Voice Acting

Note that this post contains a large number of videos, as it is hard to discuss voice acting without listening to some. If you have a slow connection, or tend to have trouble with videos, you may wish to scroll down and start each one and immediatly pause it. This will let them all buffer while you do your reading. At the same time, most of the videos are rather short, under two minutes.

Giving the characters in a game an actual prerecorded voice has been standard for some time now. Even arcade games often had them, but the problem used to lie in poor quality speakers and sound processing. Now, we can reliably produce high quality sound, so that barrier is removed. Even still, having high quality sound isn't enough. If you want good voices on your characters, the voice actor who reads the lines must also be good. The line doesn't quite stop there though. Even the best voice actor in the world is powerless if you give him terrible lines to read.

Before we go further, it is important to make a distinction between bad voice acting and bad writing. Someone has to write all that dialogue in the game. The person, or persons, doing this writing are important. If they write crummy dialogue, then it's over. Character One, "It's over." Character Two, "It has only begun." Not exactly screenwriters guild material. Then, the other side is the voice actors. They should sound into it, not like they're just reading lines off a sheet of paper. Most of the same qualities you would expect from an actor in a feature film apply here. The writing can be great, but if the voice actor is dull and dry, then it can shoot the writing in the foot. Both sides have to step up, because they will ruin each other if they don't. Bad writing and/or voice acting can taint an otherwise excellent game. Chances are it won't outright slaughter it, because as we have discussed in the past gameplay is the focus, but the player's experience will be lowered. At least they can always turn off the sound, but you don't want to drive your players to that end.

Let's start with some bad writing. I don't think the voice acting is terrible on this, though it's certainly not great. This is from the X-Men Arcade Game. Here the player briefly encounters Magneto, the main villan of the game, who kindly... welcomes them....



In case you can't make it out, he says, "X-Men, welcome to Die." Apparently, Die is a new vacation spot in the Marvel universe.

Next, not to pick on Magneto too much, we have the final fight with him. Again, I don't really hold anything against the actor personally, I think he did pretty well considering what he was given to work with.



Some of the lines, are actually pretty amusing to me. I find the "X-Chicken" actually fairly clever, though "I kill you. You are DEAD. HAHAHA!" is barely even proper english. The poster of that video suggests that there are several prerecorded snippets that the programmers set up to be strung together, making that bit read as, "I. Kill you. You are. DEAD. HAHAHA!" Rewatch that bit, and you can pick out a disconnect that would indicate that this is the case. If this is true, then do we blame the writers or the programmers?

Next, another example of bad writing. This scene of from the unequivocally awful game Alone in the Dark for the Xbox 360, not to be confused with the original of the same name. The voice acting is again okay, though "her" voice is going through a filter so it's hard to truly decide, but I've seen many people complain about the writing in this short tidbit, and thus the game as a whole. Personally, I find it compelling, because this is probably exactly what I would say and do if I was in his position.

WARNING: Contains a blatant F-Bomb!


No discussion of bad writing would be complete without mentioning the Resident Evil games. Resident Evil is known for it's shoddy writing and, unintentionally, hilarious dialouge. Take for example this scene in RE4 between the protagonist and Salazar, the midget Napoleon(yes, a midget even for Napoleon).

 

Now, for a second stab at the RE series. Someone has taken voice clips from the first game and rearranged them in an... interesting manner. The sounds from getting chomped on by zombies are particularily well placed.

Meant for an 18+ audience only!


Enough smashing bad writing for now. Time for a couple bad voice acting examples. Up first is a classic, the end scene from the first Devil May Cry game. Dante, the cocky badass protagonist, dwells over the fallen body of the woman who was leading him into a trap all game, only to betray her employer at the end to save Dante and thus the world. While this game is generally considered to have good voice acting, this scene is the exception. It often sounds like he is preparing himself, "This is my sad line. This is my inspirational line." So, some of the lines sound a little disjointed to me. However, the "classic" line is the one he starts at about 37 seconds. I'm not sure what his script said, but his delivery is... enthusiastic.



The LLLIIIGGGHHHTTT bit has spawned many knock offs, where other people and situations have the key word replaced by LLLIIIGGGHHHTTT. The most interesting one to me was the one for, "This is Sparta." where the word Sparta was replaced. I found that interesting due to the number of knockoffs on that line.

Rather than try and cop together several more examples, I'll just borrow from someone who already has. Here is dirtFilledCoffin's list of "Top 50 worst videogame voice acting". My personal favorites in order are: #1, all I have to say is "fffffff".   #46, you think you know how it goes, but stick it out you'll be surprised. And my absolute favorite:  #11. It makes me laugh everytime I hear it. I think it's the unconcerned "okay" at the end that makes it so great to me.



I have to, as a diehard fan, take a moment here and defend (sort of) #25. If you looked closely you may have noticed it was a Legend of Zelda game. You may also realize that no LoZ game has voices. What gives? This is the obscure LoZ game: Wand of Gamelon. There is a good reason for it being obscure, it is terrible. It was also not made by Nintendo. They licensed it to a Russian developer; something I think they'd rather die than do again. However, Wand of Gamelon provides another opportunity to attack voice acting and writing and remind ourselves to make our own games.

Here is the opening scene from the game. Yes, this is the game, not a TV show.


There is another game I must mention here, only because I have to. The game is called Chaos Wars and made an appearance in the Top 50 list. I have to mention it because it is absolutly the worst voice acting (and rather bad writing as well) that I have ever heard. I adivse you skip this (seriously), but in case you have a desperate need to make your ears cry and to lose your hearing about ten years earlier than you would have, then take a listen. No, I won't blame you if you wimp out part way through.



As I have heard, and Wikipedia agrees, the CEO of the developer got his kids to do the voice acting instead of hiring professionals. Would explain that mess somewhat.

Time to wrap this up. Everyone loves a good finish, so I will close with an example of good voice acting and writing. I absolutly love Lezard from Valkyrie Profile 2, a game which was called "The best game of 2006 that no one played". His lines are interesting, and his voice acting is great. His voice actor is Liam O'Brien, who also voices a character in the popular animae Naruto. I want him to voice characters in my game. Here's his quotes from when you fight him as the final boss.



Lezard begins as a playable character, who betrays the party to become the final boss later. So there are many quotes of his avaliable, but none stand out to me as much as his Soul Crush quotes. Soul Crushes are the epic attacks, the limit breaks, or just plain massive damage attacks that characters in this game use. I finish with a movie that runs through each of his quotes for these attacks. If nothing else though, watch the end from 1:25 to the end. It includes two of my favorite lines of his and his death scream. I wish I could scream like that.

Lezard cannot believe how bad you sound.

Lezard also wants to know if you have any of your own favorite voice actors.

Don't anger the Lezard!