Voice Acting Thread

[Phlogiston]

Basically kind of similar to a lot of other threads here. Here is -- you guessed it -- a thread to discuss voice-acting in video games. Your favorites, your least favorites, the most bizarre you've ever heard... you get it.

Posting links is definitely encouraged. Explanations are probably a good idea.

Personal favorite in terms of questionable-ness of the voice acting goes to Heavy Rain, which is a French game. It's supposed to take place in America (specifically Philadelphia, if I recall). Characters who are not known to be immigrants have very clearly non-American accents and there aren't even attempts made. Here's an example. It's a great game and all, but it's just... really questionably voiced.

[Rezzo]

The Good:

-The 3D GTA line - IV might have suffered from "I'm really an American putting on a foreign accent" syndrome, but compared to most games that have tried this, it worked much better.
-Metal Gear Solid, because, you know. It's like an interactive film.
-And Crash Twinsanity, come to think of it. Then again, maybe it was just brilliantly written. Ah who cares? It's a hilarious game.

The Bad:

-Almost every Japanese game that I have played or seen. I HATE dubs. Posting this instead because I don't want to hear Vanille from FFXIII ever again in my life.
-Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex was pretty appalling as well. You can argue all you like that it was aimed at children, but you haven't played - and therefore - haven't had the chance to compare it to Twinsanity if you think this.

The Questionable

Commander Shepard's voice actor is a massive standout to me. Coming from a game which had amazing voice acting if not the best, it's at least slightly ruined by a lot of the deliveries the main character gives, e.g., the Suicide Mission speech in Mass Effect 2 is a good example.

Every Bethesdea game that has voice acting. It's understandable that the games in the Fallout series and the Elder Scrolls series have a heck of a lot of characters, and employing a different voice actor for every one of those would be tedious, but that doesn't excuse the horrible delivery of a good portion of the lines. But on the other hand, Liam Neeson was decent, and Mr House pretty much became one of my favourite video game characters ever just because of the delivery of his lines.

[ParaChomp]

Going from Transformers Prime to Fall of Cybertron made me sad.

[Zibdas]

Depends on the game. Some, like Alan Wake, Sequence, or Portal, had amazing voice actors that really amde the game so much better. Others, I like for the little unintelligible grunts and squeals, such as with Rock of Ages.

Also Crahs Bandicoot has terribly VA.

[Phlogiston]

-The 3D GTA line - IV might have suffered from "I'm really an American putting on a foreign accent" syndrome, but compared to most games that have tried this, it worked much better.

I enjoy a good try, though.

Speaking of sandboxes, I pretty much adore Zimos' voice (warning for a LOT of NSFW language) in Saints Row: The Third, but that's more because of the whole character concept and I'm fairly sure a lot of voice actors could have done it.

Which leads me to

Some, like Alan Wake, Sequence, or Portal, had amazing voice actors that really amde the game so much better.

I'm pretty sure any voice actor could have done what Ellen McLain did, at the very least, and fairly simply. Speak monotone, apply post-processing to taste.

[AuraChannelerChris]

Pretty much tired of hearing either JYB or Laura Bailey pop up from somewhere in the games I bought. Those two are EVERYWHERE.

[ParaChomp]

Pretty much tired of hearing either JYB or Laura Bailey pop up from somewhere in the games I bought. Those two are EVERYWHERE.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World?

Speaking of which, they brought back Yuri Lowenthal for the newest Professor Layton title. They already used him once in the Unwound Future!

[Grim Heaper]

Speaking of which, they brought back Yuri Lowenthal for the newest Professor Layton title. They already used him once in the Unwound Future!

Is that a problem?

Pretty much tired of hearing either JYB or Laura Bailey pop up from somewhere in the games I bought. Those two are EVERYWHERE.

I agree, those two are everywhere.

[ParaChomp]

Is that a problem?

Not really, just annoyed me a tad at first. Same can be applied to my view on Bosch and Bailey.

[KrayzieBuddha]

Pretty much tired of hearing either JYB or Laura Bailey pop up from somewhere in the games I bought. Those two are EVERYWHERE.

In animes yes but in games probably Laura Bailey i hear the most ingame. But I'll never get tired of Steve Blum's voice.

[PopPrincess_Lyra]

Voice Acting? Never played any of those, except PKMN W2 The Gym Leader music were Lyrawesome XD

In Drawn To life, yes the mayor's singing voice was great on Part 2, nya~

[ArmorAndonomon]

Personal favorite in terms of questionable-ness of the voice acting goes to Heavy Rain,

Heavy Rain has some fantastic glitches, especially when it makes the rest of the cast pretty much useless.

In terms of actual quality, I love the voice acting in the Metal Gear series, for the most part. They don't all just sound like the same person straining to do different voices, and really get you into the characters themselves. MGS4 gave me all kinds of feels with this.

In terms of cheesiness, my favorite terrible voice acting has to be in STALKER: SoC. It's just so laughably bad that I can't help but love those crazy Russian accents.

[blaze boy]

The Sonic series had some pretty bad voice acting until Sega replaced them all prior to Sonic Colours.

[AuraChannelerChris]

The Sonic series had some pretty bad voice acting until Sega replaced them all prior to Sonic Colours.

Only Tails sounds very good (and possibly Cream). Everybody else sounds obnoxious.

In case you don't believe me, they totally ruined Jet's voice. He sounds like a child!

[Grim Heaper]

The Sonic series had some pretty bad voice acting until Sega replaced them all prior to Sonic Colours.

I liked the voices before 06/anime happened.

The new ones are gonna take some getting used to personally speaking. Least they kept Eggman/Robotnik's voice, one of the few that was good from that generation.

Only Tails sounds very good (and possibly Cream). Everybody else sounds obnoxious.

In case you don't believe me, they totally ruined Jet's voice. He sounds like a child!

Shadow's voice is alright, and at least Rouge doesn't sound like an old woman. Jet on the other hand got the short end of the stick wen it came to VA's, that much I can agree.

[Rezzo]

Heavy Rain has some fantastic glitches, especially when it makes the rest of the cast pretty much useless.

Lordy I'm in hysterics

Having the same name as the one being called out throughout the whole video makes it so much funnier

[Azran Flame]

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World?

Speaking of which, they brought back Yuri Lowenthal for the newest Professor Layton title. They already used him once in the Unwound Future!

No wonder some of the characters sounded great (like Randall).

Voice Acting? Never played any of those, except PKMN W2 The Gym Leader music were Lyrawesome XD

In Drawn To life, yes the mayor's singing voice was great on Part 2, nya~

Isn't voice acting pretty common in video games nowadays?

[britishlanguage]

I often play Bethesda RPGs, including FNV, and I guessI heard some more people got attacked last night.. Better than Oblivion, which had an overwhelming 12 voice actors.

[PopPrincess_Lyra]

Isn't voice acting pretty common in video games nowadays?

I dunno coz I only heard it on 2 games, but I think it is. They should do that in PKMN now since they have the whole 'mouth moving' in BW/BW2, nya~

[Rezzo]

Pokémon doesn't need voice acting. In fact it would probably ruin it, especially for us non-Japanese players. I can almost guarantee that.