Mass Effect 1/2: Under-rated or shit?

[Xor]

Yeah, he had not done anything as substantial as Hale before ME1 but just pointing out he did do some stuff however small.

And yeah, I think he might be friends with some at Bio.... at the time. Plus he is hotter than hell. <3

 

[Jaesun]

OK fine, not THAT picture of him. D:

 

[sea]

To be fair, Hale is an industry vet with something like 250 voice roles under her belt, while Meer had pretty much no work before ME1.

Not for games, but for other mediums, including theater. Meer isn't a terrible actor, the problem is that he is incredibly miscast and very poorly directed. He cannot into "tough America-fuck-yeah soldier" at all, but he could work pretty well in some other role.

The funny thing is that they picked him as a filler actor for their trailers and E3 footage because he simply happened to be around at the time. They stuck with him because... uh, dunno? Laziness?

 

[Valestein]

Meer does a better job as the Vorcha than as Shepard.

 

[Diablo169]

Meer is a decent voice actor with a suprising range of different sound voices, they just didnt let him take any risks with Shepards voice.

 

[Jick Magger]

I liked him more than Hale's performance as femshep. Usually like her stuff, but the sound director must've taken a few tips from Sakamoto or something, because half the time she's really channelling the emotional range of Other M Samus. At least Renegade Maleshep is entertaining in how bloody hilarious half of his lines are.

 

[Jaesun]

Hale's VO in ME2 was WAY better. In fact it put Meer to shame. I still like Meer's VO though.

 

[Volourn]

"Meer isn't a terrible actor, the problem is that he is incredibly miscast and very poorly directed. He cannot into "tough America-fuck-yeah soldier" at all, but he could work pretty well in some other role."

You say he isn't a terrible actor but then you give a reason why he is one. WTF!?!

That said, I felt he did above average VO work in the ME series. Many of Shepard's line are over the top cheesy intentionally and he pulls most of them fof and helps make them memoral. FFS 'This is my favorite store on the Citedal." is good cheesy funny stuff that blossomed into a meme even here on the Codex and other palces. R00fles!

 

[sea]

"Meer isn't a terrible actor, the problem is that he is incredibly miscast and very poorly directed. He cannot into "tough America-fuck-yeah soldier" at all, but he could work pretty well in some other role."

You say he isn't a terrible actor but then you give a reason why he is one. WTF!?!

Not every actor can effectively play every role. Meer just does not have the voice to sell the part. That's not really a slight against him as an actor; I wouldn't expect, say, Samuel L. Jackson to fit in very well in a Star Wars movie, but he's still a good actor when given the right material and direction.

 

[Volourn]

The whole point of being an actor (good or toherwise) is to have the ability to sell yourself as somebody you aren't. That's why typecasting is not a good sign for one's acting ability 9even though it can be good for someone's popularity). The best actors are the ones who can play vastly different roles and do it well.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Oriebam]

old

also costume DLCs in FFXIII/XIII-2 are plentiful and expensive as fuck

 

[Ulminati]

Fuck you, Jaesun. I was just about to head off to lunch, but you just had to go and ruin my appetite.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Hale's VOs in ME2 and ME3 are great, especially the 'EXTREME' dialogue.

ME1, the direction wasn't as good. But she was still better than Mark "I am a robot" Meer.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

I wouldn't expect, say, Samuel L. Jackson to fit in very well in a Star Wars movie

But Sam Jackson did fit very well in the prequels.

 

[Rhalle]

Meer was fine, I thought, though probably at his worst in ME1. Meer's Vorcha is silly, like a kid doing a monster voice.

It seems to me that anyone would have to have played Shepard somewhat flat. There's no strict alignment and any player might pick a good or bad affect-colored response at any time and without much consistency. That necessitates a sort of overall flat approach to one's delivery.

And I'm one of those mean people in the "Hale sucks" camp.

She sounds like a constipated lesbian doing a bad Clint Eastwood impression. Unbearable. Maybe passable in ME3, though, but by that time I had used Meer for two games.

 

[suejak]

Give it 5 years or so. This forum used to hate Baldur's Gate and literally all Bioware games. Everything pre-2002 or so is now considered classic and "legit".

Mass Effect 1 has slowly gained a similar grudging acceptance -- even, sometimes, DA:O.

Mass Effect 2 will have its day. Whereas Mass Effect 1 put players to sleep with endless, sprawling Mako sequences and copy-pasted planets/quests, Mass Effect 2 was much tighter and atmospheric, with many more strong and memorable locations.

Anyway, I had some SERIOUS sex with Tali.

 

[Rhalle]

Have to disagree about the atmosphere. ME1 captures that whole 'vast emptiness of an infinite universe' feeling brilliantly. It may be the best thing the game does. ME2 and 3 largely abandon it.

And, yeah, as mind-numbing as the Mako sections were on the first playthrough years ago, today ME1 as a whole feels much more fully-realized and is overall more fulfilling, with the benefit of hindsight and with more decline in games generally.

 

[sea]

Mass Effect 2 will have its day. Whereas Mass Effect 1 put players to sleep with endless, sprawling Mako sequences and copy-pasted planets/quests, Mass Effect 2 was much tighter and atmospheric, with many more strong and memorable locations.

You're kind of right actually, in that Mass Effect 2 had more memorable locations that were more visually distinct. Mass Effect was much more consistent in its look but also pretty boring. Lava planet with box houses, tropical planet with box houses, brown rock planet with box houses, etc. I find far more things about Mass Effect 2 stand out in my mind than in the first game.

Mass Effect 3 is by far the best of the series in terms of visual direction, but interestingly, despite me playing it recently I can barely remember a thing about it.

 

[suejak]

Yeah, they're both pretty good games in their own right. The world's seen worse.

 

[Oriebam]

they copypasted the dome things so much in ME1 that even the moon one had those red rocks at the entrance IIRC

 

[Metro]

Awful over the shoulder console shooter segments chained together by Choose Your Own Adventure plot dump vignettes featuring illusory choice and consequence. Played the first, zero desire to play the sequels.

 

[Jick Magger]

I dunno, one of the biggest problems I have with ME3 was that the entire thing just felt...tired. Like Bioware themselves stopped caring about maintaining quality. Not even going into the endings, huge bits of the story just felt sloppy and lazy, character introductions in particular. In ME1 and 2, we're given plenty of buildup to the introduction of Garrus. In the first game, we're shown his investigation into Saren and watch his marksmanship when we help him in a firefight. In ME2, there's an entire mission dedicated to showing how he's kicking the shit out of organized crime so badly that all the crime syndicates of a space station have to band together just to kill him. In ME3, he just kinda enters the scene stage right and goes "Hi Shepard".

But of course they're more than happy to put more effort into sculpting Jessica Chobot's polygonal ass and inflated cheeks than designing Tali's face.

 

[Rhalle]

Another bad thing about the ending was that it was so terrible that the outcry basically drowned-out all other criticism of the game.

The whole of ME3 is pretty shit and the game obviously needed a lot more time. But everyone focused on the transcendent terribleness of the ending.

Not that it matters anymore, I guess.

To me the only thing that made ME3 bearable was the the returning companions. Everything else was pretty damn poor and a huge disappointment.

I'm still sort of dumbfounded by how badly Bioware managed to fuck it up.

 

[Valestein]

The kicker about ME3 is that it was supposed to have been released months earlier(that would have been glorious).