Poll: Voice acting: yay or nay?

[Zera]

To many, it is a staple in the video games we play today. I would have to say that roughly 80% of games made for this generation will include voices (im pretty sure the % is off so sue me). I will admit it was a strange transition I had to go through when games started to include this (being used to all the text reading I grew up with in the NES and SNES era). At first I thought it was pretty bad after hearing it for the first time(Resident Evil, MegaMan 8). Then I played Starfox 64. I still remember those quotes today. And now that I think about it, those are some good voice acting, especially back then.

Nowadays, games will feel cheap without the acting. They apparently lose credibility and points when they get "reviewed" for not having voices. I will admit now that I cant help but want voice acting in my games now. But is it still truly necessary? This is what I thought as well until I played LOZ: Twilight Princess. Knowing that there would be no voice acting, I knew this would effect some, including me. But when I was done playing the main quest, I felt that the game didnt miss anything. I was perfectly okay with the new cutscenes while only hearing the music. The story went along smoothly and was engaging to boot. Probably because the way the atmosphere was and how the characters looked and reacted was what gave it a cinematic flare. Im still okay with voice acting though. I just dont think its required for the games. I know it can be used so that it can put a new level in story telling, but is it required. Odin Sphere (which you should know I love) is a phenomonal game. I think what helped its great story was the voice acting which is one best examples out there. Though it may feel melodramatic at parts, it suits the game perfectly, characterwise and storywise.
Maybe some games simply need it to reach its full potential.

I have given you my idea of the subject. What yours?

 

[Atlas Greatcreek]

One of the things I've discovered during my years of playing videogames is the perfect voice actor: the person who conveys emotion and meaning through voice so perfectly that you will never feel the need to hear anyone else voice your favourite characters ever again.

That voice actor is, of course, you.

Voice acting is about dramatic skill, but dramatic interpretation is a very subjective thing: the response which I find appropriate in a given situation might seem downplayed and cold to others, whereas I personally cannot stand many of the "dramatic outbursts" that I find to be prevalent in american and japanese culture. These things are all up to personal taste, and this is where the power of literature, and hence text, starts to show.

Textual dialogue in a game gives the power to the player to decide how something is being said. A voice actor might decide that a cool way to respond to this situation is to scream "WHAT!!!?" at the top of his lungs. Written here however, like this, the reader, you, gets to decide how to pose this question: do you agree with the actor, emptying your lungs so as to make sure the people next door heard you quite clearly? Or do you perhaps make it slightly more quiet and incredulous, effectively changing two !'s into ?'s?

And yes, to those of you who wonder, I do know how to spell question mark and exclamation mark. The last sentance in the previous paragraph is merely used to exemplify another trait text possesses: symbols. The ability to mix in symbols with text seamlessly is a trick oft-used in the LoZ series, for example. This is one thing that I personally would like to see used if you plan to make a game without voice acting: representing various buttons and controls with the appropriate symbols and small animations or even something so simple as to showcase a character's complete and utter bafflement with the appropriate "...???".

Voice acting and textual dialogue are two sides of the same coin. Personally I would not mind seeing more text-only scripted games, so long as they know how to differentiate themselves from voice acting. What text might lose in dramatic timing it makes up for in letting the player fill in the blanks with his/her own imagination.

And besides; reading is far from being a bad thing.

 

[Katana314]

I'm a great appreciator of good voice acting, which is sort of a reason I'm a bit biased against LOZ's scenes. Sure, you can say LOZ has great writing, but to me that will only hold up when they can speak the lines without sounding like every other Lord of the Rings medieval-themed story.
If you will, just take two games with some of the best voice/animation acting: Metal Gear Solid and Half-Life 2. Now imagine them without voices. Those looping motions waiting for the player to press A to continue really break the immersion of the scene, and make it hard for anything to SURPRISE him.

I rate most MGS and HL2 scenes above every Zelda scene. That's me.

 

[MrKeroChan]

Two bits o' scuttlebutt about voice acting.

1) Given the VAST amounts of data that can be squeezed onto a disc anymore, please for the love of god include the OPTION of another language track (ie Japanesse). Bad American voice acting is almost as bad as the TERRILBE localizations that really seem standard most games that reach our fair shore.

2) IF that option falls beyond reach, how about an option to simple turn the voice acting OFF...and display good ol'fashioned text.

what's so hard about either of these options??? it can't be the money, they were going to port it to/from some other language anyway...and how bloody hard is to include the text you already have???

 

[Feehl]

Depends. On quite a lot of factors

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

Oblivion convinced me that voice acting does not equal immersion.

In role-playing games, I want to be able to name my character, and I want NPCs to be able to refer to me by name. This is only possible with text. I want NPCs to have lots and lots of different things they can say, and I want every NPC to have a distinct voice. I don't want a world where there are only about a half-dozen different voices.

A few cutscenes with voices can be good, and some games have managed to incorporate voice acting in ways that didn't break immersion. System Shock 2 did it with recorded crew logs. KotOR did it with a small but distinct cast of characters with limited vocabularies, some of whom spoke alien with English subtitles. Gothic did it by not giving the main character a name. And games that don't involve role-playing can bypass the whole issue; Portal's voice acting was completely wonderful and added immeasurably to the experience.

Voice acting is overrated, but not without its uses.

 

[propertyofcobra]

I say that voice acting should be good....
Yes, durr, how stunningly basic and obvious, you'd think so wouldn't you?

While action-heavy games should have voice acting because of added immersion (imagine, oh, any modern FPS without spoken lines, everyone being complete mutes who might make a grunt when they die at most. Now thank heaven we have voice acting in these games).

RPGs, however, should steer as clear of voice-acting as possible, not only from a pure data point of view, but because frankly...it gets tedious and annoying. Oblivion had voice acting that made me stop playing it, and FFXII has this funny thing with everyone sounding like they have a tremendously bad head cold for some unimaginable reason. ('Dis is de besd you can do?' and similar)
And of course, let us all remember Final Fantasy X, where Auron refers to you as 'new guy' on at least one occassion, because everyone knows that if you have known someone for ten years, they're still 'new guy'.


The problem is, a lot of games that have very little voice acting and largely none, now a days, will feel very cheapened. (Look at Folklore, the demo of which made me feel distinctly like it lacked, and desperately needed, voice clips to grant me some slight immersion)

Overall, voice acting is a hit or miss issue (what isn't though?), where if done well, it's great, look at System Shock 2 for example. If done badly, it's....horrible and laughable. Oblivion, anyone?

 

[LordOmnit]

I wholly agree with MrKeroChan on the issue of voice acting. Games that come from foreign countries very frequently suffer from having low advertising and thus they get sub-par voice actors, which takes away from the experience when you have to listen to some bad voice acting when the original or none would be much preferable. For a while translations used very good voices: games, shows, most of the voices were good, but then as time went on the voices fell into an abyss of terrible, and now they are not always good or bad, but I still dread to be kept in the suspense, "Will it be shit, or will it be mediocre?"

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

US voice acting sucks,if you are goign to have voices always offer the Japanese tracks I stopped playing half way through Onimusha 3 because the VAing is just piss ass bad and they had some fing high star voice actors int he JP version even if they were talking in JP and French! LOL

My hate dubbing knows no bounds its one thign if its bearable or at least tries to be good like FF12 its another to have god awful vaing in a dumb action game, this localizing nonsense has to end the game wont sell better just because you have dialog tweens(12-2X) snicker at and everyone else hates.

I say that voice acting should be good....
Yes, durr, how stunningly basic and obvious, you'd think so wouldn't you?

While action-heavy games should have voice acting because of added immersion (imagine, oh, any modern FPS without spoken lines, everyone being complete mutes who might make a grunt when they die at most. Now thank heaven we have voice acting in these games).

RPGs, however, should steer as clear of voice-acting as possible, not only from a pure data point of view, but because frankly...it gets tedious and annoying. Oblivion had voice acting that made me stop playing it, and FFXII has this funny thing with everyone sounding like they have a tremendously bad head cold for some unimaginable reason. ('Dis is de besd you can do?' and similar)
And of course, let us all remember Final Fantasy X, where Auron refers to you as 'new guy' on at least one occassion, because everyone knows that if you have known someone for ten years, they're still 'new guy'.


The problem is, a lot of games that have very little voice acting and largely none, now a days, will feel very cheapened. (Look at Folklore, the demo of which made me feel distinctly like it lacked, and desperately needed, voice clips to grant me some slight immersion)

Overall, voice acting is a hit or miss issue (what isn't though?), where if done well, it's great, look at System Shock 2 for example. If done badly, it's....horrible and laughable. Oblivion, anyone?

FF12 using good to mediocre VAs and forces them to contort their voice out of shape,all in all compared to most..its actually good,at least as good as mediocre voice work can get and thats scary..., as a anime fan I prefer Japaneses VA work which tends to be good to great.
Picked up the international version of FF12 I really with they made this region free...I would have bought it sooner if they did...I have the collectors version too...I was hoping it improved alot...its cute but so not worth the 90$ I spent on the game its still a broken mess...

 

[Lance Icarus]

I've never been a huge fan of voice acting. I know it can do some great things to add to the game by making it more human and getting across the right mood of the dialog that text usually can't produce, but I also miss being able to name all my characters and really put myself into the story instead of simply watching one. Back in the day I'd get a group of friends together and run through FFVII with different people doing the character voices. Making Barrett sound like Mr. T, Rufus sound like Shatner, Cait Sith like Donald Duck...good times.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I've never been a huge fan of voice acting. I know it can do some great things to add to the game by making it more human and getting across the right mood of the dialog that text usually can't produce, but I also miss being able to name all my characters and really put myself into the story instead of simply watching one. Back in the day I'd get a group of friends together and run through FFVII with different people doing the character voices. Making Barrett sound like Mr. T, Rufus sound like Shatner, Cait Sith like Donald Duck...good times.

which makes me wonder how hard is it to put in a mute voice track option?

options are not standard and they should be.

 

[Lightbulb]

I guess my view has been summed up:

Action games (FPS, strategy, racing games, beat-em-ups etc) NEED voice acting. It needs to be of decent quality. Lets be honest these types of acting don't require genius just someone who doesn't sound like an idiot.

RPG's - now the problems start. Good voice acting makes games great. However as pointed out above - TESIV (thats Oblivion to most of you) - is the best example of voice acting gone wrong. If i hear "Are you the hero of KVAAAAATCH?" one more time i might kill someone...

So i guess text is the way forwards. Or the greetings: "Hello." as audio and the body of the coversation as a text might be better. But they better at least change the pitch of the voices so everyone doesn't sound the same.

Alternatively make RPG's that feature robots and clones so theres a REASON for everyone to speak the same...

 

[Katana314]

Or the greetings: "Hello." as audio and the body of the coversation as a text might be better. But they better at least change the pitch of the voices so everyone doesn't sound the same.

That stuff always just seems wierd to me. It's like they try to make the most of the few voices they have...the combination just doesn't seem right.

 

[Firia]

Voice acting in todays games have become an expectation of sorts. With increased realism of graphics comes the desire to enhance the realism. A world without voice is not a real world, in the mind of devs.

I'm sorta of the opinion Zera is on the right track. Voice acting isn't totally nessessary, but is sorely missed when it's not there. Twilight Princess was the last game I recall having to do all reading in exchange for voice acting. When I first plugged the game in, I was put off. However, I quickly got over it. Everything else was good enough, that the voiceless world was forgiveable.

Now, on the flip side, take games like the Metal Gear series, or even The Darkness (just to pick a few out of a million). These games just wouldn't have maintained their level of quality if it was all text.

Voice acting is sorta like, 3D enviroments; it doesn't need to be, but these days, it helps. (I still have much love for my 2D side scrollers. ^_^)

 

[TomBeraha]

I am completely in agreement with Atlas, I would much prefer to see well written scripts and voice them within my own head. Half of the time when I play games now I have the sound off anyway. I'd much rather read something than hear someone act it out in a fashion that seems wrong to me, like they weren't listening to the story, or hearing the 300 other things that character said which might make that line sound a little more sarcastic.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Voice acting in todays games have become an expectation of sorts. With increased realism of graphics comes the desire to enhance the realism. A world without voice is not a real world, in the mind of devs.

I'm sorta of the opinion Zera is on the right track. Voice acting isn't totally nessessary, but is sorely missed when it's not there. Twilight Princess was the last game I recall having to do all reading in exchange for voice acting. When I first plugged the game in, I was put off. However, I quickly got over it. Everything else was good enough, that the voiceless world was forgiveable.

Now, on the flip side, take games like the Metal Gear series, or even The Darkness (just to pick a few out of a million). These games just wouldn't have maintained their level of quality if it was all text.

Voice acting is sorta like, 3D enviroments; it doesn't need to be, but these days, it helps. (I still have much love for my 2D side scrollers. ^_^)

Sorry bad VAing damages the game, it must be a choice screw what the devs want as long as its a choice anything can be worked out
---------------------------

TomBeraha
this is the problem gaming has gotten into money is spent on graphics and creating a game to sell, voice work and writing is 2ndry to everythign else, and writing being something that needs to be brought up a level not just for gaming but all media as well.....

 

[Nukelear]

Voice acting is important to me when it adds to the storyline. Having played a lot of World in Conflict lately i found the most convincing voice acting was in the single player loading screens where they used a mixture of static painting styled images with an audio track to provide continuity between battles. The real time rendering of the game cinematics what somewhat frustrating because i do not have a super computer so the visuals were somewhat degraded but even so the voice acting of the cinematics was ultimately less convincing then the loading screens and that was mainly due to it being over dramatised.

When making these games they have to remember when it comes to these dramatic elements that sometimes less is more. The proof for this lies in the voice acting of portal. You listen to this montone female voice trying to sound synthesised and even though it lacks emphasis it is quite amusing.

 

[AK-00]

At best, you won't even notice voice acting in a game. You'll just accept it as part of the reality you're being presented with. At worst, voice acting can turn a game into a joke. That being the case, I'd say it's better not to bother, or else to use it sparingly, and only where you're sure you can afford to do it well.

 

[LordLocke]

I'm all for voice acting- if done well it can add immensely to the experience. If anyone wants to try and tell me that the Kingdom Hearts, God of War, or various Blizzard-developed games would be better simply subtitled, that's their prerogative. But the fact of the matter is, even a mediocre VAing job can add to the gaming experience more then detract as long as the voices are used in the right places, (I wouldn't call Final Fantasy X's voice acting anything more then 'decent', but I think it's a much better narrative for having it) and a great VAing job can truly set a game a step ahead of it's competition.

There's occasionally a painful-enough dub to make me want the option to turn it off (Shining Force Neo, anyone?), but by and large in most cases where voices exist, I don't mind them being around- at worst they fade into the background and go unnoticed for the most part. And I generally don't consider the lack of a Japanese voice track that big of a deal, even on bad dubs, because I wouldn't want to hear it in a language I wouldn't understand anyways. But maybe it's just me.

 

[armaina]

I don't think games NEED voice acting, but if it does have voice acting, then for crying out loud they should do it RIGHT
HL-2 Ep 2 showed some wonderful voice acting.. So often they just slap in voices, it's like not enough care is given into it. But for story based games with a lot of emotion and such, Voice Acting can leave that much more impact and make you feel more personable with the characters.. of course.. bad voice acting can make it worse...