Voice acting that spoiled a game for you

[LAIS]

What are the worst examples of voice acting in gaming for you? It doesn't have to be an entire game of poor acting - it can be an individual character that just didn't work for you because of how they sounded/"acted"

Final Fantasy XII - Granted some of the dialogue is terrible, but it's all delivered in such an unnatural way bar one of two exceptions. Many of the voices are just cartoonish and don't fit the tone, while others are monotonous and don't fit the character they're trying to portray. It makes it very difficult to enjoy the story.

Final Fantasy XIII - Even worse in the monotony stakes. Clearly they blew all their budget on the graphics and only had scraps left for gameplay and hiring actors. Maybe it's the way they were directed, I dunno. I refuse to believe that better, reasonably priced options weren't out there.


Bravely Default - Bit of a trend here, with JRPGs - I play this with speech off. The acting is terrible.

[koopa42]

Otis.

[Vyothric]

Can't remember it ever being a significant problem. I tend to expect it to be bad and notice when it's good rather than the other way round.

However, most of the games I play don't have voice acting in them.

[paranoid marvin]

Nox ; good game but terrible voice acting, so much that I had to turn it off

[outdated_gamer]

Can't remember it ever being a significant problem. I tend to expect it to be bad and notice when it's good rather than the other way round.

However, most of the games I play don't have voice acting in them.

Same with me. I found voice-acting in games like Soul Reaver 2 to be superb. But then there's something like Mega Man Legends voice-acting.

[merman]

Klonoa on Wii has terrible high-pitched American character voices, but you can switch them in favour of the original Japanese voices.

[gman72]

Allowing voice acting to spoil a game for yourself is rather like refusing to like a slice of cake because of the colour of the plate it is placed upon.
To me a bad game is a bad game and a good game with poor voice acting is just that. Some games of note with laughably poor voice acting are the early entries into the Resident Evil franchise particularly the original and Code Veronica. The Elder Scrolls Oblivion has some awful voice acting but in any of those cases I would not let that factor spoil an otherwise good game. Conversely, bad voice acting can add atmosphere to some games creating B Movie stylings that become enjoyable. Examples of this that spring to mind are the excellent EDF series or The House Of The Dead franchise.

[gunbladelad]

I will always prefer the option of written dialogue on screen over voice acting.

However, there are some games where the voice acting is so ridiculously bad that it actually improves the game - "You were almost a Jill sandwich" being one of the all-time great examples of such a case.

[gman72]

Didn't I just say that?

[Nemesis]

Allowing voice acting to spoil a game for yourself is rather like refusing to like a slice of cake because of the colour of the plate it is placed upon.

No, it's like seeing the best cake ever, then realising the butter icing in the middle is actually steaming excrement.

My vote goes to Bulletstorm.

[gman72]

... even flies and dung bugs love steaming excrement

[ArchaicKoala]

The Flashback remake - Overall I really enjoyed the game but the voice acting....

[Sephiroth81]

The House of the Dead 1 & 2 had arguably the worst voiceacting i have ever come across, but it actually adds to the entertainment for the game. Its the delivery of the lines - its so laughably bad, it becomes entertaining.

The high pitched winged demon character is also hilarious. He sounds like a demented chipmunk.

[paranoid marvin]

Monkey Island was much better without speech; it was also much better in 2D

[Roo]

I haven't heard any that's worse than that in Eledees on Wii, but even that wasn't a game-breaker. True, I can get bored with unfunny and/or repetitive voiceovers and not being left to it, but I wouldn't let anything like that hold a good game down.