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| 24 APR 2009 at 1:51pm |
Jenny100Guild Master
Posts : 3510
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Thank you for the information, Len.
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| 24 APR 2009 at 4:01pm |
sg7Sorcerer Apprentice
Posts : 213
Joined: 8 JUN 2004
Location: UK
Status : Offline | I hope the second is even better
I now have it on order from Amazon ( UK ) ,roll on May 11
Playing ME3-Citadel ,TOMB raider ,Skyrim Dragonborn
Waiting fot journey down episode 2 ,Dragon AGE 3
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| 24 APR 2009 at 11:37pm |
jalexSchattenjger
Posts : 2503
Joined: 5 MAR 2003
Status : Offline | I can't wait for this one as I really liked the first one. I thought it was the best game I have played in a very long time. I had no trouble with the ilogical things that some had mentioned. I found the hints I got would get me through and all I had to do was think a little about it.
It was also my favorite stoy line so that helped a little too.
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| 25 APR 2009 at 3:45pm |
InlandAZGuild Master
Posts : 5586
Joined: 4 MAY 2007
Status : Offline | The first still sits in my favorites list, and this one has been on my radar for some time now - thanks Len.
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| 25 APR 2009 at 4:40pm |
Taurnil MithrandirJourneyman
Posts : 1093
Joined: 13 AUG 2006
Status : Online | I really enjoyed the first one so I can't wait for the sequel.
....set the controls for the heart of the sun....
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| 28 APR 2009 at 8:48am |
SteveSpace Cadet
Posts : 112
Joined: 3 DEC 2003
Status : Offline | Been playing the demo and it's a lot better than the first game. The story seems a lot more interesting. I will definatly be picking it up when it's released
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| 28 APR 2009 at 9:18am |
karlaAdministrator
Posts : 2593
Joined: 27 JUL 2003
Location: US, Close to the Edge
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By LenG (24 APR 2009 8:21am)
Note :- It seems that there were some serious criticisms of the voice actress who took the main part of Nina in the 1st Secret Files.
I must say that I personally didn’t notice it at all --- but the #2 Nina is certainly extremely good !
Maybe it's just me, but I think Nina's voice in the first game is like fingernails across a blackboard. Screeeeeech! I do hope it's better in the second one.
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| 28 APR 2009 at 12:17pm |
ShanyGuild Master
Posts : 3313
Joined: 19 JUN 2003
Status : Online | The voice in the second game, judging by the demo, is the complete opposite of the one in the first.
It's the most mellow, soothing voice ever. It doesn't fit Nina's personality or her tendency to joke about everything.
And it seems like there's no voice directing, so lines get taken out of context.
And don't get me started about the other voices in the demo. That little kid... :-X
On the other hand there were some parts I liked about the demo. The puzzles were alot of fun, they were clever and made sense. And some parts of the plot were actually ok.
Nina is still an unleasant person who hates (almost) everyone who gets in her way and is quick to jump to conclusions, but at least she's not torturing anyone.
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| 28 APR 2009 at 7:40pm |
| Deleted User | I presume that you’ve only played the demo, Shany --- albeit IMHO one of the best and most attractive demos I've ever seen, and almost certainly the longest - nearly a mini game in itself leading to a cliff-hanger and "WOW !! What comes next?"?
Many players(certainly not myself) and Reviewers complained about the voice acting of Nina in Secret Files 1 : Tunguska. --- too young --- too childish --- too whatever !
So Kochmedia heeded the voices of their customers (which not every Company does) and changed the voice actress in Secret Files 2 : Puritas Cordis to something very different.
And the result ? Now ---------------------
“ The voice in the second game, judging by the demo, is the complete opposite of the one in the first.
It'sthe most mellow, soothing voice ever. It doesn't fit Nina's personality or her tendency to joke about everything.
And it seems like there's no voice directing, so lines get taken out of context.
And don't get me started about the other voices in the demo. That little kid...
Nina is still an unleasant person who hates (almost) everyone who gets in her way and is quick to jump to conclusions, but at least she's not torturing anyone.”
This is like ‘The boy who cried wolf’ --- if nothing is good enough, then why make any effort and waste any money to make people happy at all --- any old cheap voice acting will be just as good… or rather just as bad for some people.
On the other hand there were some parts I liked about the demo. The puzzles were alot of fun, they were clever and made sense. And some parts of the plot were actually ok .
In this real quality game --- oh so there were actually SOME parts that were liked.
"And some parts of the plot were actually ok"
It is not surprising, and I think that you Shany can bear me out on this (??), you can no longer find a single store in Israel which stocks & sells Quest/Adventure PC games --- this is probably true in many other countries I imagine.
You are obviously perfectly entitled to criticize Shany, like all of us.
And all of us have different subjective opinions on things like voices & personalities --- it seems impossible to suit everybody !!
But if such trivial criticisms multiply, there will soon be ABSOLUTELY NO quality, well turned out (and expensively made, as opposed to Indies) games made and sold left to criticize !!
P.S.
I have no benefits from or obligations to Kochmedia. My only connection is that I beta tested Secret Files 2 : Puritas Cordis. but not Secret Files 1 : Tunguska.
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| 28 APR 2009 at 8:47pm |
richmcdIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 64
Joined: 17 APR 2009
Status : Online | I feel compelled to stick up for Shany here.
Complaining because something isn't right and then complaining again because it still isn't right isn't like the "boy who cried wolf" or an unreasonable thing to do. Nor is the criticism a trivial one. If the voice acting of the main character in a game, who I'm going to be hearing for upwards of ten hours, isn't any good then I won't buy the game. It's as simple as that.
Not liking either of two different extremes doesn't mean that "nothing is good enough", either. There's surely a happy medium where she'll sound like a believable human being. I don't see why it should be hard to find, if only the game designers would spend a bit more time with their voice talent to expain to them the role and the context of their lines.
Whilst I agree that people can't all be expected to agree on whether they like the sound of someone's voice, I imagine almost everyone will agree that a line in their native language has been delivered with the emphasis in the wrong places or with totally inappropriate emotion. It's that sort of thing which seems so prevalent but ought to be easily fixable.
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| 28 APR 2009 at 8:57pm |
InesrocksPrivate Detective
Posts : 682
Joined: 16 OCT 2008
Location: PT
Status : Offline | well seeing as the voice supposedly has changed (hopefully for the better) I might give it a try and play this new game
(yes... im also very critical but I eventually try to play the games- even Belief and Betrayal :-X- so I can truly say if I like them or not)
Playing: Skyrim (ongoing)
Last Finished: can't recall, been too long.
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| 29 APR 2009 at 12:01am |
| Deleted User | ~~ Richmcd ~~ Whilst I agree that people can't all be expected to agree on whether they like the sound of someone's voice, I imagine almost everyone will agree that a line in their native language has been delivered with the emphasis in the wrong places or with totally inappropriate emotion. It's that sort of thing which seems so prevalent but ought to be easily fixable.
English (UK) IS my "Native Language" and I don't find that Nina delivers her lines "with the emphasis in the wrong places or with totally inappropriate emotion" !
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| 29 APR 2009 at 12:55am |
| Deleted User | Shany --- If I gave the impression that I was attacking you or being personal --- I apologize sincerely.
When I used to browse in our local compoter game stores say 10 or 15 years ago, they were full of Quest-Adventures.
When I go in now, ¾ of the shelves are filled with games for the various mobiles. In the remaining 1/4 of PC shelves not one single Quest-Adventure --- and I’m not exaggerating !
It doesn’t help that some only want 3D and others only 1st person and yet others only tough puzzles and others story driven games and others horror ---- and so on ad infinitum.
And if we object in a 1st class PC Adventure because we don’t find Nina’s or Max’s or little Oscar’s voices or personalities quite to our tastes --- then IMHI our genre has really ‘had it’ ' !!
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| 29 APR 2009 at 1:49am |
richmcdIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 64
Joined: 17 APR 2009
Status : Online | Sorry, my post really wasn't clear at all. I was talking about voice acting in games in general there, not this game in particular. I was just agreeing with what Shany said about sound direction and disagreeing with your suggestion that because you can't please everyone you may as well just do it as cheaply as possible. I really should have spelled that out. And I didn't think you were personally attacking Shany, but you were disagreeing with his points and I thought his points were fair so I supported hiim.
I've been playing the demo and her delivery is alright, but it's very flat and she reads her lines extremely slowly. After Nina got sent to sick bay she seemed to undergo a complete character change and became unnecessarily nasty. I don't have any point of comparison since I never played the first game but from the demo she seems singularly characterless, just jumping between emotionless and bizarrely histrionic. That's probably the dialogue's fault. It doesn't seem like they could make up their mind how they wanted to write her.
In fact, it's generally much too wordy. I'm all for being given information and I'm certainly prepared to sit through my fair share of dialogue but most of the sentences could be half as long and they'd sound much more natural and it would be much pacier. It's not like anyone's saying anything especially interesting or amusing. But that's true of at least 50% of adventure games. Do you get sound editing problems if you record very short sentences?
My conversation with the guy at the bottom of the stairs in the ship didn't really make any sense - it was full of crazy non-sequiturs and didn't seem to have any content. Is the reference to the "end of the world is nigh" guys a nod to the previous game? If not then that sentence didn't make any sense.
And "happy digging, or whatever you say to a geologist" is an extremely clunky way of providing the player with information! It's even more jarring because they've clearly thought "How can we tell the player that her Dad's a geologist in a natural sounding fashion?"
The dialogue of the guy behind the counter was the worst of the bunch.
Is the game's original language English?
Other thoughts: I'm not sure starting with two "beaurocracy" puzzles and unlocking a door with a key was a very good idea. It rather killed the excitement for me. And one of them didn't make much sense. You can't really change lecture times, surely? Especially not at such short notice? And even if you could I doubt adjusting the timetable magnets would achieve that. Yes this is an extra trivial complaint but the puzzle didn't challenge me, it didn't really make much sense inside the game world and it seemed just there for the excuse of giving me a puzzle. I'd have been much happier if that whole first sequence had just been a cinematic.
I'm not sure the first priest would have said that something was "really big" especially not in a letter. And the bishop seemed like he was being made out as so stuffy that he probably wouldn't have referred to the attackers as "guys". These things ARE petty, I know, but they're so easy to change and I'd bet you that player immersion would go way up if all the characters had dialogue that properly characterised them, even if the player wasn't sure why they felt more immersed.
Was that Christ's? The railings and the window made it look like John's but maybe they just made it up. Not that it matters, I just wonder how much research goes into these things. I can't find any useful images of Christ's from Google that would prove it one way or the other. Seems odd they'd have converted the chapel into a library/offices.
I'm surprised there were witnesses to the murder at the church. Came off like a bad excuse to mention the combat suits in the dialogue with the bishop to me. But I didn't get far enough to know if we find anything else out about that, so I could be wrong.
And calling the two guys Biggs and Wedge was pretty naff. Was I supposed to be pleased because I got the reference? Seems like it just killed the atmosphere. It doesn't seem worth breaking the excitement for a reaction that's going to be a wan smile at best.
This is all making me sound like I'm totally mad/anal. And that I'm particularly down on this game. But at this time of night I'm just down on Adventure Games in general. You were bemoaning the lack of Adventure Games nowadays and suggested that it's criticism that is making them die out. I would suggest the opposite. They aren't criticised enough. They're slipshod and lazy in ways that could so easily be fixed. You can get away with poor dialogue and nonsensical puzzles in other genres because they're gameplay oriented. AGs aren't. You need tight plotting and dialogue and even tighter puzzle design otherwise people will become dissatisfied with the mediocrity and drift away. And it isn't difficult - at least where the dialogue's concerned. It'd take a matter of hours to trim down the dialogue I saw in the demo to make it much pacier and more naturalistic. And there's positive feedback because the better the dialogue is the easier it will be for the voice talent to read it well and consequently the better the dialogue will seem. I can only assume the will isn't there; people say things like "the dialogue is servicable", and developers are content to leave it at that.
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| 29 APR 2009 at 2:08am |
Jenny100Guild Master
Posts : 3510
Joined: 12 OCT 2002
Status : Offline | Here's a youtube video with some examples of Nina's speech from "Secret Files: Tunguska, the first game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C49RrWVvsuo
Here's a youtube video with part of the demo. You can hear Nina speak at around 1:12.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vft3R5lr-HU
I think it's a big improvement.
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| 29 APR 2009 at 2:23am |
richmcdIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 64
Joined: 17 APR 2009
Status : Online | Thanks for linking those. Now I've got a clear comparison.
I'm in two minds, really. I can imagine her voice would grate a bit in the first one. But it's a much livelier delivery, especially of the introspective bits, than you get in the second game. I think I'm going to have to fly against popular opinion and plump for the original voice. But neither is anywhere like ideal.
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| 29 APR 2009 at 8:59am |
| Deleted User | Many thanks Jenny100 --- that comparison of voice actins was fascinating.
I had completely forgotten the voice acting of the Nina of Secret Files 1.
I didn't notice it at the time when I played it, a couple of years ago, but now I can at least hear what many people were criticizing.
It was maybe fairly childish, particularly possibly to American adults more than others, who caould almost hear their 13 to 15 year old daughters speaking and not a mature woman... this might be less apparent to non Americans ?!?
~~ richmcd ~~
BTW --- Shany is a young LADY about your age ![smiley=angel_smiley.gif]
Do you have anything good to say about the (demo of) the game ?
It hardly sounds like it ! [smiley=crazy.gif] [smiley=grin.gif]
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| 29 APR 2009 at 11:13am |
richmcdIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 64
Joined: 17 APR 2009
Status : Online | D'oh! Sorry, Shany. And there are extremely helpful gender icons under everyone's name that I've only just noticed. How convenient. But too late.
LenG. I'm not sure I do have much good to say, I'm afraid. I guess it looks nice, but it's hardly spectacular. Everything's just so average. Awkward translation, so-so voice acting, Sub-Dan Brown plot, (Dan Brown really is above average for thrillers, it's a terrible shame to say.) . Even the title is boring. Secret Files is such a dreadfully generic name for a series. (It's the literal translation problem again. Geheimakte is a nice German word. But we don't have a single word for secret papers so they should have just thought of something entirely different.)
I just don't see why game translations do have to be so literal. There are so many clearly German constructions in the text that have been translated word for word instead of finding an idiomatic English substitution. Surely they hire professional translators? You'd never get away with an English translation of a novel that was so bad. And the worst thing is that it's probably an above average translation, judging by the games I've played recently.
I guess I'd be intrigued to see how crazy this makes me. I'm suspecting entirely. But still, it'll be fun to find out.
a) Am I the only person that thinks this is a bad translation? (Not by AG standards, but objectively.)
b) If yes, am I the only person that cares? (At all - I'm fairly sure I'm the only person that cares THIS much. )
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| 29 APR 2009 at 12:34pm |
| Deleted User | Oh my, oh my !
Talk about blasé --- and all of 24 y.o. [smiley=devil_smiley_grintail.gif]
When you get to my antediluvian age (exactly 3½ times yours) you may appreciate not to “Look a gift horse in the mouth”.
Well not exactly a GIFT horse maybe, but a darned good, entertaining, absorbing game that so differently from many others recently makes numbers of players (maybe not you) want to turn the pages and continue rather than die of stifling boredom half way through, or get frustrated with labyrinthine nearly impossible 'stand alone' mensa type puzzles… or so called “horror” games that make mature folk giggle rather than shudder !
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| 29 APR 2009 at 1:16pm |
richmcdIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 64
Joined: 17 APR 2009
Status : Online | Okay, I'm maybe prepared to accept that it is better than a lot of recent offerings, but that assumes that given the choice between a whole lot of bad games I (or any hypothetical player) am going to choose to play the one that's least bad rather than just doing something else. Maybe for hardcore adventure game fans that's true. But you're worried about the state of the industry, and if it's going to survive games are going to have to measure up against external standards, not just internal ones.
I haven't played many horror games, but is your issue that you don't like horror? Or is it that you like horror but think recent examples of horror games have done the genre a disservice? Because that's how I feel about Secret Files 2. I love this sort of thriller, but this just seems to be a totally uninteresting example, with generic plot tropes cobbled together from other sources. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (My beloved Last Express does exactly this - it's cliche central) but you need extremely strong writing to pull it off. I don't see why the "mature folk" you mention won't be giggling at this game's hokeyness.
You didn't answer my question about the translation. I guess you think it's fine?
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| 29 APR 2009 at 1:25pm |
mclaugbIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 56
Joined: 10 DEC 2005
Status : Online | I've got the game on pre-order as I generally liked Tunguska, but I'll be disappointed if the voice-acting hasn't improved this time round.
"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." L.P. Hartley
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| 29 APR 2009 at 1:31pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
Posts : 1317
Joined: 15 JAN 2008
Location: GR
Status : Offline | Richmd, the vast majority of modern adventure games are developed by non-native English speakers, and I agree that the translation in most of them is average at best.
I do not know if fixing this is "easy", but it is certainly not impossible. The Runaway games are stellar examples of translation done right. One would never guess they were developed in Spain and not in England. Frogwares also seems able to deliver games without translation issues. Imagine a Sherlock Holmes game where Sherlock and Watson can't speak proper English?
So I do care some, but not as much as you. I can still enjoy an adventure game as long as the translation is "serviceable", and I guess I figure it is better to have the game released in English with a few flaws, rather than have no English release at all.
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| 29 APR 2009 at 1:41pm |
richmcdIntergalactic Janitor
Posts : 64
Joined: 17 APR 2009
Status : Online | I guess I do feel that way, but I think it gives the wrong message to developers to not be more vocal about the fact that we're buying the games somewhat grudgingly and that we'd much rather the translations were good. How would you feel about keeping the original language and reading the translation as subtitles? If the original voice acting was good I think I'd prefer it that way.
Runaway did have a good translation, but, as I believe I might have mentioned elsewhere, I found the ending actually repugnant. No joke; it's the strongest reaction I've ever felt to a computer game. But at least it got me to feel one! Still that's beside the point. I was able to play Runaway all the way to the end despite it not being a plot I was particularly into, whereas games with poor translations make me switch off almost immediately.
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| 29 APR 2009 at 2:26pm |
Mr Innocent.Journeyman
Posts : 1317
Joined: 15 JAN 2008
Location: GR
Status : Offline | Originally Posted By richmcd (29 APR 2009 1:40pm)
How would you feel about keeping the original language and reading the translation as subtitles? If the original voice acting was good I think I'd prefer it that way.
I would be very happy with such an option, but then the forums would fill with "omg no English voices" posts .
Still, there is plenty of space on a DVD disc, and the voices are recorded for all language versions... why not include them all, or at least the native language one, and let us choose?
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