With the burgeoning video game industry, the growing demand to bring characters to life in games hasturned the voice-acting industry into a much more lucrative one.
Some of the most popular video game characters are memorable simply because they had a talented voice actor behind him, e.g.Mark Hamill’s Joker in the Arkham series.
But not all games can be blessed with the legendary voices ofTroy Baker,Nolan North, or evenMatt Mercer. In fact, some of them have voice acting so bad, the only way to get through them is to laugh.
Whether it’s melodramatic and cringey delivery or the obvious fact that the voice actors are inexperienced,terrible voice acting in video games can also make them endearing,cementing these games in the cultural zeitgeist, but maybe for unintended reasons.
Troy Baker Will Be in the Next Naughty Dog Game
Little is known about the next game from the studio behind The Last of Us.
Don’t Call Him “Little Light”
Every once in a while, some AAA games will invite an A-list Hollywood actor to voice act in their games. Ranging from thestacked cast of DishonoredtoMegan Fox’s NitaraMortal Kombat 1, results often vary.
No disrespect to Peter Dinklage; he’s a talented actor with a long list of credits, as he is best known for his role asTyrion Lannister inGame of Thrones.
But perhaps his acting chops aresaved best for the screen, as his performance as the Guardian’s Ghost in the originalDestinyleft a lot to be desired. Even I, aDestinyveteran, can’t exactly excuse this level of nonchalance.
Dinklage’s Ghost,affectionately named “Dinklebot” by the Destiny community,might not have been his best work,but he was well-loved by the community for his deadpan delivery.
Unfortunately, Dinklebot didn’t last long, asNolan North later replaced him as the voice of Ghost in 2015,during The Taken King, one of the franchise’s most beloved expansions.
He will be missed, but I’m glad that Nolan North brought much more life and personality into our bright companion, for better or worse.
9Devil May Cry
The Time Has Come, And So Have I
Devil May Cry
Yes, theDevil May Cryfranchisehas always been known foritscorny voice linesthat match its over-the-top action,but that has never stopped it from being one of the most beloved CAPCOM properties of all time.
But before Reuben Langdon’s tenure as the gun-toting son of Sparda, Dante had an edgy, brooding voice in the first twoDevil May Crygames.
The first one was cheesy because it was still figuring out its identity, as it was a failed attempt to createResident Evil 4. The plot and acting were rather mediocre, but thegameplaywas revolutionary,practically inventing the hack-and-slash genre.
And as a sign that it’s a classic,Devil May Cryhas an unintentionally funny moment cemented into the hall of fame of Internet memes.
That moment was meant to be an emotional cap to Dante’s emotional journey of overcoming his grief,but veers into melodramawhen the sad music conflicts with Dantehitting puberty for the second time, with Dante’s grief-stricken scream ending with anembarrassing voice crack, echoing into the distance.
8Resident Evil
When The Residents Are Evil
Resident Evil
Because of how young the video game industry still was during the 90s, we couldprobably give older video games a pass for having terrible voice acting, especially if they later grow to become amazing franchises.
Still, it’s fun to laugh at the ridiculouscontrast between laughably low-quality voice acting and a horror gamelike the originalResident Evil.
One of themost ridiculed dialoguesinResident Evilis a scene when Albert Wesker, one of the franchise’s major villains, reveals the Tyrant super-bioweapon to awe Chris Redfield. Instead, Chris laughs, andyou can hear Wesker’s voice quiver like he’s genuinely hurt.
Wouldn’t it be really funny ifthe rumored remakehad the same level of terrible voice acting?
7Rogue Warrior
Should Wash His Mouth With Soap
Rogue Warrior
Originally intended to be an open-world game a la Spec Ops,Rogue Warrioris based on the eponymous autobiography ofDick Marcinko, the first commanding officer of the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six.
However, due to the game beingstuck in multiple cycles of development hell, the studio behind it released what would become one of the worst games of all time.
Never mind the awful level design or gratuitous violence. Michael Rourke’s performance–if you may call it that–was nothing short ofa deluge of obscenities that would make a sailor sound like a nun in comparison.
But to some, thisbrazen display of violent and awful machismo is endearing to a niche population,reminiscent of the likes of Duke Nukem, Serious Sam, or even the Postal Dude.
6Heavy Rain
Press X To Shaun
Heavy Rain
Despite having anemotionally driven storyabout a father overcoming his grief and saving his remaining son,Heavy Rainsuffered not just from awkward character animation and incessant quick-time events,but hilariously awful voice acting from the entire cast.
While many moments warrant a spotlight, like the cast’s inability to agree on how to pronounce “origami” or the inconsistent “American” accents, the one that takes the cake is a glitch that causesEthan toyell Shaun’s name nonstop during a dramatic cutscene,completely undercutting any tension in the drama.
Despite theirtechnologically impressive graphics and interactive storytelling, David Cage’s games arethe types you either love or hate, as they are often infamous for their awkward voice work and stilted dialogue (andhollow political neutrality), andHeavyRainis one of the most infamous examples of that.
Thankfully,Detroit: Become Humanbreaks that pattern bybecoming a widely-loved game, with Brian Dechart as the lovable Connor.
5Chaos Wars
Who Hired These Voice Actors?
Chaos Wars
Besides being a decently playable game,Chaos Warsdoesn’t really offer a lot to write home about.That is, unless you get a real kick out ofawful voice acting in the cutscenes.
Thedeadpan, soulless delivery juxtaposed with the intense music and dramatic tensionmakes this game so much more ridiculous.
It’s hard to takeChaos Warsseriously when the voice acting sounds like a middle school drama class where the students are forced to read Romeo and Juliet, and they hate every second of it.
According toa Reddit userwho claimed to be an uncredited translator for the game,they only had three days to translate the dialogueand barely had any contextual clues to figure out the nuances and names of the characters. I guess that explains the haphazardly written dialogue.
Like A School Play Gone Wrong
As a sports game,NBA 2K15excels in the way that it immerses the player into the world of basketball, allowing them to put themselves on the roster of an elite basketball team.
As far as voice acting goes: it’s awful, simply becausethe named basketballers are all voiced by the athletes themselves,who make it apparent that they havezero experience in any kind of acting, let alone voice acting.
Theirline deliveries are so devoid of enthusiasm or lifethat you can only assume they cared enough to do only one take before leaving the recording booth.
If you want to make a decent game, here’s a pro tip:hire professional voice actors.While the goal of NBA 2K15’s MyCareer mode was to immerse the player into the story of a basketball team, the lack of professional voice acting makes playing the story mode an unintentionally hilarious experience.
10 Terrible Spinoffs From Incredible Gaming Franchises
Games like Mortal Kombat: Special Forces and Metal Gear Survive don’t put on the best showings for their franchises.
3Dynasty Warriors 3
Don’t Mispronounce Chinese Names Challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
Dynasty Warriors 3
The main appeal behind theDynasty Warriorsfranchise, including its respective spinoffs, is the power fantasy of mowing down thousands of mobs in front of you, creating a tornado of bodies with devastating strikes. It is thanks to this franchise thatthe “Musou” genre was born.
WhatDynasty Warriorsis not known for is its voice acting, especially its English dubs, and no, we’re not going to get into thesub vs. dub argument.
But for many English speakers, Chinese names are tough to pronounce, andDynasty Warriors 3exemplifies that with itstragic display of butchered pronunciations of character names like Zhuge Liang.
To make the cutscenes even more hilarious, the awfulness of the voice acting comes from the fact that some of the actors do too much, making their lines sound cartoonishly goofy.
When Translations Go Horribly Wrong
Many Japanese games have exceptionally terrible English voice acting, most likely due todifficulties surrounding localization and translation.
If you’re multilingual, you might understand the difficulty of accuratelyconveying meaning from one language to another without drastically changing the wording.
Shenmueis one of the most infamous examples of terrible video games. While gamers have mixed opinions on itsrevolutionary combatyet tediously immersive mechanics,Shenmue’sinfamy lies in its terrible voice acting.
Shenmue’sterrible voice acting and localization can be summarized witha single line in the game: “Years ago… I was Chinese.”
Of course, this meant that Itoi came from China and immigrated to Japan, but the unintentionally hilarious mistranslation made it sound even sillier than the implication that being born Chinese automatically grants him knowledge of certain things.
1The Legend Of Zelda: The Wand Of Gamelon
The Source Of YouTube’s Oldest Memes
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
If you were lucky enough to be inthe early days of YouTube,you might rememberYouTube Poops, a subgenre of remixed videos that often cemented themselves as part of theInternet culture of yore.Anybody who’s watched a YouTube Poop willremember theLegend of ZeldaCD-i games.
While these sidescrolling games were impressive for their time,they were most widely known in Internet culture for their off-putting animations and memeable lines,like “You must DIE,” “Gee, it sure is boring around here,” or most iconic of them all, “My boy.”
These lines are so oddly voice-acted that they’re genuinely hilarious and fun to listen to, and if you were present during the “Golden Age” of YouTube, then the nostalgia hits even harder.
Maybe the CD-i story is the reason why modern Link doesn’t speak.
12 Bad Games In Amazing Franchises
There are usually a few major flops among all our favorite franchises. So here are some not-so-great titles from otherwise amazing gaming series.
