Voice Acting in Video Games

[JeanLuc761]

Once again, I feel like I'm the only one who enjoys MaleShep more than FemShep when it comes to voice acting. Ah well

Mass Effect, Half-Life 2, Gears of War, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Legacy of Kain...there are a lot of games with really good voice acting. As for the bad ones...well, we've all seen this, haven't we?

 

[Dafttechno]

How about some older games with good voice acting: Beyond Good and Evil, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Skies of Arcadia: Legends (the gamecube port, never played the original on Dreamcast).

 

[Jonluw]

I loooved the voice acting in Just cause 2...

Actually, for all the stick it gets, I'd say the voice acting in Oblivion is pretty decent. If it wasn't for the fact that they have, like, 5 voice actors over all.
Oh, and the beggars. Those were shit:
"I heard Kvatch has been attacked" *gives him a coin* "Thank you kind sir"

 

[Blue Musician]

Bad: Panzers: Phase One, Resident Evil series, Silent Hill series, Far Cry and some more.

Great: Legacy of Kain series, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, American McGee's Alice (specially the Cheshire Cat), Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Max Payne, Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2, Thief series, Sam and Max, The Void and Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

 

[DanielBrown]

Worst voice acting nominee for me goes to the guy who did Dante in Dante's Inferno. Damn he was awful. Best one is trickier. I don't usually care that much about the voice acting, but I suppose all the Bioware games I've played(uuh, just DA:O and ME1-2) had top notch voice work!

 

[moretimethansense]

As we all certainly know, voice acting can make or break a game. We all have seen examples of great voice acting. Unfortunately though, we all have seen terrible voice actin. So Escapees, what do you favorite examples of voice acting and which ones did you think were shit?

I would also like to bring up another subject: the voice acting in Red Dead Redemption. I played through that game. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I thought the gameplay was great. The setting was beautifully realized. The writing was phenomenal. But for me, the voice acting was... an interesting case. There were some very well acted characters in my opinion. I enjoyed the Marshall, West Dickens, Nastas (he sounds like the indian dude in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and Dutch. The rest of the cast was from "meh" to good. However, I thought that John Marston's voice acting was fucking terrible. It got significantly better in the last 2 hours of the game. But the other 15 or so hours... I wanted to like him but every time he walked by a prostitute and he'd say "I'm a married man." in his ridiculous, stereotypical Western voice. I remember one scene where he's in a bank in a tense, hostage situation with Dutch. Dutch is taunting John by insulting him about his wife. And then, as soon as John opens his mouth, I lose any sense of immersion. I've seen reviews throwing out the magic, positive Gamespot words about the voice acting.

Now I am just ranting so I'll stop before I go over the edge...or go farther over. Give me your thoughts.

The problem is you didn't like his voice, not his acting.

My favourate VAs are Tony Jay, Micheal Bell and Simon Templemen espesially in The Legacy of Kain games:



Bell pays Raziel, Templemen plays Kain and Jay plays Squiddy.

Edited for better Kain example.

 

[Spookimitsu]

How has no one in this thread mentioned the abyssmal voice acting in Resident Evil 1?

Fixed.

That was charming, though. Most early voice work, when it was quirky, and out of place it was amusing. Now-a-days, when its quirky, and out of place it is annoying.

See differences between Resident Evil 1, and Heavy Rain. (Edit: Just in-case it wasnt clear, I felt the voice acting in Heavy Rain was annoying. I would have preferred the actor's native tongues, I'll just read subtitles.)

However, some voice acting is good, I thought the last Castlevania had good Voices in it, as well as Enslaved. God of War 2 & 3... on the other hand... overacted voices, everything seemed so practiced and canned.

 

[northeast rower]

I'm going to throw Black Ops in the good pile.
Ed Harris and Gary Oldman = Win, Sam Worthington wasn't too bad either, even if you can tell he's clearly Australian at times.

Damn you, you missed James Burns. You know, Woods? He had to be my personal favorite

OP:

What is with all this hating on male Shepard? Are you all forgetting:


hope that comes up. If not, here's the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9GWHG_3rxc

Some of the better voice acting I've heard has come from Black Ops, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption (more specifically, Dutch), and Metal Gear Solid 4's Drebin character (only him).

 

[Zipa]

Worst voice actor ever was the original Indrick Boreale in dawn of war soulstorm before they ninja changed it in a later patch.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJMLfACod48

 

[Spookimitsu]

...and Metal Gear Solid 4's Drebin character (only him).

Only problems I had with voices in that game were:

it was reallllllly wordy and scripted. I couldnt really see a natural conversation happening they way they tried to pull it off, and everyone's voice was a as much a character as the outfits that they were wearing. There wasnt any subtlety to speak of. Snake was overly raspy, and Drebin was the jazzy sounding black guy. It woulda been alot cooler if Drebin sounded like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9EpSxq9xa0

 

[Shinrae]

I could sit and listen to Stephen Russell all day erry day.
He should start selling voice overs as dlc for all games... Would make a fortune.

 

[OliverTwist72]

I liked male Shepherd in the Mass Effect series, but I also think thats because the voice fits my character more. I made a slightly older grizzled looking commander since I figured he'd be more of an old deadly mercenary guy. Most male Shepherds that I see are young faced ones, and maybe the voice doesn't fit as accurately.

I dunno but I'd say the ME series as a whole is win for VA. I'd like to give some props to Borderlands too for the hilarious VA in that game ("This is where cars live, git you one!").

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

I will say that I am SICK TO ****ING DEATH of Nolan North. He's like the Samuel L. Jackson of video games now, guy's in EVERYTHING, and he's got no range, so all his characters end up sounding exactly the same.

Beyond him, I'm relatively easy to please regarding voice acting, as I can't really think of any games that bothered me too much.

Only problem I had with RDR's voice acting is that the characters could never really seem to decide whether they should be yelling or not.

 

[scorptatious]

I've heard some good voice acting in some games. Such as The Arbiter from the Halo series, the majority of the characters in the Mass Effect series, most of the cast of Valkyria Chronicles 1, etc.

I have heard some pretty bad voice acting though, and that includes most of the cast from FFX and FFX-2, Sonic 06, Bubsy 3D,and some of the characters from Valkyria Chronicles 2.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

good voice acting fable 3, it had a great cast.

worst hmmm I choose star ocean: last hope for now, since its a fun game with what looks to be an interesting story. But with terrible voice acting, it makes me made.

 

['Record Stops.']

My two cent's on this matter would be ALL of the voice actors in BlazBlue:Calamity Trigger. Yes, even the minor characters. From Carl's polite but at times maleviolent boyish voice, to Litchi's kind and easily sexy voice, even to Bang's incredible excited tones, and Arakune's insane gibberish that borders on bat-shit nuts to way smarter than everyone around him. The voice acting is beyond compare to a normal fighting game's line-up..Help's that the entire voice cast are pro's who've voiced ton's of anime character's and such.

 

[G-Force]

I will say that I am SICK TO ****ING DEATH of Nolan North. He's like the Samuel L. Jackson of video games now, guy's in EVERYTHING, and he's got no range, so all his characters end up sounding exactly the same.

That's because he's given the same type of character to play usually Nolan North plays the charming rogues (Drake, Vasheron) but I think you're being too quick to judge with all of his voices sounding EXACTLY the same as seen in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is65rL9aPws

And here's a another great example of Nolan's range it shocked me when I found out he was Richtofen's VA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfanaN61Oc4