Current state of audio quality?
Hello gang,
I know the audio quality for the first episode was improved after complaints but I'm curious to know if the audio has been consistent over the rest of the episodes or not?
Telltale has used horrendous amounts of audio compression on practically all their games which has prevented me from buying any of them except for Tales of Monkey Island as that was my first (and only) Telltale game purchase and I was unaware of their history. They did improve it a bit in Tales after complaints, although drawing from memory it wasn't enough or perhaps not consistent over the episodes as I remember particularly flat voicework because of compression in the later episodes at least. I noticed too that on my (free) episode 1 of BttF that they were back to their old tricks, as the voice audio in that was also terrible because of compression.
The audio has been so bad on most Telltale games (I've tried a few others through demos or free episodes) that I consider it a total deal-breaker for me and have as such not considered buying any Telltale game without at least hearing something for myself first or at least hearing about the audio quality.
I'd like to hear from people in the know who have been sensitive to this issue before on the Walking Dead or any other Telltale title and can give me a real answer. I don't need replies saying that you didn't have any problem with the audio on any Telltale game, either you're not sensitive to the quality or your audio equipment is not good enough, so your answer will not help me.
I know the audio quality for the first episode was improved after complaints but I'm curious to know if the audio has been consistent over the rest of the episodes or not?
Telltale has used horrendous amounts of audio compression on practically all their games which has prevented me from buying any of them except for Tales of Monkey Island as that was my first (and only) Telltale game purchase and I was unaware of their history. They did improve it a bit in Tales after complaints, although drawing from memory it wasn't enough or perhaps not consistent over the episodes as I remember particularly flat voicework because of compression in the later episodes at least. I noticed too that on my (free) episode 1 of BttF that they were back to their old tricks, as the voice audio in that was also terrible because of compression.
The audio has been so bad on most Telltale games (I've tried a few others through demos or free episodes) that I consider it a total deal-breaker for me and have as such not considered buying any Telltale game without at least hearing something for myself first or at least hearing about the audio quality.
I'd like to hear from people in the know who have been sensitive to this issue before on the Walking Dead or any other Telltale title and can give me a real answer. I don't need replies saying that you didn't have any problem with the audio on any Telltale game, either you're not sensitive to the quality or your audio equipment is not good enough, so your answer will not help me.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I don't recall any audio issues in the Walking Dead but I haven't played Telltales games in the past. They did a great job with the audio quality in TWD, and the Voice Acting is great.
The quality has, for the most part, been the same or improved since episode 1. I think on a game like TWD they have to focus more on the atmosphere, and obviously sound has a lot to do with that. There are some instances where there are little to no music/sound effects (I can think of one glaring place each in both episode 3 and episode 4), which is odd but it didn't bother me a lot. And there are some scenes where the sound really helped with the immersion. I won't spoil but I think that moment when you're in the woods in episode 3 was one of those times. I didn't really think about it when I was playing but there are some times where the audio can come across as flat (more music and sound effects as opposed to the voice acting - the sound quality of the voice acting is always good), but it was never so bad that it was distracting to me.
I wouldn't consider it top of the line or anything but it definitely does its job and certainly isn't horrible, at least in my opinion. I hope that was helpful?
The OP wasn't talking about voice acting quality, but about the actual audio quality. For instance, you wouldn't compare the quality of vinyl to the quality of an mp3 or midi file. While I don't think it's horrible, I also wouldn't consider the sound effects or music top of the line in terms of quality. The voice acting is excellent though and I don't think they messed with those files too badly or really that much at all.
I'm glad to say that TWD houses their best audio quality by far. There are still a few hiccups here and there, but it's much better than the old days.
To be clear I'm only talking about the compression level of the voice audio. The music (and the sound effects I think) have never been compressed as much as the voice work.
I guess I'll pick this up eventually as I am a fan of the comic books (can't stand the TV show though) and all the praise this game has been getting makes me want to check it out. With the audio concerns in mind I'm probably waiting for a substantial sale on this. I unfortunately don't feel like supporting Telltale at all until they change their ways regarding audio, which I would argue is a more important emphasis in an adventure game than graphics to a certain extent.