Corny hat geschrieben:I think I remember German magazines criticizing the amount of talking, too. Guess that's not surprising if people expect a game with mainly action and many explosions
Not just German magazines. Let me link to the problematic English reviews.
The one from gamespot.com has a passage that reads:
"Clicking on the person opens up another window that shows the conversation between your character, the absurdly naive William Drake, and the person you've clicked on. These conversations are designed to give the game a plot, but more often than not, the sequences are filled with near-meaningless babble."
The one from gamershell.com has a passage that reads:
As in Aquanox the story is once more handled via boring, unsubstantial and sometimes even featherbrained dialogues, which fortunately can be stopped by using the Escape-button. This one flaw renders the story of the game completely useless, as only few fragments of it actually find their way to the player.
The funny thing about this kind of criticism, no one batted an eye when the Metal Gear Solid series had
long sessions of "Talking Heads" talking about a lot of sometimes-unrelated things.
As much as I am a fan of the Aquanox series, you have to admit that the English-translated versions of the games have their problems (and if the translations are accurate, maybe even the German version has problems). Check out
this cutscene video from Archimedean Dynasty, depicting the attack of the Mogh cultists against the Diggers. I'll outline the problems with the English version below:
[*]For one thing, Eric Hansen (whom I hope will reappear in the new Aquanox instalment) pronounces the term "Digger Station" in the German way (despite recording what should be the English version). This is somewhat forgiveable since he is bilingual, but this cutscene isn't the only time he does it; did no one remind him of this?
[*]At 0:54, Eric Hansen says "The diggers work so close to the surface that they're exposed to high doses of radioactive radiation which is in turn responsible for their frequent appearance of mutations in their ranks." Unfortunately, "radioactive radiation" is redundant in English. It would have worked just fine if he said "
dangerous radiation" and said "for
the frequent appearance" instead.
Here's a parody video that mocks one part of Aquanox's substandard voice acting. Technically, this wouldn't be so mockable IF the author had taken care to explain that the breathing gas in Aquanox is mixed with helium to render it breathable at the depths humanity must live at, so they have to wear those omnipresent throat-mounted voice modulators to pitch their voices down to normal levels. That character with the chipmunk voice clearly had a nonfunctional voice modulator.
However, the worst problem with the Aquanox games in my view is how so many plot threads are mentioned and built up, but NEVER actually dealt with. Let me give some examples below.
[*]In AQ1, we hear a lot about a "very fine breathing gas," lighter than hydrogen (as scientifically improbable as that might be) that would stand to significantly ease the strain of constantly breathing pressurized Helinox (a mix of Helium, Nitrogen, and Oxygen, which in real life is known as
Trimix) gas all the time. This revolutionary new gas is supposed to secretly be in development by EnTrOx. However, despite the fact that you chase down some leads during the course of the story, by the time you get to EnTrOx's new boss Sergei Chang, he dismisses the existence of this new gas as "pure rumour" and you never hear about this plotline again.
[*]AQ2 has two major "aborted plotlines" that really stick out to me. The first is right there in the
intro movie. McGregor's "unspeakably horrifying creature" is NEVER mentioned in the game after the intro (and simply
telling the viewer that it's "unspeakably horrifying" isn't anywhere near as effective as actually
showing those characteristics). The second is when you first get to Neopolis in AQ2, and you need to do a mission to steal the
Deimos submarine. Nat claims that you need the
Deimos to open the grave, but this plotline is also never mentioned after this mission, and in fact you can open the door to the grave using ANY submarine available to you.
They NEED some better writers and editors, AND a good voiceover agency this time if they don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Mind you, I didn't mind it when Fuzzyhead in AQ2 talked about how something simple can be so complicated and how something complicated can be very simple and illustrated it with a nanoconstructed tube he decided to use as a simple spacer for his work. But there's time for introspective conversations (which can be very boring to modern gamers) and time to grab the viewer's attention and not let it get bored.
AQ1's intro video didn't grab the viewer's attention right away. Why do we need to spend a minute learning about Emerald Flint's experiences in a surface simulation room, when the game hasn't even told us why everyone is living underwater due to the radioactive surface environment? And why do we need to hear about the latest fads in genetic engineering in Aqua before we get to the real meat of the video, when you hear "My name is Emerald Dead-Eye Flint"?
Here are a couple of cutscenes from other video games around the time AQ1 and 2 were released. They are much more effective in my view, but you really ought to see them for yourself. The links are below, with key lines highlighted.
[*]
Sacrifice (2000):
Eldred (voiced by Paul Eiding, most well-known as the Colonel from the
Metal Gear Solid series): You cannot blame yourself for speaking the truth!
Mithras (voiced by the late great Tony Jay, best known as Megabyte from the 3D animated TV series
Reboot): The truth? The truth is we are doomed to repeat our mistakes time and time again. It is the world's only constant.
[*]
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (2004):
Capt. Marcus Cromwell: Humankind hoped that the settlers would discover Utopia, but all they have found are new wars, new enemies, and new ways of killing.
