or by the coders themselves... So calling it amatur voice recording is appropriate, they are coders not voice actors."

I think that is sort of cool.


"correct, and when a person does more then one voice it means they have to speak "funny" to sound different. Forcing themselves to make weirdly sounding voices is a surefire way to make shitty sounding recording unless you are talented in mimicking."

There are filters that can modify your voice and make you sound completely different.

Seriously now, if you know a good program that does that, and can customize a filter to make the voice sound like on of the races' voices, we can record the missing parts from the DOS version.

I hope to see into that soon, when I have time (after the semester tests)..

I'm no expert on this subject, but there seems to be quite a few audio modifier programs listed on download.com. There's even a few freeware ones like this (haven't tried it yet though):

http://www.download.com/EXPStudio-Audio-Editor-Free/3000-2170_4-10492390.html?tag=lst-6-10

I'd imagine the payware ones to be better, if someone already owned one. Voice acting is still important though, you can't expect a machine to do that kind of thing.

I agree, even the recording quality makes it seem amateurish.

I have my own way of approaching this ...

This probably means that I'm easier to please than most people but that doesn't really matter, if I enjoy myself, that's what counts.  I have the imagination to sort out the rest anyway.

The question really is (at least in my case) "It's a big Universe with all its myriad dimensions, should I challenge someone elses perception of it or merely accept it as a could be?"

Thus I go into a game and shrug off any irregularities as possibilities.  I thouroughly enjoyed the voices of the alien races, after all, any irregularities could've been down to the translation software they were using, incompatabilities in communication hardware and so on.  In the spirit of that, I just accept things as they are.

I found a number of the voices to be quite delightful, the Pkunk were great because they were oh so lilty and the Spathi always raised a chuckle, especially with their fear of "The ultimaaate eviiiiil!".

Overall, I was pleased with the voice-acting because for me, it was entertaining and it really didn't break the flow of Star Control II, it fit very well.  It wasn't uncongruous in any way from my perspective.

Now as one poster pointed out, I've found some animé that really is annoying because the voice so totally doesn't fit the character that it's constantly breaking the illusion of the World they're trying to create.  I didn't think the game had this problem.

Sure, the Orz had silly voices but they were little fish, in a fish tank that flies in space, they had little marines which flew around to an apt "Go!  Go!  Go!".  If they had been serious, it would've ruined the illusion for me.

I just thought I'd offer my two pence.

I really liked the voice acting. Now when I go back and play the game I'm going to probably hear all the stuff you guys have been nitpicking about. Thanks for ruining it for me!  >:(

If I were to redo the Ur-Quan voice (for example), I'd have it deep, as it is now, with a slight sort of croaking sound  for 'O' sounds (remember, the voice is coming from the Talking Pet), but dead-sounding. Emotionless. After all, the Dnyarri have been effectively lobotomised to such an extent that they're nothing more than machines that breathe.

I suppose that's more logical...but let's be honest.  Did any of us oldbies who played SC2 on the PC imagine the Ur-Quan or the Talking Pet reading the text?  I'm venturing a majority in favor of the former -.o

Well, let's face it; pretty much anything we did would most likely just be trying to improve pefection anyway, right?  ;)

Though I just remembered...I think I had a similar thought when I first heard the Ur-Quan voice...how is the frog saying that?  *laughs*

to be honest. I remembered HEARING all the spoken parts... the amazing ambient music combined with the neuances of the test caused me to imagine voices for them, and it sounded way better then the recorded ones.