Following on from my previous talk about stories in video games being up to par with other forms of media I must also ask why people generally don’t tend to celebrate the wide range of voice talent that the game industry has created over the years. Just recently I started another playthrough of Iratus: Lord of the Dead and one of the highlights for the title has always been the excellent performance by Stephan Weyte in the role of Iratus who really brings across an evil necromancer in his work extremely well by channelling incredible energy, bringing across a cackling demeanour and providing fun to listen to evil monologues.
Now I know what you’re thinking, games are well known for their notoriously bad voice acting especially during their early years and that is indeed true. Back in the day it was more of a priority to get the gameplay correct rather than anything to do with the story and as such if there was indeed voice acting present it was usually an afterthought and wa sused more as a bridging element to get to the next gameplay segment rather than anything to be taken seriously. Nowadays however gaming has evolved as an art form and there are plenty of games where the actual gameplay takes a back seat and the voice acting and story are the main elements that you play the title for, just look at games such as The Stanley Parable and such. Gaming however still hasn’t truly gotten away with this bad voice acting stigma despite plenty of movies also having terrible voice acting but itr seems that once again gaming just seems to be the punching bag of the artistic world.
So I make this post to ask all of you, can you give me examples of your favourite pieces of voice acting within video games? Either whole characters, speeches, or even just moments in the game that had great dialogue will be welcome, let’s celebrate our favourite artistic medium’s accomplishments in the sector of voice acting!
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.