Accents in Games

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Front Mission 4 is one of my cult favorites. One of the most common criticisms I will see on it besides a lack of spark in the story is the 'overdone' French, British, Italian, Russian and German accents in the European Union campaign.

It is far from the only game guilty of this of course, and it seems a small concern, but raises an interesting dilemma: what kind of accents for these nationalities is considered 'suitable' when they are speaking English? After all, it is seemingly only ever used to constantly 'announce' a character's nationality, something we do not require most of the time, just south of having French characters announce a craving for cheese or snails.

What level of voice alteration do you believe is appropriate to convey nationality in games (assuming they are not deliberatley stereotypical or over-the-top such as in Austin Powers)?

 

[Caimekaze]

Ugh. I loathe games where they get people to impersonate an accent that they have no idea about. And movies and shows, for that matter. The number of horrifically overdone Australian impressions I've heard.

You'd absolutely hate Team Fortress 2 then. Every accent is badly done.

Deliberately too, I should add.

 

[fedpayne]

Assassin's Creed...

Was King Richard supposed to be English? And Altair I found a deeply unlikeable character.

 

[Nutcase]

Games should use more languages, not just accents. They are very powerful in establishing a sense of realism in characters and locations. I favorably remember e.g. Ivan from Jagged Alliance; he only spoke Russian. The fact you couldn't make any sense of what he's saying balanced his excellent price/performance ratio. Out of later games, I think Crysis has the North Koreans speaking Korean, although optionally.

If your character understands the language in question, then subtitles are appropriate; if the character doesn't, then the subtitles should be left out too.

When in a fantasy context, I think it makes sense to use English as some kind of "common" language. But there, too, I would want voice acting in *other* languages done in *other* languages. You could invent a gibberish language and use that, or use an obscure real-world language, which few will recognize. The latter would have the advantage of the availability of voice actors who speak it naturally.

 

[Legion]

Ugh. I loathe games where they get people to impersonate an accent that they have no idea about. And movies and shows, for that matter. The number of horrifically overdone Australian impressions I've heard.

You'd absolutely hate Team Fortress 2 then. Every accent is badly done.

Deliberately too, I should add.

Which makes all the difference. I do love the accents in TF2.

 

[Gladion]

use an obscure real-world language, which few will recognize.

Yeah, George Lucas did that with Star Wars, didn't he? When I had found out about it, I thought it was a great idea :>

About accents: I think you should get voice actors that actually speak the language of the character's origin by nature. That way you avoid badly done accents Tarantino-style.

 

[Eatbrainz]

i love The Madgod's scottish accent in Shivering isles, its one the main reasons i want the expansion

 

[Eatbrainz]

Ugh. I loathe games where they get people to impersonate an accent that they have no idea about. And movies and shows, for that matter. The number of horrifically overdone Australian impressions I've heard.

You'd absolutely hate Team Fortress 2 then. Every accent is badly done.

Deliberately too, I should add.

Really? i thought the team fortress accents were done quite well!

 

[Trivun]

Assassin's Creed...

Was King Richard supposed to be English? And Altair I found a deeply unlikeable character.

I quite liked the accents in Assassin's Creed, save for an American accent for Altair when he's actually half European and half Arabic (I think his mother was English, and his father was Arabic, or it was the other way around). According to the company and the promotional material and official backstory, at least.

As for accents, I thought the accents in Final Fantasy XII were pretty good, I know that it's in a fantasy world so there's a lot of leeway with the accents, but it seemed that people from Archadia were given British accents and these worked really well, Balthier and Cid especially. Some of the best British accents I've ever heard in a game that aren't sterotypical.

Talking of sterotypes, this is a bit off topic, but I get annoyed when people say the Birmingham 'Brummie' accent is associated with stupid or ignorant people, since I'm from near Birmingham and I know plenty of people with Birmingham accents who are smart, intellectual and very pleasant people. Plus, look at the success of Ozzy Osbourne, Jasper Carrot and Adrian Chiles

 

[squid5580]

Wow I can't believe I'll be the first to mention Two Worlds. They were so bad they just added more humor on top of an already hilarious game.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

Ugh. I loathe games where they get people to impersonate an accent that they have no idea about. And movies and shows, for that matter. The number of horrifically overdone Australian impressions I've heard.

Same.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

I quite liked the accents in Assassin's Creed, save for an American accent for Altair when he's actually half European and half Arabic (I think his mother was English, and his father was Arabic, or it was the other way around).

Actually he was 100% Arab, only his mother was a Christian and his father was a Muslim, or the other way round.

On topic, I think accents are good if you can keep them subtle and not over the top stereotypical.
Using more foreign languages would also be good.

 

[Caimekaze]

i thought the team fortress accents were done quite well!

Hmm. Something for everyone, I guess.
Valve have openly stated that all their accents are horrid, so...

 

[the protaginist]

Saints Row 2 English accent. We had people saying it was Australian and Irish, which is funny because The man who did the voice acting was born and raised in England.

 

[Sable Gear]

Assassin's Creed...

Was King Richard supposed to be English? And Altair I found a deeply unlikeable character.

Aww. Well, all I can say is if What's-His-Hood in the sequel doesn't have an appropirate (I believe Italian) accent I will be disappointed. However the addition of NPCs speaking other languages was rather nice. (And also sorta funny when they're yelling at you during combat/pursuit and you have no idea wtf they're saying but you still know it's threatening)

Accents should be done by trained voice actors or people who actually have the required accent, 'nuff said.

 

[Vrex360]

Bioshock nailed most of the accents from American, Chinese, German, French, British and all others in between.
Yet another of the many reasons why I like Bioshock.

 

[YuheJi]

Ugh. I loathe games where they get people to impersonate an accent that they have no idea about. And movies and shows, for that matter. The number of horrifically overdone Australian impressions I've heard.

You'd absolutely hate Team Fortress 2 then. Every accent is badly done.

Deliberately too, I should add.

Really? i thought the team fortress accents were done quite well!

Oh, the sniper is even admitted to be fake Australian. And the rest have been intentionally exaggerated to the point where it's not really serious anymore (which was the point).

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Bioshock nailed most of the accents from American, Chinese, German, French, British and all others in between.
Yet another of the many reasons why I like Bioshock.

Really, now. I thought Pierre Gobol's French accent was terrible. It sounded so forced and exaggerated. Or maybe it was authentic and I've just heard so many fake ones that I wouldn't know the real thing if it bit me on the ass.

 

[r4ndom]

The german accents in the old Medal of Honor games were pretty ripe as I recall.

And i'm not sure what the hell Sheva from Resi5 was supposed to be.

 

[ShotgunSmoke]

British and South African accents get raped the most.