A Hero’s Quest
Made by the same company that developed Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, it was recommended to me I check out at least the first instalment in this series for it's gameplay and audio wizardry. Before I begin though, please note I am not going to mention anything about the story in case anyone out there hasn’t tried the Mass Effect Games yet.
I played this classic on Xbox 360 connected to a vintage 17” Samsung SyncMaster VGA monitor. As much as this setup was due to practicality of what was available, it was also due to setting less focus on visuals and more on the audio to allow me to better judge how it is adding to the gameplay experience.
The reason for this decision harks back to when I was conducting project at University (many moons ago) about audio quality within computer games. The project explored the ways which audio is managed in production pipelines and how this contributes to quality when integrating into game builds.
Part of the final method of testing was offsetting the quality of the visuals in test videos I made to a much lower resolution with different grades of audio quality applied to each of them. The final results were very intriguing and I knew from that experience, this would be a perfect approach to help write about Mass Effect's audio.
Being a AAA title you know the audio is going to have vast amounts of research and planning behind it due to the resources and budget they have. However, there are a few areas that I feel should have been given a little more time to perfect upon review. I say this as everything else is so well knitted together it makes these sections stand out.
Audio Gremlins:
The general layering of pitched dialogue in alien creatures with their original dry vox is a little unconvincing and this mixing technique seems to have been used for quite a few alien species. I found it noticeable and a sense of being a little rushed. I could hear it was two audio tracks being mixed together to blend them into one sound and would have liked of heard more subtly with this technique as it was being used several times. What still intrigues me is how the audio team mixed these parts and why, was it in a plugin using the dry wet mix, a DAW bus path, multitrack mixdown or inside an audio engine? I'd love to know to see how it was all working together.
Background music within dialogue scenes doesn’t crossover seamlessly when changing scenes as I was playing, sometimes in the form of audio drop outs. When the scene switches position during dialogue, aspects of the audio can be missing such as scene music or atmospheric sounds. I was running direct from disc with no updates, so I have taken this into consideration when mentioning.
I wasn’t sure about the sound of general footsteps on hard surfaces, similar to my experience in KOTOR. I feel when you play an RPG that entails a lot of walking and running, it's important in some cases with repetitive audio, some audio assets remain subconscious to the human ear. Your ear takes for granted they will be there and you only notice something is wrong when they sound jarring in some way.
The alien races when speaking English did sound a little too human like to me. There was continuity in their accents but they still sounded like they were from earth rather than another galaxy and this reduced the continuity slightly in Mass Effect’s game world. I know Audio Designers, Developers and Film Directors walk a fine line in this area between realism and practicality for story telling, however there's a lot of sci-fi out there already.
The game music has a Vangelis/Blade runner feel about it and it flowed in and out of the audio mix beautifully as I played. It seemed always to be timed correctly execpt when switching scenes as described earlier.
All the elements in the music tracks were nice and thick, with good spacing between each instrument which really helped allow the tracks to blend in with each environment and the other audio samples running in the game engine.
Mass Effect had some really nice fading and proximity effect going on with the dialogue when passing by characters in the different environments. Initial audio levels of dialogue, music and sfx were all well balanced with clear indication a lot of testing has went into the final mix. Everything ranging from the general global mix to the individual elements working together when they are triggered. I found the KOTOR global levels clashed and required manual adjustment before beginning the game.
Maybe this is a quirk of mine but I geeked out when I walked into an elevator starting my investigation. The news reports and music are nicely in sync with the elevator duration. Its those details most would take for granted that go a long way to suspending disbelief.
Speaking of which, this route I was on at the time led me to meet an Enkindler alien. The vocal for this creature had a lovely smooth sonic texture to it i found was because of the reverb being used. The use of reverb and eq across the board in this game have been exceptional, if want geek out on sound design, have a listen to the use of reverb with dialogue in different rooms in the game.
Proximity effect of voices in battle, especially with helmets on is great, I really felt I was there, encouraging me to become more engaged in battle by providing a realistic sense of special awareness with the panning of the audio.
Everything sounded transparent comparing the audio through different speakers, especially in the mid range. This further showed how well the audio has been handled for playback on different mediums.
Final Thoughts:
I enjoyed playing this game and have a great appreciation for the time and effort the developer and audio team put in for this game to become a classic as well as well to support the launch of a successful franchise. I would certainly revisit this game and explore its sequels at a later date, and would also encourage anyone who has not yet played the Mass Effect series or listened to the official soundtracks to do so. The score is great!
Finishing off, I’d just like to say, Being a AAA title you know the audio is going to have vast amounts of research and planning behind it due to the resources and budget they have. However, there are a few areas that I feel should have been given a little more time to perfect upon review. I say this as everything else is so well knitted together it makes these sections stand out. y favourite sound has to be the Assault Rifle. I absolutely love it. Skip to 28.10 min in the video below to listen.
