Voice Acting in games.

DiMaggio also did Kimahri if I’m not wrong.

You are right. John Dimaggio did Wakka and Kimahri. And for those who watched Futurama, he is Bender.
God, some voice actors are just amazing!
And Albedo! Yes! Ma pêche.

It seems a lot of older games had better voice acting, if you ask me, but it also may’ve been that a good deal of older games had better scripts.
The first three Alone in the Darks have always stood out in my mind; whoever played Carnby in his intro monologues was a genius. New Nightmare was an illuminati conspiracy, and never really happened.

Morrowind had pretty good voice acting, although some of it was a bit strange. The fact that every officer in the Imperial Region sounded incredibly homosexual, for one thing. It made it hard to take them seriously; they’re high-level knights in full armour who could’ve killed the character talking to them, and yet they sound so utterly non-threatening it’s commical. All the Black Isle Forgotten Realms games were the same way; a lot of the voice acting was excellent, but the parts of it that were bad enough to just be silly stick out in my mind, which means voice acting not being bad is often more important than it being good, if you ask me.

You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.
You must gather your party before moving forward.

John Dimaggio is far from amazing. He’s good but he has about five voices that I’ve heard and thats not all that impressive.

You want amazing? David Kaye is amazing. He’s the current voice for Megatron in everything since Beast Wars…except that really bad thing that lasted a month where Optimus was a fire truck. He plays Sesshomaru, Treize from Gundam Wing and a huge assed list of other characters. His demos can be found and http://davidkaye.com and they’re fucking incredible.

You also seem to be unaware that Billy West, AKA Fry, The Professor, Zoidberg, Nixon’s Head, Zapp Brannagan, and a bunch of other random characters, is the real talent in the Futurama cast.

On teh topic of amazing voice actors there’re the Dobson brothers, Michael and Paul, and Scott McNeill for truly amazing voice actors. Most others aren’t really amazing, just good. Aside from Tara Strong I can’t think of any truly great american voice actors. The only ones I can think of are either Canadian or’ve been living here since they were small.

Tara Strong? Isn’t she Rikku? O_o

Yes, Cid, she is and believe me she’s extremely talented. Just read my original post for proof.

I prefer cheesy voice acting in my games (ala Resident Evil) to useless voice acting in my games (ala Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Sewer Shark). Repetitive voice acting can end up driving one crazy (ala Starcraft, Star Ocean).

My favorite, though, is when they spend way too much on voice acting for a game that ends up being terrible anyway. Best example would be Enix’s translation of Grandia Xtreme, that featured Lisa Loeb, Dean Cain, and Mark Hamill, and ended up being an awful game.

Personally, I could care less as to whether or not there’s voice acting in my games. Years of playing 8-bit and 16-bit games have taught me how to read (particularly how to read terrible broken English). It also taught me how to have an imagination and decide what every character sounded like (and, for the most part, looked like) in my head. Now we’re practically handed that information, eliminating some of the fantasy, or at least some of the imagination.

That’s like saying no one should want to watch movies, since we have books.

MGS 1 and 3 has the greatest game VA’s ever. FFX’s VA’s were hit and miss, they missed a bit in key moments. Yuna’s VA’s Delivery (didnt mind the acting itself, or the voice,) annoyed me to no end. Kingdom Heart’s VA’s did a fantastic job (not just cos they were celebs, it’s a fact not all celebs are competent voice actors) even Lance Bass as Sephiroth, I always thought the way he says “Sin Harvest” is great. Sly Cooper’s VA’s do a great job at further portraying the game as a saturday morning cartoon. Ratchet and Clank. Xenosaga I’s VA’s were alright. Number 2’s though… Chaos and that other guy (they’re together in the opening sequence of the game) were awful. They were so slow and boring in their delivery.

That’s all I got.

Yeah seriously, movies suck.

Well, hmm. After replaying it again for a bit, I guess I’ll cede you the point that the actress’ portrayal of colette’s character was right on target, but I will hold my ground that Collette was a dull, flat (Figuratively!) character with no personality. I suppose what drove me crazy was her eternal optimism.

You misinterpret me. It’s not that I’m saying we shouldn’t have voice acting, it’s just that, if it’s not there, I don’t notice it. Yet, anyway. I’m sure as technology continues to progress, text in games will become less prevalent.

I always set the text to Japanese, if available. Typically, their voice actors show a little more emotion, without coming off as cheesy. Not always, though. And regardless of what language it’s in, I always leave subtitles on.

I actually found XS2’s chaos to be a lot more convincing than his XS1 counterpart, who sounded too cheerful IMO.

Kingdom Hearts did have great voice acting, but that’s because they had all the actual Disney voice actors (plus Haley Joel Osment, David Boreanaz, and Billy Zane). I would have loved the characters to get more lines. 8-\

There’s a lot of people who think the Japanese are better actors/more emotional, but that’s largely because we don’t directly understand what they’re saying. As I watch more anime I notice that most Japanese actors (and, especially, actresses) have the same two or three tones all the time. It’s also very difficult for us to spot bad Japanese acting, but I’ve heard that about half the anime actors out there are just as bad as their American live TV counterparts.

There’s one other thing, which is the tendency for Japanese scripts to be full of cheesiness. It seems like it’s a cultural thing - most Westerners would just be embarrassed to say the sorts of things that Japanese say all the time. In fact, the only serious anime I can remember seeing which didn’t succumb to that sort of thing are Full Metal Alchemist and Witch Hunter Robin.

…Maybe you don’t quite understand, that Collette NEEDED that eternal optimism. After all, She grew up thinking she was not going to live to see her 16th birthday. She was raised to believe she was her world’s only hope for salvation, and the fate of the lives of everybody on Sylvarant rested in her hands. Now, I don’t know about you, but me, in a situation like that, I’d want to break down crying every day. But the world would need me, so I needed to press on. And with the eyes of the world on me, you have to force a smile.

Besides, compared to the angst-fests Regal and Lloyd would occasionally get into (I swear to God, Regal had SUCH a Jesus complex. “No one else should ever have to Sin”, my ass), and the sheer depressing nature of Presea, and everyone else… Collette’s bubbly attitude was a breath fo fresh air.

Eh, screw it, getting off the original topic. Which is sad, since it’s my topic to begin with. Umm, Go Atelier Iris, awesome voice acting, whoo?

…BARREL!

Edit: I think one of the most annoying things about japanese voice acting is how they seem particularly fond of awkward pauses in between dialogue. I guess it’s supposed to increase dramatic tension, or something? Fuck, i don’t know. All I know is it makes it hard sometimes to do english versions believeably.

Really? I thought he sounded too passive and monotone. Maybe that could be his character, but it sounded much too dull.

Exactly. chaos is the typical character that practically goes around with a giant neon-lights sign over his head that says “YO! I’M PLOTTING SOMETHING!”. XS1’s calm, peaceful and happy voice was an excellent touch that managed to make him seem relatively normal and made the fact that no one questioned him a bit more believable (barring the “The vanishing Gnosis? Just something I do” bullshit).

XS2’s chaos was also quiet, but in a way that just made him stand out even more. The new deeper voice only accentuates the obvious details about him and doesn’t sound well at all for his character. Just compare the two scenes where he’s cheering up Allen (XS1) and talking with Jin in his house (XS2) and you’ll see the drastic difference. The new chaos lost almost all his friendliness and oldmanliness and simply became ominous.

And damnit, did they had to take off the antenna? It looked great.

Actually, that’s EXACTLY why I like Japanese voice modes better. :smiley:

I still believe that all japanese female roles are played by the same two or three women, because that’s about as many different voices as I can distinguish.

Ba~rrel!