“What is This?” The Evolution of Voice Acting in Video Games
Devil May Cry – 2001
I will totally pwn you at Beatles Rock Band.
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. This is not a stellar example of great writing or great acting, but I do think it fits comfortably in the “pretty good” category. There’s an overarching storyline, the characters embark on an emotional journey, a lot of attention was paid to making the movements of the musical score match and compliment what was being said in the cutscenes, and the actors sound like they’ve taken at least a few acting classes down at their local rec center.
Of course, they don’t hit every nail on the head:
httpv://youtu.be/79ddOyvnh6o
What does a freelance writer have to do to get her article some LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKES?!
Fallout 3 – 2008
I love you Fawkes. I don’t care what the new post-apocalyptic society thinks!
This is the first game where the voice acting was so good that it actually changed the way I played the game. Fallout 3 was the first sandbox style console game I ever bought. I had so many friends tell me they had spent hundreds of hours exploring the Capital Wasteland, aiding and fighting with its various inhabitants. I have a tendency to get completely engrossed in any form of escapism I indulge in—be it books, movies, television, and especially video games. So I avoided this (and Oblivion) like the plague. Finally, when it was just too cheap and had too many critical accolades to ignore, I picked it up.
And what should appear before my tiny, first-person baby eyes? A kindly bearded man named James. He was my dad, and he taught me the essentials for life, like how to move around and use VATS. He also gave me toys to play with and magical books that changed my stats. He threw a birthday party for me in an underground bunker, making the best of what was clearly shaping up to be a Lord of the Flies kind of situation. And then one day he just up and walked out of Vault 101 like a boss.
So I took after him like a shot. And finished the game in less than 6 hours. I got so attached to my in-game dad that I didn’t stop until I found him, eschewing any and all other wastelanders and their pleas for assistance. Why did I love the guy so much? Liam “Official BAMF” Neeson. When voiced by Neeson, James becomes a helluva dad. He’s kind. He’s warm. He’s smart. He’s often funny. And he has a very particular set of skills; skills he has acquired over a very long career. Skills that make him a nightmare for people who kidnap me in Paris.
Further voice acting shout-outs go to Malcolm McDowell, Ron Perlman, and several other talented actors for coming correct to the Bethesda studios. The vocal work is not 100% awesome across the board, which is why Fallout 3 occupies the second-to-last spot on my list, but it’s pretty damn close. I’ve never been so satisfied to leave so many sidequests unfinished before completing the game and starting over with a new character.
httpv://youtu.be/aPmC2myjS7A
Listen Dad, you should really see my apartment in Tenpenny Tower. Worth it.
Portal 2 – 2011
Greatest. Family portrait. Ever.
To me, Portal 2 is a perfect video game. I prefer to take Portal and Portal 2 as a set, but if you have a gun to my head and say, “Hey! I’m the kind of sociopath who holds guns to people’s heads just so I can get an accurate assessment of their likes and dislikes. What’s the single most perfect video game, in your opinion?” I’m going to pick Portal 2. Everything about this game is on point, from premise to script to gameplay to graphics to music and of course, to the voice acting.
If Portal 2 is a god, than Ellen McLain is our GlaDOS, full of grace. This woman is a flat-out fantastic voice actor. Someone came to her when they were making Portal and said, “We need someone who can figure out a way to blend subtle sarcasm and humor into the auditory tutorial instructions for this video game we’re developing, because it’s going to turn out that she’s the villain of the piece. Oh yeah, she’s also a robot.” And McLain was like “Bitch, please.” I quote GlaDOS endlessly in mixed company, because invariably someone will quote her right back to me and then boom! It’s awesome conversation time. Portal 2 added Stephen Merchant (Wheatley) and J.K. Simmons (CEO Cave Johnson) to the mix, and I was convinced for two weeks that I had died and gone to heaven, in spite of my best efforts back on Earth.
I can’t even add anything more about how good the voice work is, so I’ll let the actors and the game speak for itself. This is my favorite video on all the interwebz. Bookmark it my friends, so you may return to its glory whenever you need.
httpv://youtu.be/n3wp9LO3uqQ
Wherever you can look—wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, this video will be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, this video will be there. It’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. It’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build—it’ll be there, too.
How about you guys? Played any games with good or bad voice acting lately? Leave me links, you miserable little piles of secrets! But enough talk, have at you!
The Legacy of Kain series had the best voice acting ever, it’s a shame that they couldn’t figure out decent gameplay.
going right back to the ps1, the creators of the Legacy of Kain series really new how to make the characters come to life through great voice acting especially in soul reaver 1 and 2 alot of theatre actors were involved i believe.
cool article and a fun read.
XENO, I Would hit the like button on your post if there was one.
CoD Black Ops (aside from it’s huge nods to a number of critically acclaimed war films) has Ed Harris, Ice Cube, Gary Oldman, Sam Worthington, Steve Blum (Toonami fame, but HUGE voice actor with nearly 500 credits), Robert Picardo (Doctor Hologram on ST:Voyager). Cinematic quality. But video games are getting huge budgets for this level of voice acting & cutscenes which in some cases have detracted from gameplay. Fallout, Portal, & CoD:BO have managed to have both solid gameplay and cinematic scope.
Legacy of Kain has good gameplay. Puzzles, exploration and excellent boss battles. Ok so the combat is limited compared with games like Devil May Cry, but it is still fun.
The voice acting is definitely up there with some of the best voice acted games though and it’s strange it’s not somewhere on here.
Legacy of Kain! Thanks for bringing it up, Xeno. I agree wholeheartedly. Not only does the series have great voice acting, but it plays right into my vampire obsession. I have a huge soft spot for Defiance especially, but I also liked Blood Omen 2, even if the gameplay wasn’t the best.
+1 For Legacy of Kain. “Cast him in”
Anything Jennifer Hale does is usualy great. I remember her best from Freelancer.
My favourite bit of voice active ever is a bit in Samurai Jack, in the episode where Aku makes an evil clone of Jack. At some point when one of his schemes fail, he says Aaa-Blaargh. That really stuck with me. Aku was voice by Mako, aka Uncle Iroh.
So glad to see several commenters mention Legacy of Kain, such phenomenal voice acting!
Final Fantasy X:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5FTJxfV3pc
This scene leads me to the only conclusion that they hired aliens to do the voice acting. Not the probing kind of aliens since I assume they had some “close” contact with humans, some passersby that only saw the pictures we send onto space to give them guidelines…
Great article! For consistency, the Mass Effect series has a really high level of quality. And of course one word for the win: Garus.
ME2 had fantastic voice acting. The whole series is top notch, but the second game had a special sense of crispness and professionalism to it
Metal Gear Solid From start to finish. That was the first game that took a story to the next level with voice acting for me.
@ASD Absolutely hilarious example. I didn’t get into the FF series until way late in the game, but there are some real gems when it comes to bad voice acting. And good, to their credit.
And you guys, can you believe I’ve never played a Mass Effect game? It’s a gaping, ragged hole in my gaming CV. Not to mention a source of deep shame. Must rectify asap.
Pretty much every game from Bioware has awesome voice acting. Mass Effect especially. Garrus is one of my favorite VG voices. Uncharted had an amazing cast too, especially the female leads. I also loved the voice acting in Battlefield Bad Company 2, it made your teammates in multiplayer feel like real people instead of people playing a videogame.
I liked Dragon Age : Origins (even though Liliana was weird) for Morrigan and Allister (don’t know the actors).
Mass Effect 2 was great too.
Oh and Heavy Rain. Best voice-acting and acting game ever.
Rocksteady casting Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin in “Batman: Arkham Asylum”.
I feel the need to clarify, I wasn’t saying that the Legacy of Kain games were “Bad” when it came to gameplay, just that it wasn’t good enough to sell the games to a wider audience. The series thrived on it’s story over it’s gameplay, especially after the first two games. For instance, Soul Reaver 2 had the best narrative of the sequels but the worst gameplay, with the repetitive back tracking and lack of boss fights being prominent complaints.
I’m currently burning through the Mass Effect series after getting an x-box and I have to agree that the voice acting is pretty solid. Martin Sheen, Kieth David, and Seth Green stand out as being awesome in the series.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was also pretty good, mainly because of Patrick Stewart.
Another vote here for Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Casting the “Batman – The Animated Series” actors to do voice-over on the games was the best decision Rocksteady made. Mark Hamill as The Joker is just absurdly good.
Also agree with Bioware games as well, but especially DA:O. Alistair is one of my favorite video-game characters of all time and 90% of that is Steve Valentine’s impeccably snarky and sarcastic delivery. Morrigan was also excellent, again largely due to Claudia Black’s performance, and putting Alistair and Morrigan together on a party was a recipe for guaranteed entertainment.
Another Bioware favorite of mine is Sand from Neverwinter Nights 2 — looks like I enjoy playing alongside snarky bastards. 😀
Quest for Glory IV CD version from 1995 had some great voice work on the Narrator’s part.
Of course it was John Rhys-Davies being the narrator and doing basically ALL the talking (Seems like Hours and Hours of lines alone), so most of that goes to him admittedly.
Portal 2 is awesome. My favorite line will always be about the lemons.