Voice Talent Loves & Hates

[Orococco]

Evetta Muradasilova, who is the Maiden in Black in Demon's and the Doll in Bloodborne. I could listen to her read the FT

[Thor]

38 minutes ago, Rayn said:

I've always adored the sheer madness of Mark Hamills 'Joker' in the Arkham games. 

Yep, Mark Hamill's joker is the absolute best. 

 

As for bad ones Morena Baccarin in Destiny 2 is pretty bad, "it's got me ... Aaaagghh" laughably bad. But then we have a newcomer, Brit Baron, who puts in a great performance as Ada-1 (also Tifa in FF VII remake).

 

The most disappointing one for me is Pierce Brosnan in the otherwise excellent Everything or Nothing. He really did not want to be in that game. 

 

On the flip side, Patrick Stewart gives his all no matter the material. Castlevania Lords of Shadow on the 360/PS3 has some of the worst writing I've come across in a game, but Stewart as the game's narrator turns it into pure gold.

 

Brandon Keener as Garrus in the Mass Effect games is one of my favourites, he's a bit stiff in the first game, but in 2 and 3 he's fantastic. Just a brilliant character brought perfectly to life by a solid, honest performance. D.C. Douglas, better known to most of you as Wesker, is also fucking great as Legion in Mass Effect 2 and 3. And while I'm on the subject of Mass Effect, Tricia Helfer is brilliant as the AI, EDI.

 

Laura Bailay has decent range. Fetch in InFamous Second Son, the somewhat controversial Nadine Ross in Uncharted 4, MJ in Spider-Man (PS4), and Abby in Last of Us 2.

 

 

[Rayn]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

 

 

On the flip side, Patrick Stewart gives his all no matter the material.

 

 

 

Patrick Stewart was the main reason I double dipped on Lands of Lore in the mid 90s. I first bought the floppy version which was text only, then I found out there was a fully voiced CD-ROM version with Patrick Stewart as one of the main voices. It made a 9/10 game into a perfect 10. 

[Alan Stock]

All the voice acting is Souls is great actually. I would love to sit in on those recording sessions watching every actor have a mental breakdown.

 

Ashly Birch who plays Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, and Chloe in Life is Strange is a voice acting legend who has been in millions of other games too.

 

Another one who hasn't been mentioned yet is the guy who plays Yangus in Dragons Quest 8, by a bloke called Ricky Grover, innit, who does the best Cockney accent ever in a game (combined with some great writing). He carried the whole game for me.

[Not Thread Owner]

53 minutes ago, Rayn said:

 

On that note, Melissanthi Mahut who did Kassandra in Assassins Creed Odyssey deserves a mention, as I thought she was even better! 

She was also great as Athena in Fenyx Rising. Actually, the casts of both games (as they’re the same cast!) are pretty great in general.

[Dudley]

35 minutes ago, teddymeow said:

 

Ah, Natascha McElhone was cast as Cortana in the TV series but has been replaced by Jen Taylor.

 

Side note but it's a hell of a punchline to the infamous "TV! SPORT! TV! SPORT!" Xbox One reveal that they announced new Halo, it was a TV Series and now their NEXT console is out and the TV series still isn't.

[fat flatulent git]

Was never that grabbed by Jennifer Hale - found her voice very forgettable.

 

Liked Bayek and Kassandra very much.

 

There are loads of great ones in Yakuza, but my favourite is Bazooka Yamadera, who is Akiyama.  He has a very impressive voice acting CV.

 

Worst is probably the western voices in the first Tenchu game.

[Nick R]

Not many point-and-click adventures have been mentioned yet! There's a lot of dialogue in those, and it's important that the main characters are voiced well enough to avoid becoming annoying.

 

Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island games, and Tony Plana as Manny in Grim Fandango are the most obvious ones.

 

Also, I played the first Discworld game before I read any of the books, and it took a long time before I stopped imagining Carrot with Rob Brydon's voice, and Rincewind as Eric Idle!

[Benny]

 

 

Spoiler

Mark Hamill voices at least four different characters. All superb of course.

 

[DeciderVT]

Loves

 

Jeff Kramer as Francis York Morgan (Deadly Premonition)

Corey Marshall as Ryo Hazuki (Shenmue)

Ashly Burch as Chloe Price (Life is Strange)

Rhianna DeVries as Chloe Price (Before the Storm)

Liam O'Brien as Grimoire Weiss (Nier)

Courtney Ford as Piper Wright (Fallout 4)

Cam Clarke in anything (loved him since The Tick)

 

Nails down blackboard

 

Katy Townsend as Cait (Fallout 4)

[moosegrinder]

Liam O'Brien in Nier sounds like Troy Baker doing his Pagan Min voice.

[Cheyenne]

I want to give all the props to the collective scenery chewing that is the Asura's Wrath voice cast. Notably Imari Williams who gives just the right amount of flamboyant relish to Augus.

[b00dles]

The bloke that does the cockney accent for the player in saints row 3 is bloody hilarious. 

Tony plana as manny in grim fandango is one of my favourite performances in anything. 

Mark hamill in anything

Michael ironside in splinter cell

Garrus. Just Garrus. 

[wretcherd]

This is a love and hate all in one, it's amazing and nails-on-a-chalkboard.

 

"Majima is so powerful it looks like he's voicing the human" 

[Wiper]

I've a huge soft spot for Bill Farmer, who has a few fantastic roles as a gumshoe detective - Sam in the original Sam & Max, Makoto Date in the Yakuza series - but also plays a huge range of minor characters across all sorts of genres, and in more general VO work is best known as the voice of Goofy since the late 80s (in cartoon series, films and, yes, Kingdom Hearts). He's pretty versatile!

[Soulstar]

3 hours ago, moosegrinder said:

I have a soft spot for most of the voice actors in Destiny 2 but that's because most of them are "actor actors". The guy who plays Saladfingers also does Reaper in Overwatch and I do like his gravelly rumble. (Google edit: Keith Ferguson).

 

Whos Keith Ferguson? David Firth is the guy behind Salad Fingers. 

[Benny]

Nails on a chalkboard:

 

everything in Kingdom Hearts

[moosegrinder]

1 minute ago, Soulstar said:

 

Whos Keith Ferguson? David Firth is the guy behind Salad Fingers. 

When I IMDb'd him that's what it said. I couldn't see any other. I shall adjust accordingly.

[PK]

James McCaffrey in Max Payne 2 delivers the perfect amount of melodrama. I loved his Russian mate as well

[wretcherd]

4 minutes ago, Soulstar said:

Whos Keith Ferguson? David Firth is the guy behind Salad Fingers. 

Saladfingers is what cool people call Lord Saladin from Destiny, he doesn't literally mean the rusty spoon lover who is indeed David Firth.

[Soulstar]

Im just going off what I read. Never played any of it before.

[moosegrinder]

Fucksake, I'm a penis. Yeah I mean Lord Saladin. I forgot there actually would be people who haven't played Destiny. Sorry.

[Captain Kelsten]

Nolan North. He’s very versatile but he often gets called in to basically play himself. 
 

Troy Baker. He’s in too much, he’s a cocky, arrogant prick but goddamn, he’s a fine voice actor. 
 

Matthew Mercer. He has a few staples he draws from too often, but he’s very versatile and can do pretty much anything. 
 

Laura Bailey. She’s the neon chick from Infamous Second Son, she’s Jaina in World of Warcraft, Nadine in Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy, she’s Abby in Last of Us 2, she’s versatile as hell. 
 

Simon Templeman as Kain in the Legacy of Kain series. Iconic and ever so memorable. 
 

 

 

[Fletch]

Ellen McLain was ace as Glados, even through a vocoder the delivery was perfect. 

 

John Cleese in Fable 3 was annoying as hell. 

[teddymeow]

Akio Ōtsuka is brilliant as the Japanese voice of Solid Snake.

 

[JoeK]

5 hours ago, Gabe said:

I hate, properly hate, Witcher guy (Doug something?)

 

He's been awful in nearly everything I've heard him in - flat, monotone delivery with no real range. He's terrible. 

 

Mark Meer really came into his own with Mass Effect 2 & 3, I really liked him. 

 

But Witcher guy sucks. 

 

Disclaimer: I've yet to play more than 20 minutes of Witcher 3, so perhaps he knocks it out of the park. But I doubt it. 

 

This just in: 

 

History's Greatest Monster revealed as Witcher-hating forumite!

 

More news as we get it...

 

 

[superfunk]

4 hours ago, jonamok said:

Not denying his voice talent, but I’d read he turned out to be a bit of a right-wing arsehole with some dodgy Parler posts.

 

I’m denying his voice talent - well his Clone Wars voices anyway. He tries to do impersonations of English accents (for Kenobi and Darth Maul) and fails at both.

[Floshenbarnical]

Can't stand Jen Hale or Claudia Black, although I was indeed a Femshep player through and through. Mark Meer delivered his lines like he was made of oak.

 

Huge David Hayter fanboy, and I think that's one of the reasons I never finished MGSV. That, and it feels like Ubisoft made a MGS game.

 

I really like Cherami Leigh as V in Cyberpunk. I tried playing a male V for 5 minutes and he just sounded like he'd been listening to too much Linkin Park.

 

I think we can all agree that Keith David's best performance was as the dad in There's Something About Mary

 

HOW IN THE HELL'D YOU GET THE BEANS ABOVE THE FRANK???

[JoeK]

The voiceover work in the Yakuza games is absolutely wonderful. Most of the time I find japanese vocal work pretty awful to my decadent western ears, but there’s some sort of lyrical majesty going on in these games where everyone hams it up so mich it becomes something beautiful. 

[Dudley]

7 hours ago, Nick R said:

Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island games

 

And this one was a poisoned chalice because the voiced Monkey Island came along years after we'd all played the first 2 games so he's competing against a lot of head canon.

 

5 hours ago, Doctor Shark said:

Laura Bailey. She’s the neon chick from Infamous Second Son, she’s Jaina in World of Warcraft, Nadine in Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy, she’s Abby in Last of Us 2, she’s versatile as hell. 

 

 

She's the only correct choice in Saint's Row.