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Old 08-29-2008, 06:46 PM   #1
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Default How about some better actors?

I mean, if the Adventure Company needs somebody to act for them, I'm sure I could do a lot better job than these people they find to act in their games. The two recent games I played were NiBiRu and Keepsake - both had horrible acting. Before that I played Scratches - so boring I quit before finishing. Before that game I played Dead Reefs, and once again, it had horrible acting. Still Life... horrible acting....

... not that I care too much, I mean, bad acting won't ruin a game for me. But it sure would spice things up a bit and perhaps give their games better ratings if they found some good, or at least decent, actors!
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Old 08-29-2008, 06:52 PM   #2
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When I first played Jack Keane, and the female lead was introduced, I was amused to hear "Nancy Drew" playing the part.
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Old 08-29-2008, 08:40 PM   #3
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You think Still Life was bad? or Scratches? (In regards to Scratches I think you got more bored with the story.) I am with you 100%! I dare you to check out The Lost Crown. I realize that The Lost Crown was a one-man production and it is a very well-executed one in many respects but I really think the poorly done voice acting really takes away from what should have been a top-notch adventure release in '08.

When you think about a lot of these companies really don't have the budget to get great actors in to perform these voice overs. And with that, a great actor may not always do the best voice overs either. I really wish some of these publishers would throw down some REAL money on a title and really see how far they could push the adventure genre.
  • (Heavy Rain is really the only hope we have to keep the adventure genre fresh ATM.)

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Old 08-29-2008, 10:33 PM   #4
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"Bad voice-acting" and "Still Life" do not fit in the same sentence. The game had the best acting i've ever heard. If you guys wanna hear totally unspeakably horrible voice-acting, play Al Emmo and the lost duchman's mine, Legacy: Dark Shadows, or Next Life.
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Old 08-30-2008, 02:18 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by MoonBird View Post
"Bad voice-acting" and "Still Life" do not fit in the same sentence. The game had the best acting i've ever heard. If you guys wanna hear totally unspeakably horrible voice-acting, play Al Emmo and the lost duchman's mine, Legacy: Dark Shadows, or Next Life.
You can not tell me you thought the female lead in Still Life did a good job with the acting. I admit, some of the roles did a decent to good job, but the lead role was not good at all. I know there is worse, but it was still bad. If that's the best you've heard, then I think you proved my point.

I thought Still Life was bad only in that regard and the fact that it had a crappy ending. Otherwise, it's a pretty good adventure game.

I'm currently playing Secret Files and the acting in that one is a step up from the previous games I've played. The lead character has a cute voice... well, she sounds cute.
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Old 08-30-2008, 02:33 AM   #6
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I wish the approach used in The Longest Journey would be more common in adventure games. First hire actors that fit the characters. Then cooperate with the actors to write/record dialogue that fits both the actor and the character. There is a couple of problems with that though.

First, it requires more time, so it's more expensive... but it does add a lot to the quality of the game, so I think the cost can be justified even with a low budget.

Second, and more important, is that a lot of adventures these days are released in another language first, then English second. The games then become a lot like dubbed movies, and no matter how good the actors are they don't quite fit the lines and the character. It becomes good enough to work sometimes, but for most games I've played recently where this is an issue, I think I would have preferred to have the original voice acting with subtitles.
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Old 08-30-2008, 02:43 AM   #7
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I agree, and I think it would be nice to see FMV make a resurgence. In other words, I think that CGI is limited no matter how good the voice actors are.
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Old 08-30-2008, 03:10 AM   #8
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I thought Still Life was bad only in that regard and the fact that it had a crappy ending. Otherwise, it's a pretty good adventure game.
Yes, it really was good game. Perhaps the only annoying thing about it was the lacking of hot spot names. I still think Victoria was good (Of course, I'm from Finland, so I don't speak native english. But at least the dialogue in the game was entertaining and graphics nice )
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Old 08-30-2008, 04:46 AM   #9
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I wish the approach used in The Longest Journey would be more common in adventure games. First hire actors that fit the characters. Then cooperate with the actors to write/record dialogue that fits both the actor and the character.
I don't think the dialogues were written after the actors were hired if that's what you mean. Unless you mean changing small details while recording.

Anyway, I believe that big part in having good voice acting is to have a good voice director who knows how each line is supposed to sound like and knows how to make the actor understand that. It's possible that most of the time having a good director is more important than having a good voice actor.
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Old 08-30-2008, 05:03 AM   #10
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I don't think the dialogues were written after the actors were hired if that's what you mean. Unless you mean changing small details while recording.
I based what I said on this part of an interview with Ragnar Tørnquist:

Quote:
A great thing with Dreamfall, and much more in TLJ, is the freedom the actors have. Being able to go off script. Andrew Donnelly who voiced him is a stand up comedian. I told him, go wild with this. The way I did the casting was to write sample dialogue for all the characters, and then I cast it. I only had the sample dialogue. Most of the dialogue for TLJ was written in a frenzy during the night. I stayed for two or three weeks in New York, and I did the writing at night until 3 or 4 in the morning. Then I went to bed, then printed it out on the crappy printer I bought, and then I’d hand them the new script pages. So the game was there, but it lacked all the dialogue. Therefore it was also very open to being able to go off script. I also knew what their voices were like. So for example with Crow, my favourite character, I think only five lines of dialogue had been written when I cast the guy. He [Roger Raines] was brilliant, just what I wanted, and the way he read it shaped how Crow’s dialogue was written. So it was written for him. And the same with Burns Flipper. It was written for that guy. Some of the outtakes are the best ones there – things I had to cut unfortunately.
Taken from this interview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008...ngest-journey/
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Old 08-30-2008, 06:14 AM   #11
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Frogware need to up their 'game' in the voice acting department imo. Some of the supporting cast in the sherlock holmes games and also dracula origin were simply atrocious.
 
Old 08-30-2008, 07:03 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik View Post
I based what I said on this part of an interview with Ragnar Tørnquist:

Quote:
A great thing with Dreamfall, and much more in TLJ, is the freedom the actors have. Being able to go off script. Andrew Donnelly who voiced him is a stand up comedian. I told him, go wild with this. The way I did the casting was to write sample dialogue for all the characters, and then I cast it. I only had the sample dialogue. Most of the dialogue for TLJ was written in a frenzy during the night. I stayed for two or three weeks in New York, and I did the writing at night until 3 or 4 in the morning. Then I went to bed, then printed it out on the crappy printer I bought, and then I’d hand them the new script pages. So the game was there, but it lacked all the dialogue. Therefore it was also very open to being able to go off script. I also knew what their voices were like. So for example with Crow, my favourite character, I think only five lines of dialogue had been written when I cast the guy. He [Roger Raines] was brilliant, just what I wanted, and the way he read it shaped how Crow’s dialogue was written. So it was written for him. And the same with Burns Flipper. It was written for that guy. Some of the outtakes are the best ones there – things I had to cut unfortunately.


Taken from this interview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/08/19/ragnar-tørnquist-on-the-longest-journey/
Well...I didn't know that. But still what he describes is for special kind of characters who provide comic relief and have to incorporate jokes and improvisations to their dialogues. I don't think this is the right way to go about when creating a game in general. Good dialogue usually doesn't come through improvisation. Comedy on the other hand maybe, but the actor still needs to have a good well thought out script to work with.
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Old 08-30-2008, 07:15 AM   #13
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Well...I didn't know that. But still what he describes is for special kind of characters who provide comic relief and have to incorporate jokes and improvisations to their dialogues. I don't think this is the right way to go about when creating a game in general. Good dialogue usually doesn't come through improvisation. Comedy on the other hand maybe, but the actor still needs to have a good well thought out script to work with.
Those two characters were mentioned as an example because the actors had more influence on the dialogue than what is usual. I'm not saying that the voice actors should improvise, and come up with most of the dialogue. Just that you hire actors to get in character and act, not just read lines. There are plenty of good actors out there that don't come with Hollywood fees. The TLJ example where the dialogue was written after the rest of the game was finished is an extreme example, but still. There should be enough flexibility to give an actor some influence on what his or her character should say, or the lines will sound stale or out of place at times.
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Old 08-30-2008, 07:48 AM   #14
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It's funny I never notice the bad acting, the only time a notice a voice in a game is if it's James Wood I love his sexy voice, makes my knees go all wibbly wobbly.
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Old 08-30-2008, 08:28 AM   #15
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Bad acting and bad writing tend to go hand-in-hand in these games. Maybe if the calibre of the writing improved, the acting would follow suit. It doesn't do to have good acting dragged down by bad writing, and visa versa.
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Old 08-30-2008, 10:08 AM   #16
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I'm not saying that the voice actors should improvise, and come up with most of the dialogue. Just that you hire actors to get in character and act, not just read lines. There are plenty of good actors out there that don't come with Hollywood fees. The TLJ example where the dialogue was written after the rest of the game was finished is an extreme example, but still. There should be enough flexibility to give an actor some influence on what his or her character should say, or the lines will sound stale or out of place at times.

Yeah...that's exactly why I said that having a good voice director is more important than having pro quality voice actors. The director should have a feel of each dialogue line in context with the game and accordingly guide the voice actor or give more freedom to get the best result.
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Old 08-30-2008, 08:00 PM   #17
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The main culprit is definitely the poor writing/poor voice direction. A lot of writers can't emulate real life dialogue, natural dialogue, especially if localization is from one language to the other. English is usually butchered and that's why there always seems to be very long, drawn out and awkward speaking parts in some of these games.

Overclocked had pretty bad voice acting and a lot of the time it's really hard to sit there and listen to the characters speak. One game I'm pleasantly surprised with is Dracula 3: Path of the Dragon. For a somewhat unknown title to the majority (I had just recently decided to check the series out) some of the voice actors in this game did a phenomenal job. Also, the new Perry Rhodan title is quite good.

I really really hope Heavy Rain will motivate a lot of these developers, whether big or small in their numbers, and really push the genre because this is one genre I don't want to fade away.
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Old 08-30-2008, 08:34 PM   #18
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Luckily, adventure games seem to be on the rise (more high profile titles being made and all).

As for voice actors, one weird thing is Simon 4 getting an "american" localization. I think that is pretty unique (and a waste of money) for any game genre.

As Indigo said, voice direction is important. I used to live in a german-speaking country, and the company that did the german work on the Simpsons made a lot of effort to make sure that the American jokes got translated appropriately (or changed to something similar that would make sense to Germans). Funnily, I found that tv shows got good translations, but movies often got really horrible ones.
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Old 08-31-2008, 02:59 AM   #19
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I'm currently playing Secret Files and the acting in that one is a step up from the previous games I've played. The lead character has a cute voice... well, she sounds cute.
For me personally, i found the acting in that game cringe-worthy and was a big step down from Still Life. But that's just my opinion. I much prefer the voice acting in Still Life than Secret Files. Especially for the female lead. Nina just annoyed the hell outta me.

I have to say, that the majority of these newer adventure games just don't really appeal to me, and one of those reasons is because the voice acting tends to suck. The only recent adventure game(s) i've played that have had decent voice acting are the new Sam & Max games. The only adventure game i have faith in at the moment, when it comes to the voice acting, is A Vampyre Story because it's being done by ex-LucasArts employees. The voice acting was/is always top-notch in the old LucasArts games and there was no exception with the Sam & Max games either. So fingers crossed...
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Old 08-31-2008, 07:04 AM   #20
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As long as the writing is good, you can always play without the voices on. Remember some of the best adventures ever released had no voices. I think of adventure games like playing an interactive novel sometimes - voices are just like the graphics - not important if the game is any good. But I agree good voices can really help set the atmosphere and suck you in more. I really liked the voice work in Broken Sword 1..Dreamfall wasn't too bad either iirc..can't think of any others atm
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