The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
Do you ever buy a game and which you know is good, but you are often put off because of the terrible use of speech?
Well, in gaming voice acting is a case of either making you laugh or normally ? they make you cry!
With the technology out these days a lot of developers like to implement the use of 'speech' in games to try and use 'actors' to immitate real life people, but whether they are realising it or not they are in-fact ruining a good game.
We can't always have games like Metal Gear Solid ? a game that was truly designed to have 'almost perfect' dialogue and speech analysis is extracted from people's real life thoughts and ideas, thus making scenes come alive, explaining exactly what's happening and what's about to come ? you are apart of the action.
So, what are the reasons for failure and why are they ongoing?
Well, the main two reasons are; what's a good voice actor if he just needs to repeat a lot of things over and over again? The games developer, needs to sit back and think what the audience of the game want to hear in game, rather than a few fancy phrases from a celebrity which will probably do his reputation more harm than good, finishing off sentences and phrases and making them 'understanding' enough is all we ask. The second and more simple reason being that the voice actor, is simply no good, you could have some great phrases and one liners which can be implemented into a game, but they can be ruined by someone who simply doesn't know how to say them properly.
In the last few years we have had some improvement, but there are still some pretty bad voice actors out there because there is no real way to solve the problem, no matter how good games might get, there will always be the chance of getting untalented voice actors, it's a case of trial and error and accepting the outcome.
How can we forget the dialogue from the commentators in Pro Evolution Soccer, the playability of the game is what you'd want in a football game and it is visually pleasing, but when it comes to commentary it just seems like they spent a lot of time in making the game that they didn't have any time left to put in proper speech analysis, therefore they decided to get a couple of joes to say a few words and bob's your uncle! Let's have a look at some examples from Pro Evolution Soccer Series;
Terry Butcher summarises a whole football match with: "It was a good game"
Peter Brackley?s Famous "I tell a lie he's missed" (But what did you lie about in the first place?)
The game has finished 3-3 and a strange sounding Trevor Brooking says "The game would have been better if it had a few goals in it" (Well..duh)
The worse of them all has to be the 'delayed voice reaction'; you take a 20 yard shot and it sails over the bar, 5 seconds later you have Mr James with "He takes a shot, oh he's missed"
Sound familiar?
Well here are some more notable examples:
Firstly, Resident Evil; There's nothing quite like hearing Barry talk to Jill in a dull monotone voice, an often winner of the boring dialogue award. Many of the Star Wars games have had problems in the speech department (but then again, so do the movies at times!) Onimusha could have used some help, however Capcom is trying. Legend of Dragoon is another that could have used a lot help. A great piece of dialogue like, "This fire makes me want to do it" will be remembered forever! (where do they come up with such great one liners, I'll never know!)
Bad voice acting and speech, have just become a part of the gaming experience. If it's done bad enough, it could ruin a potentially great game, but when it's done well enough, it can make a bad game look good.
It's just something, we gamers have to learn to live with and if we were honest, It is usually funny listening to people making a complete fool of themselves!
-------------
Thanks for Reading
Neo.
Well, in gaming voice acting is a case of either making you laugh or normally ? they make you cry!
With the technology out these days a lot of developers like to implement the use of 'speech' in games to try and use 'actors' to immitate real life people, but whether they are realising it or not they are in-fact ruining a good game.
We can't always have games like Metal Gear Solid ? a game that was truly designed to have 'almost perfect' dialogue and speech analysis is extracted from people's real life thoughts and ideas, thus making scenes come alive, explaining exactly what's happening and what's about to come ? you are apart of the action.
So, what are the reasons for failure and why are they ongoing?
Well, the main two reasons are; what's a good voice actor if he just needs to repeat a lot of things over and over again? The games developer, needs to sit back and think what the audience of the game want to hear in game, rather than a few fancy phrases from a celebrity which will probably do his reputation more harm than good, finishing off sentences and phrases and making them 'understanding' enough is all we ask. The second and more simple reason being that the voice actor, is simply no good, you could have some great phrases and one liners which can be implemented into a game, but they can be ruined by someone who simply doesn't know how to say them properly.
In the last few years we have had some improvement, but there are still some pretty bad voice actors out there because there is no real way to solve the problem, no matter how good games might get, there will always be the chance of getting untalented voice actors, it's a case of trial and error and accepting the outcome.
How can we forget the dialogue from the commentators in Pro Evolution Soccer, the playability of the game is what you'd want in a football game and it is visually pleasing, but when it comes to commentary it just seems like they spent a lot of time in making the game that they didn't have any time left to put in proper speech analysis, therefore they decided to get a couple of joes to say a few words and bob's your uncle! Let's have a look at some examples from Pro Evolution Soccer Series;
Terry Butcher summarises a whole football match with: "It was a good game"
Peter Brackley?s Famous "I tell a lie he's missed" (But what did you lie about in the first place?)
The game has finished 3-3 and a strange sounding Trevor Brooking says "The game would have been better if it had a few goals in it" (Well..duh)
The worse of them all has to be the 'delayed voice reaction'; you take a 20 yard shot and it sails over the bar, 5 seconds later you have Mr James with "He takes a shot, oh he's missed"
Sound familiar?
Well here are some more notable examples:
Firstly, Resident Evil; There's nothing quite like hearing Barry talk to Jill in a dull monotone voice, an often winner of the boring dialogue award. Many of the Star Wars games have had problems in the speech department (but then again, so do the movies at times!) Onimusha could have used some help, however Capcom is trying. Legend of Dragoon is another that could have used a lot help. A great piece of dialogue like, "This fire makes me want to do it" will be remembered forever! (where do they come up with such great one liners, I'll never know!)
Bad voice acting and speech, have just become a part of the gaming experience. If it's done bad enough, it could ruin a potentially great game, but when it's done well enough, it can make a bad game look good.
It's just something, we gamers have to learn to live with and if we were honest, It is usually funny listening to people making a complete fool of themselves!
-------------
Thanks for Reading
Neo.
Well, with football games, you can turn the volume down and listen to your own music and still enjoy the game, probably more so, but with games like MGS, Vice City you wanna listen to whats going on in the game, and it often makes you apart of the action.
i'm not bothered about the voice to much
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Veeeryyy interesting.
Veeeryyy interesting.
pop
Devro wrote:
> I'd just like to mention that Onimusha is SUPPOSED to look like that.
The hell it is!! The American NTSC version has the option to choose the language. We just got a sloppy conversion. And you will *never* see a Japanese movie with dubbing as bad as that! Onimusha stunk!
The worst of them all (so bad it actually makes a boring game totally hilarious) is Shenmue.
Ryo: Did you see the number plate?
Old man: I'm sorry, it was very snowy on that day, and to make matters worse, I fell over.
or...
Ryo: I'm looking for Sailors. Do Sailors like to hang out here? Can anyone tell me where to find some Sailors? Are there any with tattoos?
> I'd just like to mention that Onimusha is SUPPOSED to look like that.
The hell it is!! The American NTSC version has the option to choose the language. We just got a sloppy conversion. And you will *never* see a Japanese movie with dubbing as bad as that! Onimusha stunk!
The worst of them all (so bad it actually makes a boring game totally hilarious) is Shenmue.
Ryo: Did you see the number plate?
Old man: I'm sorry, it was very snowy on that day, and to make matters worse, I fell over.
or...
Ryo: I'm looking for Sailors. Do Sailors like to hang out here? Can anyone tell me where to find some Sailors? Are there any with tattoos?
Ive bought a few games in the past, that have been good but suffered from poor voice acting. I use to love the Resident Evil series, and even though as you said the voice acting was pretty poor, often dull and very time consuming ( you could be waiting a fair old few seconds for someone to say something sometimes) but the game was still very good, so it was forgiven for this.
If the developers do get the voice acting right though, it can do so much for the game. Just look at how succesfull the story line was put across in FFX, you could actually feel what the characters did at times. A recent game is The Getaway, thats got some brilliant acting in it, althought there is a little too much swearing, but on the whole, it does wonders for the story.
As for games like Pro Evo's commentry always being bad, i find it better to turn it off, stick some music on and play to that, i got all the commentry i need in my head. :D
If the developers do get the voice acting right though, it can do so much for the game. Just look at how succesfull the story line was put across in FFX, you could actually feel what the characters did at times. A recent game is The Getaway, thats got some brilliant acting in it, althought there is a little too much swearing, but on the whole, it does wonders for the story.
As for games like Pro Evo's commentry always being bad, i find it better to turn it off, stick some music on and play to that, i got all the commentry i need in my head. :D
Voice acting is pretty important in todays games, no one really enjoys reading reams of text anymore like in the old FF games, hence why FFX used some of the best voicing i have seen in a game ever. It really helped the game on.
Proper voice acting at times can make or break the game, if its good the story can flurish, if not, it could harm it.
Proper voice acting at times can make or break the game, if its good the story can flurish, if not, it could harm it.
I'd just like to mention that Onimusha is SUPPOSED to look like that. They actually made it to look like a cheesy dubbed japanese film, so they didn't bother changing the mouth movements for the english version. If you look they did the same for the second one as well.
Do you ever buy a game and which you know is good, but you are often put off because of the terrible use of speech?
Well, in gaming voice acting is a case of either making you laugh or normally ? they make you cry!
With the technology out these days a lot of developers like to implement the use of 'speech' in games to try and use 'actors' to immitate real life people, but whether they are realising it or not they are in-fact ruining a good game.
We can't always have games like Metal Gear Solid ? a game that was truly designed to have 'almost perfect' dialogue and speech analysis is extracted from people's real life thoughts and ideas, thus making scenes come alive, explaining exactly what's happening and what's about to come ? you are apart of the action.
So, what are the reasons for failure and why are they ongoing?
Well, the main two reasons are; what's a good voice actor if he just needs to repeat a lot of things over and over again? The games developer, needs to sit back and think what the audience of the game want to hear in game, rather than a few fancy phrases from a celebrity which will probably do his reputation more harm than good, finishing off sentences and phrases and making them 'understanding' enough is all we ask. The second and more simple reason being that the voice actor, is simply no good, you could have some great phrases and one liners which can be implemented into a game, but they can be ruined by someone who simply doesn't know how to say them properly.
In the last few years we have had some improvement, but there are still some pretty bad voice actors out there because there is no real way to solve the problem, no matter how good games might get, there will always be the chance of getting untalented voice actors, it's a case of trial and error and accepting the outcome.
How can we forget the dialogue from the commentators in Pro Evolution Soccer, the playability of the game is what you'd want in a football game and it is visually pleasing, but when it comes to commentary it just seems like they spent a lot of time in making the game that they didn't have any time left to put in proper speech analysis, therefore they decided to get a couple of joes to say a few words and bob's your uncle! Let's have a look at some examples from Pro Evolution Soccer Series;
Terry Butcher summarises a whole football match with: "It was a good game"
Peter Brackley?s Famous "I tell a lie he's missed" (But what did you lie about in the first place?)
The game has finished 3-3 and a strange sounding Trevor Brooking says "The game would have been better if it had a few goals in it" (Well..duh)
The worse of them all has to be the 'delayed voice reaction'; you take a 20 yard shot and it sails over the bar, 5 seconds later you have Mr James with "He takes a shot, oh he's missed"
Sound familiar?
Well here are some more notable examples:
Firstly, Resident Evil; There's nothing quite like hearing Barry talk to Jill in a dull monotone voice, an often winner of the boring dialogue award. Many of the Star Wars games have had problems in the speech department (but then again, so do the movies at times!) Onimusha could have used some help, however Capcom is trying. Legend of Dragoon is another that could have used a lot help. A great piece of dialogue like, "This fire makes me want to do it" will be remembered forever! (where do they come up with such great one liners, I'll never know!)
Bad voice acting and speech, have just become a part of the gaming experience. If it's done bad enough, it could ruin a potentially great game, but when it's done well enough, it can make a bad game look good.
It's just something, we gamers have to learn to live with and if we were honest, It is usually funny listening to people making a complete fool of themselves!
-------------
Thanks for Reading
Neo.
Well, in gaming voice acting is a case of either making you laugh or normally ? they make you cry!
With the technology out these days a lot of developers like to implement the use of 'speech' in games to try and use 'actors' to immitate real life people, but whether they are realising it or not they are in-fact ruining a good game.
We can't always have games like Metal Gear Solid ? a game that was truly designed to have 'almost perfect' dialogue and speech analysis is extracted from people's real life thoughts and ideas, thus making scenes come alive, explaining exactly what's happening and what's about to come ? you are apart of the action.
So, what are the reasons for failure and why are they ongoing?
Well, the main two reasons are; what's a good voice actor if he just needs to repeat a lot of things over and over again? The games developer, needs to sit back and think what the audience of the game want to hear in game, rather than a few fancy phrases from a celebrity which will probably do his reputation more harm than good, finishing off sentences and phrases and making them 'understanding' enough is all we ask. The second and more simple reason being that the voice actor, is simply no good, you could have some great phrases and one liners which can be implemented into a game, but they can be ruined by someone who simply doesn't know how to say them properly.
In the last few years we have had some improvement, but there are still some pretty bad voice actors out there because there is no real way to solve the problem, no matter how good games might get, there will always be the chance of getting untalented voice actors, it's a case of trial and error and accepting the outcome.
How can we forget the dialogue from the commentators in Pro Evolution Soccer, the playability of the game is what you'd want in a football game and it is visually pleasing, but when it comes to commentary it just seems like they spent a lot of time in making the game that they didn't have any time left to put in proper speech analysis, therefore they decided to get a couple of joes to say a few words and bob's your uncle! Let's have a look at some examples from Pro Evolution Soccer Series;
Terry Butcher summarises a whole football match with: "It was a good game"
Peter Brackley?s Famous "I tell a lie he's missed" (But what did you lie about in the first place?)
The game has finished 3-3 and a strange sounding Trevor Brooking says "The game would have been better if it had a few goals in it" (Well..duh)
The worse of them all has to be the 'delayed voice reaction'; you take a 20 yard shot and it sails over the bar, 5 seconds later you have Mr James with "He takes a shot, oh he's missed"
Sound familiar?
Well here are some more notable examples:
Firstly, Resident Evil; There's nothing quite like hearing Barry talk to Jill in a dull monotone voice, an often winner of the boring dialogue award. Many of the Star Wars games have had problems in the speech department (but then again, so do the movies at times!) Onimusha could have used some help, however Capcom is trying. Legend of Dragoon is another that could have used a lot help. A great piece of dialogue like, "This fire makes me want to do it" will be remembered forever! (where do they come up with such great one liners, I'll never know!)
Bad voice acting and speech, have just become a part of the gaming experience. If it's done bad enough, it could ruin a potentially great game, but when it's done well enough, it can make a bad game look good.
It's just something, we gamers have to learn to live with and if we were honest, It is usually funny listening to people making a complete fool of themselves!
-------------
Thanks for Reading
Neo.