The Gamer's Quarter

Ryan - SuperWes' Bane · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:51 pm Post subject: Why do Voice Actors suck?

While the quality has definitely been upped as of late, the English counterparts to Japanese games are severly lacking in quality voice overs and actors. Do you think the English versions will ever match up with the Japanese ones once translated? And can you name a handful of games where the voices were actually done WELL?? Even a game like FFX was far from perfect.

Please enlighten me with your experiences.

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:53 pm Post subject:

are you still here?
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Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

I really like the voice actors in Sacrifice. Stratos sounds vaguely like Tim Curry, and the lead character has this great overwrought Clint Eastwoodesque grittiness. Well, like a really wordy Clint Eastwood.

I don't really play many Japanese games, so there you go.

EDIT: Quotes mess up URL tags! The more you know...
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ApM · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 9:33 pm Post subject:

House of the Dead 2 has pretty good voicework.

dark steve · . Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 1110

Castle of Shikigami 2 might be the best localization of all time.

Ryan - SuperWes' Bane · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 10:14 pm Post subject:

If you talk about the translated games and home grown games (such as Grand Theft Auto and the Legacy of Kain series which have done decent jobs) then there is no contest. Some games on the PSOne really hurt to listen to they were so bad. PS2 has done better, but only with the creamiest of the crop . .. like MGS3. I guess not everybody can afford the good people. Then again, even the good companies drop bombs sometime.

Another decent Localization was Xenosaga. Not too bad in my opinion.

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

Because Americans don't have souls. Why do you think they got Brits for Siren and DQVIII?
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dhex · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject:

98.2% of voice acting sucks, according to recent survey data by the Professional Voice Performers Guild of British Columbia.

what i don't understand is why people who don't speak japanese think the japanese voiceovers are better. or rather, how you're making that distinction. you're only missing an entire universe of nuance.
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ApM · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:55 pm Post subject:

Oh, hell. How could I forget?

Download "The Alien Zit" for the best voice acting in a videogame ever done by 12-year-olds on a sugar high.

Ryan - SuperWes' Bane · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 2:30 am Post subject:

It's all in the intonation (sp??) of somebody's voice. I feel that in both Video games and ANime Japanese have a better grasp of the emotion they are trying to convey, but some of that is lost in American releases . . . a painful reminder is Legend of Dragoon. I know it's an older game, but the voice acting was so lame it marred the great cinematic sequences.

Brits definitely have an upper hand in voice acting I believe . . . especially the classically trained ones that did Shakespeare. More often than not, the American voice actors are just regular actors that are there to sell their name rather than to make a good game. Kingdom Hearts is an example of that type of marketing. Haley Joel Osment, Lance Bass, Mandy Moore, David Boreanz .... etc. .. there were definitely better choices out there . . .and with Square's budget they could have gotten better ...

Tablesaw · . Joined: 29 Jun 2005 Posts: 303 Location: LACAUSA

Voice-actors usually aren't paid as well as visible actors, which means that better actors tend to move up to the lower levels of television and film.
Game voice-acting can be very different than other voice-acting, and it doesn't appeal to many better actors who are already trying to pay the rent with a one-line role on Scrubs. Spending a day trying to make different sounds for being hit with different weapons in different parts of the body can be rough.
If the actors are required to sync with preexisting animation, it greatly limits the ability of an actor to create an organic performance. Pauses are dictated by when lips move or don't move, and freedom can only be granted when the camera is looking elsewhere.
Translations that strip away the undertones of culture and language without any replacement are tinny to start with, and there are few actors or directors who can salvage a good performance based on them.
The only people who seem to tell me that Japanese voice-acting is fantastic are people who don't speak Japanese. It remains my suspicion that the majority of acting in Japan isn't notably better than the acting in America.

I'm enjoying the voice acting in Killer7. The Smiths have well-developed characters and distinct styles and rhythms. So far, I've only had a problem with the accent of Ulmeyda, which didn't connect precisely with any dialect I'm familiar with. (I'm ignoring the voice work by Metallus, though.)
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

SuperWes · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 8:17 am Post subject:

I care far less about quality of voice acting than I do about on-screen text presentation. in far too many games the text populates the screen just a tiny bit too slowly for my tastes. For me this can make a game nearly unplayable. The first thing I do when I play any text-heavy game is hit the options screen and up the text display speed.

It's another pet peeve of mine when a game has you press the button once to advance to the next screen of text where it starts scrolling the text way too slow for anyone to read it and then requires you to press the button again to have the text pop into place. That drives me crazy! I always end up skipping something because one of the lines was too short.

And this also goes back to the voice acting thing. My biggestissue with voice acting is that I can read the text in the screen faster than the actor can say his lines. So I always end up just reading ahead and flipping through their lines. This is happening all the time in Dragon Quest and I think it's driving my girlfriend's sister (who's been watching me play because she likes the voice acting) crazy.

Someone else talk about how Phoenix Write handles text presentation better than any other game ever.

-Wes
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Karoshi · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Philadelphia, PA

I've been working with a studio engineer for the last few months, in hopes of one day lending my sultry, smokey voice to SOME kind of game. I've done a few radio spots since then.
According to my peers within the voice over industry, video games aren't looked upon as a viable option for work as development studios and localization teams tend to look within thier own companies for "talent". Example: that lady who edited Nintendo Power as THE voice for Peach.
The exceptions to this rule are those few big budget mediocre titles that get "big name actors" to lend a hand, or the clique of voice actors who do EVERYTHING.
I'm talking about Cam Clarke, Jen Hale, Terry Dobson . . .all the folks up in Toronto.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Too bad I have no interest in playing The Godfather, it seems like it is going to have good voice talent.

Lackey · . Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 1107 Location: Canada

I thought Leonard Nimoy was a pretty great choice of narrator for Civ 4.

It can't be too difficult to get former Star Trek cast members. I'd love to play a game narrated by George Takei.

(I just looked this up and he actually has been a voice actor in games. Figures.)
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