The audio mix in The Pilot is a goddamn mess and I can't stop thinking about it. Not the music, that's whatever, some generic space opera swells that feel like they were ripped from a royalty free library titled Star Conflict or something. I'm talking about the wet sounds. The squelch. There's this one scene with Hera, not even the main event, just a quiet moment in the cockpit after a mission debrief, and the sound designer decided her lekku needed a texture. When she shifts in her seat, there's this faint, almost sticky noise, like a damp towel being slowly peeled off a tile floor. It's wrong. It's not how skin on leather sounds. But it stuck with me more than any of the actual sex scenes, which is a problem.

The sex scenes themselves, the CG hentai stuff, are fine I guess. Liara shows up, because of course she does, it's a Mass Effect grab bag in here. Her voice direction is bizarre, all breathy and detached, like she's reading a grocery list while someone fumbles with her biotic amp off screen. The animation loops are stiff, the usual three frame pump cycle, but the foley work is where it gets unhinged. There's a moment where the rebel pilot, your generic self insert, gets a handjob and the sound is less skin on skin and more like someone is aggressively stirring a bowl of cold mac and cheese. I actually paused and checked if another app was playing audio in the background. I checked my phone. Nope, just the game's commitment to making every physical interaction sound like a plumbing issue.

The choice mechanics are there, you click, the story lurches forward. Something about Rogue Squadron and finding answers. I forgot what the question was. The visual novel bits between the alien encounters are padded with so much silence you'd think your sound card died. Then suddenly, a door whooshes open with a sound effect straight out of a 90s Star Wars game, the exact same one from Dark Forces when a blast door opens on the Death Star plans level. It's so jarring it loops back around to being the most authentic part of the whole parody. I wish they'd spent half as much time on the dialogue mix as they did on making sure you can hear every individual finger unstick from a Twi'lek's hip. They won't fix it, obviously. But that mac and cheese sound is going to live in my head rent free.