Is voice acting a must in story driven games?

[hypothetical fact]

Far better than the original [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juCKVVllvxg].
Voice acting is a perk and should always be accompanied by features like being able to turn it off, multiple languages in the case of japanese originals and of course subtitles as more of ten than not they are horrible.
However in the case of Kingdom Hearts they did not to too bad a job so it improved the game.

Voice acting is better than text but like all things it must be done well; the lines in that scene were terrible with and without the voices. He doesn't laugh at her terrible joke so she calls him a bastard and threatens to slap him?

You have to remember that some people have the same problem as George reading (Seinfeld), where they hate their own narrating voice in their head.

 

[WeedWorm]

Does anybody else think mediocre voice acting pushed FFX from classic to just good and excellent voice acting pushed Uncharted from good to excellent?

Shit characters and bad plot twists made FFX bad. The voices suited the characters, but most of the characters just sucked. *cough* *cough* tidus *cough*

If a game has decent music to cover up the silence, I can look past it but i prefer to hear what the people are saying. And also if theres more than 3 people doing all the voices, that always a plus.

 

[jezz8me]

I find a game much easier to follow and pay attention the the story with voice acting. To play any Final Fantasy before X for me takes effort because i know i am into a lot of reading but with FFX i knew i only had to do something if there was actual gameplay.

Imagine if Metal Gear Solid 4 had no voice acting. That would be not nearly as dramatic and probably unbareable.

 

[Waflmao]

Just Compare the voices to oblivion and MGS
MGS gives the characters more life and feel to them
Oblivion all sounded like robots.

 

[Praelanthor]

i am currently playing morrowind and ill say its not an absoulte must have

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I don't need voice acting. In fact it often annoys me when the voice acting slows the pace of the game or is generally poor. Being one of those oddballs who still reads for pleasure, I am more than happy with unvoiced text.

 

[J-Man]

Voice acting is not necessary, but greatly largens the appeal of a game. Oh, and Walton Simons in Deus Ex had the best voice acting ever.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UKp0DP1O4bs

"I take it he was agreeable.."

 

[codewright]

I think the good thing with computer games is that they can incorporate many different traditional media. Regarding story telling, this means that they can go the movie way (say, with voice over) and/or the book way (say, plain text). In the end, it comes down to what you expect from a game. If you like the occasional book and can really get into (well written) text, a game that tells it's story via text will most likely suit you. If you prefer games that tend to the movie side, you'll most likely prefer voice acting. I don't think any one of them is better, both can be done utterly bad and both can be done very well. Text, of course, is usually less expensive, but because many relate games more to movies (see the current trend of graphics-over-everything-else), I guess it makes sense many game developers go the voice over way.

But as i said, the good thing with games is, that they are not restricted to either of this and everyone can enjoy the game they like. I, for one, enjoy both if they are done well. That is why I don't like i.e. Oblivion with it's few repetitive, oh-so-famous "voice actors". Morrowind, on the other hand, has very intriguing texts that are written very, very well and convey the (rather original) story in a very nice way.

 

[Brokkr]

It depends on the game. Bad voice acting can definitely kill the mood. Other games, such as Zelda, can get by with delivering a good story without the voice actors.

 

[742]

voice acting is totally unnessicary for story driven games. REALLY good voice acting can really help a character (see: jon irenicus) but really bad voice acting can me me pull my speakers out and cut them/scramble for the mute button (damn you SOTN!). no voice acting can be VERY good, as long as they remember that its text not voice that the player is getting.

 

[bluerahjah]

Yes, while a game with great voice acting does make it great, I don't necessarily believe that it's needed to make a great game. Any of the old games for the NES, SNES sure as hell didn't have voice acting, and they're some of the most memorable.

 

[Voltano]

The narrator in the Penny Arcade game does have a voice, but the main characters don't.

Honestly I only encountered a few games that did voice acting well. Examples would be the Monkey Island series and the oh-so-missed Legacy of Kain series. I tend to avoid a lot of the voice acting bits in video games as most prove to never really have a story that interest me (JRPGs in general), but it's even worse listening to people reading these terrible lines to you.

Really, just get the penny arcade game. I didn't like the controls much for the PC version (the only one I couldn't get) but the story and humor really make up for the lack of voice acting.

 

[Shadefyre]

Honestly I can say that don't mind playing games without voice acting, likely from the number of text heavy, older RPGs I've played. However voice acting done well can definitely improve the overall quality of a game in my opinion. However it seems game studios these days don't really take voice acting into consideration when making games, seemingly grabbing random kids off the street to do the voices for them. Look at Deus Ex, an 8 year old game whose voice acting still stands up to modern games. Essentially the voice acting is still to me an added benefit to a game rather than a requirement, but perhaps that's just because I still enjoy the antiquated format of entertainment known as a book. (Not implying that no one else here reads ^_^)

 

[mattttherman3]

Voice acting doesnt matter in certain games, like spiderman web of shadows, because the gameplay was so damn fun. A game wherew the horrible voice acting killed it: Tales of symphonia 2, Colette was the only character with the same voice from the original, granted this was not the deal breaker for me.

 

[Quaidis]

In my opinion no voiceacting is better than terrible voiceacting.
Of course truly great voice acting can make a good game great.

This was generally what my reply was going to be. I have played games without voices without issue, but I have a dreadful time playing games with voice acting when two or more voices in the crew are terrible. You cannot escape it, it's much like dubbing in anime - and in many cases the same voice actors are used for both entertainment categories. So my view is quite the opposite to the opening poster. Few games with voice acting do it right. I appreciate voice acting, and when it's done right the game is better off, but in many cases I end up dreading it or turning off the voices.

 

[Blayze]

I couldn't imagine Planescape: Torment without voices for the characters. Even if the rest of the game had terrible voice acting, hearing Dak'kon say "What is your *will*?" or Morte and Annah's voiced taunt-banters would make the game. Also, "What can change the nature of a man?" would have less of an impact were there no voicing.

 

[Ronwue]

Voice acting is a spice in most games. Put too much or too little and it is not good enough. Putting mustard in soup is also bad.

 

[JimbobDa3rd]

Yes it is a must, it is the right up there with good diolougue and imursive gameplay because without it you dont become attached to any of the characters and so no matter how much effort has gone into the story it still wont mean anything

 

[dukethepcdr]

Most games have terrible voice acting. I'm sure it's not easy to do take after take of lines of dialog to get them "just right" for the game. I'm sure it's also hard to act when you aren't really doing anything but maybe looking at bits of game footage. Still, I've heard better radio plays that were made in the 1940's and 50's that have better acting than what is in most video games. I'd rather have no voice acting at all than bad voice acting. Sometimes, its so bad, it's funny. That's ok as it's good for a laugh but most of the time, it's just kind of bad which is only irritating. When I play text heavy adventure games, I sometimes like to read the text out loud and do my own voices. It can get pretty funny, especially if my wife and I are both looking at the screen and she's doing some of the lines too.

I say if the game developers can't get really good voice acting for their game, they should just leave it out. Or make it really really bad so it's at least funny.

 

[Cymraeg Phill]

I don't think it really matters. iirc, the first few Monkey Island games were text-based in terms of dialogue, no? And those were great games in terms of storyline.

If I'm honest and like some other people who've posted in this topic, a great storyline must first get a great writer first to make the storyline and then one should bother weather to portray that in voice or text form...