Overrated voice actors

Most of the VAs that people bitch about being "overrated" are actually good, they're just way overused because voice directors have no fucking creativity. It's basically the same as vid related.

voice acting is overrated as a whole, it's unnecessary

That's the sentiment I hold for most voice actors. When I played Zero Time Dilemma the dub wasn't all that bad, the problem is I recognized all the voices from other things. It got distracting.
Another issue stems from having actors isolated in booths. I remember seeing a screencap of Michael Ironsides talking about working on Splinter Cell and one of the things he strongarmed Ubisoft into doing was pulling them out of the booths and sitting them in a room together to record the dialogue. That way they could actually interact like their characters are doing.

You're right. Also, it gives an excuse for RPG devs to trim down dialogue lines and branches. More lines = more money that needs to be paid to VAs

Just have the game devs, their friends, and literally whos do it then.

Couldn't they get cheaper VAs? I think PC games from way back when had great voice acting, and those actors I'm sure aren't always well known

A unique VA team can drastically elevate a game. I say unique instead of good, because that's not what matters most. Metal Gear Solid wouldn't be nearly as lovable if it didn't have voice acting. Nor would Ace Combat. The voice acting in these games isn't consistently good, in fact it's sometimes terrible, but the sheer campiness of it keeps bringing people back. Good is a form of unique.

They did this back in the 90s, and it had considerably varied results. This is how we got shit like Sonic Adventure 1/2 and Mega Man 8/X4.

Nepotism, union situations, contracts, etc. are what I imagine lead to repeat VAs. Also could be studios not wanting to go through the lengthy tryout process for each new title and just stick with who they can rely on.

I wouldn't know. I do know there are tons of VAs willing to do it for free that are just as good if not better than most of the big name professionals. You hear most of them in indie titles. Give them a good audio setup and you're set.

And Two Worlds, but Two Worlds was actually fun in a broken way.

But then they wouldn't be able to use big name voice actors as a selling point. Remember what a big deal Activision made over Peter Dinklage being in Destiny?

And remember how they removed Dinklage and replaced him with Nolan North.

The guy making these videos is not a faggot.

Absolutely loved hearing Robert McCollum in Borderlands 2. Looking him up didn't know he was in so much anime, but the first time I heard him that I can remember was in Orks Must Die.

Oh, and pic related is overrated in the way that she shouldn't be getting any voice roles at all.

wish she would get a role on my dick haha

who the fuck even is Nolan North, games keep featuring him and I don't even know who he is.

enjoy your aids, also shit taste bruh

I don't know anons. I like my overrated voice actors in my viyda. I remember beaming with joy when when I first played Arkham Asylum and heard Mark Hamill's voice. I honestly don't pay attention to the voice actors at all, so it's always a nice surprise to hear a familiar voice. Pic related is another one that made me smile. I remember playing Origins some many years ago, and smiling like a doofus when I connected the dots.
Steve voices so many characters. I fucking love his voice.

His opinions are basically Holla Forumscore, applied to movies. He reminds me of Instig8iveJournalism and ActionPts, in a way.

Hella?

Troy is the new Steve Blum.

Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy are without a doubt the best Batman/Joker combo, though.

In that they're both fairly skilled and have a decent range, but are perpetually stuck doing the same voice and character so everyone who doesn't know what's going on starts to lowkey hate them? Yes.

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Steve Blum
That uncharted guy

Bullshit, voice acting was used in many great games and has nothing to do with games being shit or not.

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If she has kids, they're going to feel very angry, confused, and alone.

It's okay, her kids will be black and taught that everything is cracker's fault.

Everything about the new voices, Cihi and the old cast not getting residuals, and along with the unwanted bullshit in the SH HD Collection is screwed up.

I usually like VAs like Blum, North, Baker, etc. They can sound very samey but they at least fit the character most of the time.

Fuck this cunt though, stupid fucking pointless SJW bullshit aside

She never fits the character and always sounds like a lolsorandum fat middleschooler who wears cat ears. She fucking RUINED Rise in P4DAN too, I will be eternally angry about that.

Best chaos lord coming througb
Paul Dobson needs to voice eliphas again

This bitch is everywhere. I'm not saying she's bad at her job per se, just that perhaps her and the whole cabal of well known VAs get work as a result of seniority as opposed to being the right fit for every role.

She probably gives tittyfucks for roles.

Just look at Dawn of War's cast of characters. even when a quarter of them are Scott McNeil

I'm offended that Paul Dobson is not Gabriel Angheloss in Dow 3.

I can agree that she can be overrated, but she does a pretty solid job and covers a lot of different character moods.

Oh and she has some BOMB ass titties.

It's not quite just seniority. It's that the majority of people who do a lot of voice acting can do more than one voice. And going and looking for new talent is expensive . So why not just stick with something that they know works>?

excellent tastes.

Actually I take that back

Don't forget file sizes too. In many games the acting can take up over half the space. Oblivion apparently is ~45% voice files and they were right at the limit of what you could fit onto a disc for the 360.

The best solution is the one that a lot of VNs take which is to record a bunch of small voice quips and sound effects to convey character and emotion, and play them at the start of each line of text. Out of all the VNs I've played Danganronpa does this the best byfar and I really don't get why more games don't use this kind of system.

Agreed, everyone hates Nolan North but look at what he did when Valve hired him. He's infamous for always playing the generic protagonist dude, but Valve told him to be a crazy mothefucker and he nailed it.

Whatever happened to Instig8iveJournalism?

who

I want to mouth-fuck ashly so hard.

Probably either Tara Strong or Laura Bailey

Valve knows how to make use of his range. Look at all these roles.

Oh shit I forgot he did Ogre Magi and Gyrocopter too

I think what we can learn from this is that it's unfair to assume that a VA is shit because they sound the same in every role, since that might be the director's fault. Not that there aren't shit VAs though, it's just hard to say.

The last video he released was three years ago. He deleted all of his social media shit, and all that's left to prove that he ever existed is his YouTube channel. I wonder if any of the faggots he used to fraternize with know what happened to him.

Talk about some fucking range, my god he's good, now I know why he gets so much work.

It's worth noting that it's the only Doom game he's ever played, so he has nothing to gauge it by. Except Chex Quest.

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devils trips

This.

Voice acting in games has to be planned for at the start of development and the writing for the game has to absolutely FINISHED and once voice actors are scheduled, booked and finally recorded. There can be no more script rewrites as you will have to bring back in the voice actor(s) again which may not be possible due to their schedule (or budget).

With no voice acting, the game script can be changed through development without such a large loss of money/time.

90's Rare UK somehow got this right, every character was just one of their own employees. Such as Chris Seavor voicing Banjo/Kazooie, nearly every character in Conker, Elvis from Perfect Dark, Slippy Toad in SFA. The voice actress for Joanna Dark was the games composer.

Xenoblade Chronicles did an interesting way around this. All story/cutscenes/battle dialogue was voiced by Jap/Brit VA's. While side quests and character "heart-to-hearts" used text based speech bubbles for character "speech."

Is it true the only reason she even has a VA career is because of BL2? And the fact she related to the person wrote it.

It's not like he's doling out unquestionable sage advice or anything. Reviewers give thoughts on things and you can choose to agree or not. You also don't have to approve of everything a man says to like him overall. Give vid related a try instead.

You can do this in a creative environment where people give a shit about their craft.
The Persona games also handle it this way. It's a good compromise, since you can finalize the main story but change details all you want afterward.

How did king cuck even land a writing job in the first place? He's like a twelve year old doing a half-assed job of trying to emulate Joss Wheadon.

Pretty much this. Saves money or at least time, they don't need to herd as many cats. Also has the odd result of a lot of games and cartoons having the same VAs talking to themselves.

It's not new, either; look at The Simpsons having a couple of actors do up to DOZENS of regular roles.

He's probably vaguely competent at a production role and is willing to do the writing; kind of a problem with game development is that the industry doesn't really have room for dedicated writers, so they tend to shove it onto the first fanfic writer that volunteers.

King Cuck got in on his sisters cottails, she doesn't have any tealent but people enjoyed her work.

There is definitely room for dedicated writers in vidya, the mystery is why so many shit writers are given jobs, like really really shit writers.

I thought the reason people hired him was because he was cheap not because he's good or anything. Isn't he in also completely shit games, like Unearthed?

Somehow the HAWP series and writing at Destructoid/Rev Rant videos was enough for Randy Pitchford to go Hey this guy is funny, let's get him to write a sequel to game that I have no knowledge that he has even played before

I used to go to Dtoid back then and even I thought it was weird when the announcement came that he leaving Dtoid to work at Gearbox for the BL2 writing job. It just felt like he never really "did" that much comedy writing in the first place.

I think I even felt sad when he left but a least I thought he would have the chance to go on to better things. I could not have been more wrong about him. I liked Dtoid Burch back then and not the cuck he became.

For comparison, Eric Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek did more comedy writing (and understanding game design) when they both wrote for Old Man Murray and were then hired by Valve in 2005. While they did writing for HL2:Ep1, they both got to do writing for new IP such a Portal and L4D which is what Burch didn't get to do (he may have contributed a little early writing to Battleborn though).

Don't you mean Holla Forumscore?

I don't know what Holla Forums thinks about TV/movies, or how they discuss them. I was making a comparison to the common tastes of Holla Forums and the way we discuss them, applied to movies. If that's what Holla Forums is like, then I guess I like them more than I thought I did.

Holla Forums is pretty much like Holla Forums in that they have actually good taste, and can actually dismantle and really critique films if given motivation. They're also snobs and contrarians with a board that's 50% shitposting.Just like us.

Both Holla Forums and Holla Forums are much more contrarian and shitpostey than Holla Forums ever could be while having a fraction of the userbase.

I mean, he isn't a good VA, but that's the fault of faggots who don't use subtitles in that case.

That's not Nolan North, you fucking nerd.

Just have one guy do all the voices
especially the women

Dawn of War series has 10/10 voice acting, really improves the mood of selecting units especially da orkz, probably the best voice acting of orkz at all honestly also Dawn of War may not have a good story but it does have a memorable cast, the VA only cements it further

Now thats talent
same with probably

She drank the feminist coolaid, not only that but her Fem-shep is absolutely shit.
She also has shit tier range, you can always tell it's her in a role. She just plays as herself. Every single game she does is just Jennifer Hale, slightly angry Hale, slightly, normal Hale, or just normal Hale.

Vid related.

A statement can be both sweeping and generalizing.
And wrong.

Most over rated va is right here, he has one fucking voice that he uses and hes in almost every fucking game.

Shut the fuck up, everybody knows Steve Blum's range is absolutely insane and the only thing retards hire him for is his Spike voice.
You petulant newfag.

And that doesn't mean shit if the only voice he is hired for is his gruff mcbad ass voice.

Surprise surprise, game directors are creatively bankrupt and can't use their resources to their full potential. What else is new?

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I dislike VA on principle because its all pseudo celebrity bullshit.
The one good thing I can say from American VA market is that its not nearly as awful as Japan, there Seiyuus are celebrities that elevate budgets to astronomical numbers (example: compare an animator salary to a VA salary).
I agree that good VA work can elevate a game or a character like in Legacy of Kain in the case of games or Duke Nukem for a character but mediocre VA and bad VA tends to be forgotten and mocked, so why bother including it?

JP voice actors might be overpaid, but at least they have talented female voice actors, unlike the west.

Is she even good anymore? I know Grey Delisle's gotten lazy and started recycling voices and limiting her range, wouldn't be surprised if the same went for Tara Strong.

BS. They just gotta sound "sexy" and go "UWAAAAAH?!" a lot.
Japan sucks with VAs. They also never age up their voices to match characters growing older, which is why we have an old-ass lady using the same screechy, high-pitched voice for Gohan, Goten, and Goku, regardless of their ages.

you fucking bigot the very climate of video games means she's forced to do work for violent video games or literally starve, she doesn't have the luxury of choice!

Why do you like indecipherable nasally screeching so much?
How do you even distinguish one shrill chirp from another?

Troy Baker can do an alright job when he's playing somebody other than Troy Baker as Troy Baker. But he's been so overused to the point where not even a master at the craft could successfully cover themselves up now.

The VA industry is in desperate need of some new blood.

Bloated budgets to an insane degree, released a bunch of faggots with inflated egos out onto the world because they're 'famous' for acting in videogames, essentially destroyed roleplaying in RPGs.

Essentially it's an immense waste of resources, especially since most videogame dialogue can be summed up with 'Go here and kill 'x' or bring back 'y'.'

But, it is used well in some videogames that would undoubtedly be worse off for it.

That's what happens when you get older though. The strain on your vocal cords when doing some voices can get painful. It's part of why Hamill doesn't do certain voices.

I think I can count on one hand the number of female roles I've been impressed with in Western vidya and English vidya dubs, and basically none of the big names are worth a damn. It's pretty disgraceful.

They do in actually good series.
Stop watching garbage.

This won't happen for a while, because it's all people hiring their VA friends and "that guy who sounded really cool in [Game]. Let's get him to do that same voice for this character." I understand that audition processes are long and tiring, and it makes sense wanting to work with people you already know are professional, but it devalues your art when you use the same twelve people for everything, and only one or two of them has any meaningful range.

Name 'em.
I like how you avoid talking about how terrible Japanese female VAs are, too. You can count on one hand the number of female roles you've been impressed by in the West, but I can only think of one Japanese female VA I actually like: Romi Park. And even then, she doesn't have much range.

Also:

THIS. VOICE ACTING IS RARELY NEEDED OUTSIDE THE DEV TEAM. Supplementary evidence enclosed.

I think something to keep in mind with all these great memorable 90s voice acting examples is they were heavily modulated and the general recording quality was a lot worse, which masked any bad voice acting.
Modern voice acting doesn't have either advantage, so all the voices just sound like normal people dolled up instead of senile old men/demonic monsters/gallant heroes.

Examples?

Compare Guile's sonic boom in the SF2 snes port to what he sounds like in Hyper.

Since even amiga had better sound than snes do you think that maybe that was because of limited tech and not bad voice acting?

When guile yells out "Sonic boom!" in the snes or original arcade port, the poor audio quality masks the fact that it's being delivered by someone who sounds like they stopped developing at age tewlve.

while what I said was a bit of hyperbole. my point still stands.

das a sexy voice

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Alucard from SotN is the one that always impacted me the most. The sound artefacting gave him a really stoic and sombre tone.

To clarify, sound recording probably wasn't a good term, since it's a combination of that, the hardware, and compression methods.

It always amazes me how those celebs can buckle under the "pressure" of a couple of hundreds of anonymous tweets. Of people they will never see in person. He would be fine if he just turned off twitter for a couple of days.

Ali Hillis. She did a fine job on the first ME but after that she started to use that "sexy voice" for most of her roles (Liara in ME2 and 3, that pink hair bitch in Final Fantasy)

god damn it

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Pagan Min tho

Nanoha. StrikerS was shit for other reasons, but Yukari Tamura did age up her voice fairly well.
They're not. Even overrated meme VAs like KanaHana have had a few good roles, which is more than I can say for the western equivalent.

Going through Trails of Cold Steel and I want to stick rusty metal pipes into my ears after listening to her hack job as Millium, granted it feels like Millium was written specifically for her with how lolsorandumb she is.

Jojo does it with Joseph?

There is a finite amount of money that a developer has to work with. Every dollar spent on a voice actor is a dollar less spent on making the gameplay good, and adds a cooling effect to writing because there's a much higher cost associated with writing additional dialogue in a voiced vs unvoiced game.

Iron Man had a memorable soundtrack

Fuck man, I'm just getting in to Trails in the Starry Sky and looking forward to the rest of them and now I have to be victimised by her lack of talent + nepotism in the next cycle? Fuck shit ass.

Nah man, he's just knows his stuff. A practical man.

They're still good games, but every minute you're forced to be with Millium drags the games she is in down a bit. I usually just end up turning the volume down whenever she's onscreen.

Johnny yung bosch is best VA

All of them

You fucking retard

Rayman 2 did it the best.

Say what you will about them being overused, but Nolan North and Troy Baker are most certainly not bad VAs by any measure.

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Your argument would be stronger if you didn't back it with a one-note example.

inb4 Wakamoto. Try to understand that companies hire on Wakamoto to do one voice, every damn time, much to my continued disappointment. Catch his early work, before he essentially became a hammy satire of himself/his Dracula role. His range is insane.

As a taster idea of "range," the following two characters are voiced by the same seiyuu.

For another taste, again—all the same seiyuu.

Hell, Takayama Izumi has some definite scale and strength, since she's been a part of several vocal promotional groups, including DoCo (for Ranma 1/2) and Two-Mix (famed for Gundam Wing's voiced tracks).

I only play ascii games programmed in ancient sanskrit by a monk

Voice actors are superfluous and they bring in even more Hollywood celebrity shit to game dev. Many as are insufferable sjws too like the Hollywood actors they want to be.