The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Does anybody have any favorites...?  How do these things turn out compared to what you always imagined them sounding?

I always thought hearing the "toady dweeb" line from the talking pet would be fun, but it wasn't that funny hearing it...now the Spathi and the Shofixti are just plain hillarious (especially the voice changes on the Spathi, and the insults from the Shofixti).

Anyone else have any favorites?  

And a thought too - wondered how much fun it would be to come up with a Win32 system sound theme....I know of a few clips out of the voice acting that would be great fun for that...

I like the Utwig. They're soooooooooo whiny... which is exactly the way I imagined them while their poor little Ultron was broken. The Yehat are also really good.

And oppositely... I HATE the Orz voice acting. I vastly prefer SC3's Orz... his voice was so high pitched and funny, but every once in a while the computer's built in voice would have to translate one of the *frumple* words.

I completely agree with ya about the Orz...

when I first heard the SC2 Orz voice I thought I'd cry!  (well, nto really, but I did hate it.)  As a matter of fact, the only race I can think of where the voice acting WASN'T better in SC3 is the Utwig -- the whiny tone fits them perfectly!  The Spathi too are good in SC2, but the voice can be a bit hard to understnad so I have to give the nod to Niffiwan's voice over Fwiffo's...  (That said Niffiwan's dialouge is a blatant rip-off of the Spathi councils!)

I actually was a little irritated by the Orz's voice in SC3--I thought it was great, but when the "computerized voice" came in to say the words in asterisks, it wasn't the computer's voice, it was just the Orz's voice, only lower in pitch.  It felt like it should have been another voice entirely--maybe ICOM's.

My favs:

Yehat: Highland Scots!!!  They just sound so cool and noble.  

Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah: they both sound very ominous.  

Talking Pet: I was so NOT expecting the Texan accent.  But I've grown found of it.  

VUX: I dunno, they just sound neat.  They have a lot of emotion in thier voices.  

Overall, I think all the voice acting is great.  A few are annoying to listen too for more than a few lines though (Utwig, for example)  

The Orz are my absolute favorite alien species in any game ever, and their voice was so... out of character. All the weird nonsense they say doesn't have the same effect as it did when there were no voices. The SC3 Orz voice was better than this, but the SC3 voice acting was pretty good all around anyway.

I like the Traddash. It's a boisterous voice for boisterous people.

Voices I enjoyed:

Ilwrath
Ur-Quan
Kohr-Ah
The blue Zoq-Fot-Pik
Shofixti
Thraddash
Druuge
VUX

Voices that were adequate:

The green Zoq-Fot-Pik
Melnorme
Slylandro - Probe
Chenjesu/Chmmr
Druuge
Utwig
Yehat (I thought the accent was too thick)
Syreen - Talana (this is more an acting choice than a vocal choice)
Humans - Hayes

Voices I disliked:

Arilou
Umgah
Orz
Supox
Mycon
Pkunk
Spathi
Slylandro - Gas-Beings
Talking Pet

-----

As far as comparatively:

Better in SC3:
Arilou
Orz
Spathi
Mycon
Syreen

No preference:
Chmmr
Human

Better in SC2:
Pkunk (hard to imagine SC2 as better, but I was against sole Pkunk in this game to begin with -- that may have some factor)
VUX
Ur-Quan
Utwig

Are you kidding me? The VUX were one of my favorites in SC3!

Indeed!  your GOOD FRIEND the human capitan can attest to that.

The VUX are so funny...

You: What are you guys doing out here?
VUX: Uh... mining resources?
You: There aren't any resources here!
VUX: Oh!  Well would you look at that!  NO resources!  Well, guess we'll be going now...
you: Not so fast!  How did you get here?
VUX: Hey!  That's a good question!  How DID we get here?

I thought the human voice was terrible, it sounded nothing like....um....nevermind.  ;)

Oh god! IMO that was the single best line in SC3! My friend and I were rolling on the floor when the VUX siad "How DID we get here?"!! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Yeah, I was initially leery of the VUX voice in SC3, but I grew to love it very quickly.  Niffiwan was great, too.

"Greetings to our good friend, the human captain!"

Just the way that the voice actor accented the words 'good friend' and human captain were very memorable.  I would also agree that Niffiwan's voice was great for the Spathi and that the Doog's voice was my favourite of the new, crude Crux races.  Honourable mention goes to the cute and lovable Xchaggers.  ^_^  I've never much liked any of the Chmmr voices in either game, it was always dull and lacking in any emotion or expression whatsoever... very boring.  I know their race is very analytical from their previous Mmrnmhrm sides, but it seems that the compassionate and kinder side of the Chenjesu is all but lost in the acting.  Well, it just gets really annoying to have to listen to them for a long period of time, so I just read the text and try to drown out their droning voices.

I don't even do that...

The Chmrr tell me absolutely nothing useful in SC3, so I jsut click past all their dialog as fast as I can.

Oh, and just to throw it out there:

did anyone else hate the ZFP voices?  Esp the one on the right annoys me severely.

[sighs] I suppose voice acting is a two edge sword.  It severely hurts the ZFP and the Orz, but the Ur-Quan (both kinds) and the Utwig would be just plain boring without it.

I always thought that was intentional.  I've always felt that in the combination of the two races--perhaps even in the interruption of the Process--the Chmmr lost something irrevocably.  I've always thought you were supposed to be fully aware of the Chmmr's capabilities, but never...well, never really like them.  They lose their ability to empathize with other races when the Process is complete--sort of like a final sacrifice.

That make sense?

Completely. I think the manual and Commander Hayes make it clear that the Chenjesu were very empathetic and patient creatures. It takes more than just sheer intellect to be advanced or respected by other sentients to the point the Chenjesu were.

It's likely that speeding up the Process like that is what gutted the Chmmr of this potential. A shame, but a necessary sacrifice at the time. Still, I wonder if there would be some way for them to reach this potential regardless?

I think it would've been better (especially in SC3) for the Chmmr to have been more developped as a race.  I guess that's hard when they're just a formation of two previous.  I know the Chmmr voice was made intentionally for the race's new persona...  but that doesn't mean I will like it. ^_^  I mean, maybe they could've given the voice a lifeless, mechanical sound, but put some humanity into it.  You know, like Data from ST: TNG.  Seems like a possible thing to have done, in my opinion...  *shrugs*

That's my point--I think they made the Chmmr lifeless and mechanical to symbolize the great sacrifice they made for the sake of the Alliance.  If they were humans, I'd say that they sacrificed their humanity, but that doesn't really work.

In SC3...well, yeah.  They could have used a LOT more development.  

Which is why I didn't feel bad at all when I turned on the defibrillator - er, bicentennial - er, brachiosaur - er, bifurcator. Even though I knew that I wouldn't be able to access the ships, I hoped that we'd be able to get the characters back. Not much of a hope... and I did it mainly because it seemed that was what the plot wanted me to do (when the game works that way, you know you're in trouble...)

Chenjesu was MUCH more lovable than chmmr. People will take pet rocks - I don't know about a pet robo-rock. Apply to sentient beings, and....

I wanted the bifurcator to work because once, just once, I wanted to talk to a Mmrnmhrm.

Yeah, a conversation with a Mrnhrm would be cool... I wonder how their philosophies work,  how they view life, what truly motivates them.

<optimization of pun on the double meaning of "motivation" failed in seven iterations>

Hee hee...I dunno, I thought it worked.  ^_^

I think the best voice acting in the game has to be the Fot's voice.

Only seven iterations? Come on, it should've needed at least nine!  ;D

I'm new here. Star Control. Love it. More than the *special sauce*. Voiceovers. I loved them all in the end. Ilwrath was some disappointing voiceover work.

As you can see,
(meep-eep: Heed that I'm NOT nagging about the voices)
what voices fit and what don't is a HIGHLY subjective thing.

Now you're using the Zen style of nagging by not nagging. I'll stick to vague references.

In any case, it's hard to make everyone happy. One man's comedy gold is another man's cheesy nonsense. That said, there seems to be one voice that (almost) everyone likes: the Spathi.

I think it is more important that voices are intelligible. I had trouble understanding both 3do and sc3's audio speech.