The GHZ Forum

We all know the phenomenon of bad voice acting is, well, present in quite a few games. For some reason, survival horror as a genre is particularly rife with the stuff. There are still a number of exceptions... but not many.

Some of those exceptions include Silent Hill 2 and 3. While the voice acting as a whole can't rid itself of traces of camp here and there, the stuff for these games is actually genuinely well-acted and mature, trying its best to avoid dipping its foot into the 'bad just because' style of Resident Evil.

Any other examples?

I've discovered that acting is usually (not always, but usually) directly related to the quality of the dialogue being spoken.

The problem with voice acting in vidgames is that all the decent voice actors are working for Disney and other big animation companies, and the vgame companies are pretty much stuck with what's left. The situation is improving, obviously, but it's still not where I would like it to be.

I don't remember D2 being to bad in the VA department.

The Sonic Adventure series / Heroes dub sounds first-class compared to that of Sonic X and the Sonic the Hedgehog movie dub.

(Insert some witty metaphor about shit and relative comparisons here)

I thought the dubbing was pretty good in Heroes! That is, the delivery sounded way more natural and much less wooden than it had in the earlier games. Unfortunately, the dialogue was still stupid, and the voices were squeaky and irritating.

The best voice acting I've ever heard in a game was probably in Beyond Good and Evil.

BG&E was pretty good. I think Halo was alright and its dialouge wasn't complete crap either. Ninja Gaiden wasn't horrible, it wasn't really good either. Prince of Persia's was good, but there really wasn't much talking at all.

Overall I'd say video game VA's suck though. Sometimes its almost so bad that you have to wonder what the person was thinking when the uttered the words.

Talking about Sonic dubbing...
What was your reaction when you first heard Sonic's (or any other character you judge important) voice?

mine's:

SA2B

GUN soldier: "This is Omega-Alpha 2. We're..."
me: "Woa, WOA! This game is dubbed! Sweet!"
Gun soldier: "...it's the hedgehog! He's taking everyone aboard and..."
me: "How will Sonic's voice sound like? Anxiousty rising..."
Gun soldier: "FREEZE!! What you're doing?! Get that hedgehog!!"
me: "NOW-!"
Sonic: "(something I don't remember), no food or movies..."
me: "........nice voice...but...this deliverance..."
Sonic: "YEAH!"

Jennifer Hale isn't hurting for work, Jesus. The woman is everywhere.

I want to know who the fuck was behind the casting for voices in Shenmue. It sounds like they just used guys from around Sega of America or something.

The Helicopter is supposed to be Sigma-Alpha 2 or SA2 for short. Get it? It's funny.

Anyway, the first I saw of SA2's voice acting was a video of someone playing the SA2 trial disc that came with PSO (GamingAge I think). In that version, Sonic was speaking in Japanese and they hadn't quite cocked up the Event 1 or Stage 1 music yet so naturally I thought it was awesome. Oh yeah, and I think the subtitles were actual translations of the Japanese as opposed to just the English script.

I still remember MY first reaction to Sonic's spoken voice, back when I first played Sonic Adventure.

Sonic: "AW YEAH!!!"

Me: "aww nooo..."

Hey, it could be worse. They could have had Jaeel "Urkle" White doing Sonic's voice again.

Bad voice acting???? Mmmh... well, Tales of Symphonia, although is a great game, has some of the most mediocre voice acting I have ever heard... I mean, is not bad, but is not good either... they just sound like classic americans talking gibberish...

RE having bad voice acting??? Sorry to dissapoint ya', but that's not true. RE 1 for PS1 is the only one with bad (REALLY BAD) voice acting. RE 2 was a GREAT JUMP forward (Paul Haddad... he also made the voice of Lefty for "Quads"), the same goes for Nemesis and Code Veronica (I mean, c'mon!!! Who doesn't likes both Wesker's and Alexia's voices???).

Re remake and RE Zero has some of the greatest voice acting ever. Period.

It sounds like they just used guys from around Sega of America or something.

They actually did do that for Shining Force III.

Man, how do you know all this stuff?

Despite the lack of quality, I believe real voice actors from a company called Compozilla or something were used for Shenmue. I believe they also handled the voices for Way of the Samurai 2, which could explain the similar quality in the voice work.

Not all of the voices in Shenmue are bad-- Ryo still has the vocal range of a plank but his character is supposed to be pretty dense anyway. Lan Di didn't seem to bad either, but maybe thats because he only has one speaking scene in both of the games.

Of course, for every decent voice job in that game, there are a dozen bad ones-- Tom the hot dog guy, Ren, Nozomi, Wong, Joy, Guizhang, Don Niu...

As for Shenhua, I guess she's alright. They still have to explain why a Chinese song about Guilin is in Japanese though ;P.

Cernex wrote:Bad voice acting???? Mmmh... well, Tales of Symphonia, although is a great game, has some of the most mediocre voice acting I have ever heard... I mean, is not bad, but is not good either... they just sound like classic americans talking gibberish...

Eh? Tales of Symphonia feature some of the best English voice acting in a video game. If you want to hear mediocre voice acting play Tales of Eternia(Tales of Destiny 2 in North America) or just recall the some of voice acting that are present in a few Sega games(Sega VA quality usually range from mediocre to terrible). Meh.

Any voice acting I've ever heard was fine. They talked normally and they didn't sound like robots - except tails from SA2B, but his actual voice was great. I wonder why they decided to make his voice all retarded in SH. Actually, all the voices were retarded.

Man, how do you know all this stuff?

Women sell me information for sex. It's (usually) a win-win deal for me. I control more of the industry than I can reveal to you at this point in time.

When I first heard Sonic in Sonic Adventure, I thought it was fantastic. I still do think his voice is really good.

I'll admit and say Ryan kinda tried a little harder in Heroes (making it sound a bit more overproduced), but his voice was still fine. Sonic the character's voice is perfect. I don't think anybody call really pull it off like Ryan. However, some of the lines they made him say in Heroes, was just.. "..ugh.."

House of the Dead 2 had the best voice acting ever.

It totally fit the B-movie feel of the game.

Green Gibbon! wrote:

It sounds like they just used guys from around Sega of America or something.

They actually did do that for Shining Force III.

That explains the outstanding quality. By quality I mean laughability.

PR3PARE 2 D1E!!!!!11

Who did the Japanese voice acting in Shenmue? Cause they weren't that great either.