Why Voice Acting Sucks in Games

[Bigbry]

As a professional Voice Actor I to am pissed at game creators for not really taking Voice Acting seriously. I know that most of their money goes into other aspects of the game, but why not budget for good Voice Actors? Hire a pro voice and stop pissing your money away on amatures. Your product will come off sounding much better. I'm open to talk to anyone about Voice Acting at [email protected] and if you want to hear my little voice acting demos http://soundboard.com/sb/BigBry69.aspx
Thanks for letting me vent here
Bry

 

[Smokeydubbs]

I want to know what happened to Far Cry 2. Were the actors told to leave out pauses? Were they edited or what?

 

[PirateKing]

I was gonna mention MadWorld. Steven Blum is great at bad asses.
I can't think of a game with really bad acting in it. Some of the stuff in No More Heroes seemed a little off, but that game is so weird it didn't bug me.

 

[Vuzzmop]

Psychonauts had great voice acting. "sobs". "hugs Milla vodello shaped pillow".

 

[Aardvark Soup]

It's funny how the original Metal Gear Solid, a 1998 game, had far better voice acting (in six different languages) than most games today. I guess big developpers prefer to pour all their funds in shiny graphics so almost nothing is left for other important features like voice acting.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Voice Work can MAKE a game.

Oh hell yeah

"GO FOR THE EYES, BOO!"
"GET OVER HERE!"
"Wake up Missster Freeman, wake up and smell the ashes"
"TAAAAAAAAAAANK!"
"Gentlemen?"
"Stop POKING ME!"
"For AIUR!"
"Remember when we were going to kill you and you were like NO WAY!"

Bad voice acting: every rpg ever. seriously, why?

Minsc wants an apology or Boo will get upset.

 

[Anachronism]

This is one of the many reasons I love BioWare, because the voice work in their games is uniformly excellent.

"GO FOR THE EYES, BOO!"

Minsc is awesome. This just reinforces what I said, because all the voice actors in BG were brilliant.

 

[Rhayn]

I guess I just play the wrong games - I've never really felt that some characters voice actor was horrible. I'm not really into the whole voice acting-scene though, I only know Jennifer Hale really. She did a fine job voicing Shepard in Mass Effect, in my honest oppinion.

What I think there is a problem with is the text, not really the performance. But maybe that's just me. Again, I probably play the wrong games.

 

[setsunafseiei]

Dub voice work can RUIN a game, easier and much happier option, subs! And don't mention the poor excuse of "I don't want to read them"

 

[Low Frost]

Dub voice work can RUIN a game, easier and much happier option, subs! And don't mention the poor excuse of "I don't want to read them"

Depends on the game.
I believe that Valkyria Chronicles dub was superior to the sub, voice for voice.
And I still laugh whenever someone brings up the laughing scene in FFX. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HORRIBLE AND ACKWARD, HAVE YOU HEARD THE JAPANESE VERSION IT IS JUST AS BAD.

 

[setsunafseiei]

True but on the whole the original is the best (in reference to FF) I mean I wouldn't mind going back to the days of no audio dialogue if it was to save my ears from the pain that is woeful dubbing.
And having never played Valkyria Chronicles I can't pass judgement. I just recently bought The Last Remnant...need I say more

 

[Bad Asp]

It makes me mad that Lucasarts would rather sit on their Sam and Max games than release them, because I need Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson to get the bad taste of Nowlin, Chaikin, and Kasten out of my mouth.

Anyone else agree with me that the new voices of Sam and Max have worn out their welcome and need to go away for good? Sam does NOT sound like a robot, and Max does NOT sound like a car alarm! Eleven episodes of bad voice acting are eleven episodes too many.

 

[ButtonedDownParadox]

Vaguely related: Any body else feel that the male Shepard is significantly less badass sounding than the female Shepard in Mass Effect?

Wholly related: I can think of plenty of games with good voice acting and now I'm curious if they had a chance to view the script prior to performance.

I suspect not. Take Thief for example. Garrett and other main characters? Amazing voice acting. Guard voice acting? Ehhh....

 

[Rycane_HHS]

When voice acting is good, I realize it is there and generally like it.

When voice acting is bad, I facepalm for the first few times, then just read the subtitles and ignore the speaking. This works surprisingly well, but that might work just for me.

Hence, I wouldn't say "(bad) voice acting can ruin a game" since I can ignore it if it gets too bad. I'd rather say "Good voice acting can make a game better." because it can only improve.

 

[thisguyfromthere]

(Seriously. Listen to the last one, at 10:17. Most disturbing thing I've ever heard in a game. Still gives me the creeps.)

That was seriously messed up. But, in some equally disturbed way, kind of cool.

 

[Sasha Janre]

Why are people so hard on that laughing scene? Let's see YOU do better when you're doing awkward laughing between two teenagers! Jeez. Wakka, Lulu, Jecht and Auron make up for that in spades!

FFXII, despite all the griping over the gambit system, had a really solid cast of voices. Sure it sounded like they were speaking from a telephone, but it was great. KH 1, 2 and Re:CoM had great voices too for the most part (well okay, Marluxia sounded like he was phoning it in and Axel was being DELIBERATELY over the top, Quintin Flynn was NOT phoning it in there. A lot of people didn't catch the difference though).

Just my two cents, though.

 

[Disembodied_Dave]

Its really a damn shame that most localized games do not put enough effort in making the game's dialogue sound professional. AND that usually the VA's have to deal with the flak.
I can understand that the localization progress is a long and time consuming job and that there is pleasure to get the game out as quickly as possible, but that doesn't mean that quality acting should be sacrificed. How is the general public going to accept video games as a legitimate form of art (that may be pushing it) if they don't start putting more effort in the quality of the direction of the acting.

edit: I'll take the opposite stance: BECAUSE the conditions are so rough for voice actors we should complain about the quality until it seems like an issue worth fixing for game companies.

Y'know this isn't a bad idea.

 

[Narcogen]

Vaguely related: Any body else feel that the male Shepard is significantly less badass sounding than the female Shepard in Mass Effect?

Yes. I agree completely. I've only ever played as the female Shepard. Videos I've seen of the male Shepard just leave me cold-- the guy didn't sound interesting or engaging at all.