Poll: Voice Acting: Hinderance to gameplay?

[KeyMaster45]

quite frankly, sometimes voice acting can be a curse and a god send. Personally I like voice acting, but only in cut scenes. I don't want to hear Kratos spouting off smak talk to the legions of zombies he fights off. Voice acting should be reserved for crucial story development parts, not every time yells at you "Snake? SnAAAAKEE!?!".

Sometimes though its helpful to use voice acting to direct the player during normal gameplay. Fable 2 did this rather well during major story quests and normal quests. In the howling halls on my first play through I would have stood there forever using time stop and fire balls to fend off the hordes of balverines if Hammer hadn't stated we needed to GTFO. This allowed me to not have a significnt interuption to gameplay, but was enough to let me know where to go next.

Subtlety is the key to voice acting, if your player doesn't dwell on it while they play then you have done a good job with it. If, however, your player finds themself agitated by the constant interuptions for voice acting you've failed at giving immersion to your game.

 

[squid5580]

The only time I hate voice acting is when a character must shriek the same word or sentence everytime you hit a button or do an attack. I couldn't tolerate Eternal Sonata due to that reason. I know what attack I am doing. I can see it clearly written on the screen. I do not need my eardrums ruptured everytime I do firestrike or whatever.

Good, bad or none doesn't change my opinion of a game normally. I sometimes enjoy bad acting for comedic purposes.

 

[Blow_Pop]

I voted Spongecake because it seemed the most logical answer

me too. although i will say David Hayter = <3

 

[Ace of Spades]

I vote yes, but I was really tempted to vote spongecake. It's the tastiest answer. But anyway, two words, Liam Neeson. His voice acting was a great addition to Fallout 3.

 

[Rodger]

I voted spongecake. I don't know what it means but the other three didn't apply anyway. So, short answer, neither hurts nor hinders. While bad voice acting is grating, there's usually ways to deal with it. Like turning voices off or switching to a language you don't understand. If you don't understand the language then you can be blissfully unaware of how bad the voice acting may or may not be.

Either way, though good voice acting can make for a better gaming experience, the game really won't be any poorer for not having it. Of course, woe be the game who hath poor voice acting and no option to remove it. I'm playing one game now where I switched the voices to Japanese and still have to put up with the annoying battle banter. Pretty sure I dropped voice volume to zero too. Persistant little nusiance...

 

[xXGeckoXx]

It depends...if there is good voice acting it only goes to supplement a cut scene/scripted sequence and can be a great part of the story parts of the game but in some cases, For example ninja gaiden 2, the voice acting is so bad that it is like having your eardrums drilled which makes you forget that the ninja is quite frankly kick ass and then all you can think about is that the main character is a retard with a retarded voice to go along with him. This takes out the whole "i just impaled you on a scythe and sliced you to pieces in mid air because i can" out of the game and just makes a fairly bad game seem worse.

 

[Mr. Fister]

When it's done badly (see the Zelda CD-i games, ugh)

You didn't find that dialogue funny at all? Well excuuuse me, princess!

Um, that's only in the cartoon....

And it really depends on the game. For instance, Psychonauts wouldn't be near as funny if it didn't have voice actors. On the other hand, most Sonic games could be more enjoyable without the bad acting. Of course, a game doesn't need voice acting to be great. The Zelda series has shown us that time and time again.

 

[samsprinkle]

To be honest...I didn't listen to half the things in fallout 3. I read the captions in half a second and shut the bitches up. Though I did soak up EVERY word Liam Neeson spat at me. Couldn't help myself...

 

[Valiance]

FPS genre on the other hand I think need to get themselves out of the rut that the player cannot talk. I'm referring primairly to the fact that protagonist in FPS's, while having names (Gordon Freeman, Pvt. Jackson, Soap McTaverish... Pretty much every protagonist in COD has had a name, same with Medal of Honor) apparently don't know a lick of english. And the writers usually use another character (Gaz, Alyx, Griggs etc etc) to relay important information. And while this is good to a degree, sometimes it can come off terribly (particularly in Half Life, where Alyx has FANTASTIC conversations... with herself).

Duke Nukem? Serious Sam? ^^;

I agree with you that it's annoying when your character doesn't talk, but look what happens when they do?

People complain about Tidus because he's whiny and emo. Some loved him because he had depth.

People complain about Sora because he's another generic "YEAH I CAN DO IT!" character. Others loved his positive attitude.

People complain about Link because he doesn't talk. Others loved the silent hero idea. (Personally just found it funny:
"What's your name?"
"..."
"Link? That's a nice name."
"..."
)

(HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN)

Personally, I think voice acting can add to the game depending on the game. I loved Doom, even though it had nothing at all. I loved Duke Nukem, not only because of his personality, but because of his hilarious attitude. In Wing Commander, the dialogue was surprisingly good. In other games, it's strikingly mediocre, and sometimes, the dialogue isn't what plagues the voice acting - the voice acting plagues the dialogue.

Example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&hl=en&v=jyNjSAv_OuY&feature=related

(skip about 2 minutes in, it gets intolerably bad.)

I voted Yes and No, because it (obviously) depends on the game.