The best part is that 2K probably paid a fortune to schedule in so many NBA players and the end result arguably should've been scrapped entirely.

@AlphaFlight

9 ай бұрын

Basketball players are all stupid. They really talk like that and probably couldn't read a script

@Vox-Multis

9 ай бұрын

If not scrapped, at least competently directed. The result that was produced is an embarrassment to the NBA players and an insult to the audience.

"Castlevania has bad voice acting" *proceeds to show an Oscar worthy performance that actually sounds insane*

@garrettchandler1948

10 ай бұрын

People act like it's bad but it's actually really good.

@felman87

10 ай бұрын

That version of Symphony actually had the voices redone. The PSP got a remake of Rondo of Blood and Symphony, complete with new voice overs, was included as a bonus.

@memandylov

10 ай бұрын

Maybe this is a hot take, but I would not call that an Oscar worthy performance. He has a nice voice, but the flow of speech is kinda awkward and unnatural. It's not so bad that it's cringey and uncomfortable to listen to like many of the other examples but it isn't peak performance either

@MiyaoMeow588

10 ай бұрын

Oscar worthy is a huge exaggeration but it sounded clearly better than the rest of this video

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

Castlevania sucks ass 💀

I hear nothing wrong with Slippy's VA performance.

When good voice actors sound weird its usually the directors fault

You forgot Oblivion's "Wait a minute. Let me try that again".

@GabbyPlaysGames02

3 ай бұрын

That’s on the editor, not the VA. The voice actors make mistakes all the time, that’s why there’s different takes. And usually you’re supposed to edit those out. But this is Oblivion we’re talking about.

With Kingdom Hearts, it's usually more the writing being weird and awkward than the voice acting being bad

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

Bit of both. Sucky writing and bad actors

The WHATAMIFIGHTINGFOOOOOORRR!!!??? scene still gets me over 20 years later. I think that game literally had Japanese people doing the voice acting though...in English. Listen to the Mega Man 8 cutscenes and well...damn.

@sharpfalcon6196

10 ай бұрын

Mega Man 8 had unintentional dialogue flubs in its animated scenes, and they were left in. Both had American ex-patriates in the cast, except for the voice of Roll (in Mega Man 8) and Iris (in Mega Man X4), who was Australian.

Slippy definitely isn’t bad voice acting. I think it totally fits the character and the somewhat childish/annoying voice is intentional

@GrampaSheevie

9 ай бұрын

Slippy is 100% perfect

@Macop

9 ай бұрын

That’s what I thought too. Slippys voice fit the character, and most lines were decently made. I personally wouldn’t classify Slippys voice acting as bad.

A lot of early 90’s games had bad voice acting due to the actors getting little to no context of the scene or character. They were basically just given the script and told to read the lines.

@jonothanthrace1530

9 ай бұрын

Even more just used random staff members to perform the voices instead of paying extra people.

@Vox-Multis

9 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, this still does happen from time to time.

@NetBattler

9 ай бұрын

Say that to policenauts and MegaMan battle network on DS

@DeadPixel1105

5 ай бұрын

Nah, that's not the entire truth. That's only a half-truth. In most situations, the voice actors should have been intelligent enough to assume the sort of emotion they should be going for based on the script they're reading. For example, it's obvious if their character is in a dangerous, life-threatening situation based on the script. If their character is shocked, surprised, sad, angry, etc it should be pretty obvious based on the script they are reading. So yeah, it IS the fault of the voice actor too. The reason for horrible 90s voice acting is due to the fact that video games weren't a mainstream industry like they are now. Voice actors for games didn't get any sort of respect or recognition. They got very little pay. And many in the entertainment industry viewed working on video games to be 'beneath them'. Doing voice work in video games was seen as the work of failed, washed up actors and actresses who can't get work anywhere else. It was VERY DIFFERENT from how video game voice actors are treated nowadays. So, back in the 90s, video game voice actors simply had no incentive to work hard or be passionate. It was a quick and easy pay check to them. They didn't give a shit about the game or giving a good performance. The opposite from modern video game voice actors.

The Oblivion dialogue is so disjointed because they gave the voice actors their lines in alphabetical order, so they didn't really know the context of anything they were saying.

I still love the oblivion one where you can hear the voice actress say:"wait let me do that again", my main issue with bad voice acting if the voice just doesnt sound like the person youre seeing 😂

@DeadPixel1105

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, that's jarring. There's been times when playing games when a black NPC character had a voice actor that was clearly white; and the other way around, a nerdy white character but the voice actor sounds like a big black dude lol

Yakuza 1 for the PS2 had a bad translation that affected the acting but had great actors like Mark Hamill on board.

@OldSch00lGaMER32X

10 ай бұрын

Mark Hamill didn't do too bad as Majima. But everybody else though.. yeah they were bad

@MikeJr9284

10 ай бұрын

​@@OldSch00lGaMER32XMichael Rosenbaum was pretty decent as Nishiki too.

Shemues terrible voice acting is part of its charm, the game will always have a deep place in my heart and childhood

@drizzledrizz

9 ай бұрын

I don't think they were that bad. The main cast is pretty good They definitely got better in the second one. Except for joy...

Man oblivion's voice acting was spot on, the games behavior was just clunky and unnatural a few times. Real actors and great line delivery.

@BlueEyedVibeChecker

6 ай бұрын

Bugs, bugs everywhere, wonderful tasty bugs. No time for you, speak to Ravel. He doesn't like the bugs, not even with mead.

Shenmue's dub was produced entirely in Japan with whoever was available. The Monkey Ball announcer said it was "all hands on deck" for all English language voiceover personnel he knew.

@SupercatTheBazingalinga

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, they literally got any Japanese person who could speak English. I think they even went for people who looked like the characters in game

@YS420X

9 ай бұрын

Incredible how iconic it turned out. I'm not a big gamer but I'll always remember Shenmue. Particularly for the voice acting 😂

@labelnine

7 ай бұрын

Japanese voices are so much better in shenmue

You should've included Spiderman 2.. Doc Ock: "I'm taking this old lady." Spiderman: "no."

@-Teague-

8 ай бұрын

The voice acting on those games is hilarious. Toby Maguire sounds like he is just so fully done with it in every line 😂

@virtualbison6928

8 ай бұрын

@@-Teague- he sounds like poe reacting to the fact that somehow palpatine returned

@-Teague-

8 ай бұрын

@@virtualbison6928 LOL

I think there are like 3 or 4 entries on this list that used the same English voice actors living in Japan in the 90s. I think Konami and Sega regularly used some of the same people (who weren't always credited because they were almost treated like movie extras at the time).

@SaiyanGamer95

3 ай бұрын

I remember coming across an interview with one of the voice actors from the original Resident Evil. Pablo (the original voice of Wesker) said there wasn't a director on set to guide the VAs on how the characters were supposed to sound. And the VAs were only given summaries of their respective characters' personalities and traits.

Sometimes really really bad writing and direction can destroy a good voice actor. There exist amazing voice actors that are given lines or direction in a scenario that are just terrible.

I had this video on for background noise and physically had to stop what I was doing when you said Jared “weird for the sake of weird” Leto was the best Joker like Heath Ledger never existed. That was a very hot take.

I feel like the voice acting wasn't the problem sometimes, rather it was the clunky animations games had back then. The characters would barely even move while the actors were doing the most exaggerated voices ever.

@-Teague-

8 ай бұрын

Or the opposite, lol. In resident evil the characters would do like 10 poses between every voice line

A lot of Halo creators have been trying to expand, but I really appreciate the direction you took. A lot of them thought to pursue other specific shooters but I prefer more arcade-like games rather than competitive games. You guys took to expand your direction to multiple games rather than go a different direction like specifically Call of Duty and I enjoy and appreciate them a ton.

You keep on lovin' Slippy, bud. Stay strong.

I'd have to disagree about the voice acting in the Saints Row reboot supposedly being bad. It's not the voice actors, it's the writing. The VAs did a fine job.

@swinelias

9 ай бұрын

True

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

Both sucked. I dont get why people dont just admit that their favourite games have bad voice acting

@swinelias

9 ай бұрын

​@@noodlepotrealI think you're missing the point here. The game was bad, and maybe the dialogue wasn't good, but it was mostly the writing than the VA's. Trust me, I know some of the Voice actors of this game that played other roles, and they're pretty good. Of course if you don't understand what I'm saying or still disagree, then I'll leave it you, nothing more.

@dominicstclairstudios6324

9 ай бұрын

Right is always the writing

Only true Shenmue fans will understand the perfection of Ryo's voice.

@Queron81

8 ай бұрын

I see...

Honestly, out of every bad voice acting he listed in his video, I still think the NBA 2K15 is the worst one overall

What about Legend of Dragoon’s voice acting? Despite it being a good game in terms of gameplay, story, graphics, soundtrack and characters, the voice acting is some of the worst I’ve experienced in this game. When Rose said, “Oh it cannot be!” When she found out that her ex fiancee was alive as well as Dart discovering that his dad was alive, I started laughing because of how bad that line delivery was.

2:15 No excuse. Metal Gear Solid was also in the 90's and also by Japan and that voice acting was IMPECCABLE

@SoCalJellybean

9 ай бұрын

Exactly what I was thinking! By Konami as well!

11:06 as a head of the shenmue communities i can confirm our cult following is still real strong decades later! Thank you for talking about Shenmue! Awesome video as always!

@garrettchandler1948

10 ай бұрын

I always thought the voice acting worked in shenmue it sounds like an old dubbed kung-fu movie.

@andrewamp1

10 ай бұрын

Been a fan of shenmue since it came out, I hope they give it a proper conclusion.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is a great game but it has some pretty bad voice acting in it, which is interesting because that wasn’t the case in the first game. It’s almost like they had budget cuts so programmers became voice actors too.

You really missed the best audio clip from House of the Dead 2. It happens right after you leave the church in the first level. Victim: "Nooo, Ahhh..... I Don't Want To Die." P1: My God.

@s.bakyhnh1756

Ай бұрын

"DON'T КILL ME!"

Some of the best and memorable voice acting was in Legacy of Kain series. Especially Soul Reaver.

@mattb6522

9 ай бұрын

I agree. I suppose it helped that they had veteran voice actors like Tony Jay and Michael Bell.

@JaneDoe-rj4jn

9 ай бұрын

Yesss!! It was the first game that had voiceovers, where the acting drew me into the games story lines!

Slippy sounds like how someone with that name ought to.

Hunt down the freeman had "The aliens are coming" from Pyrocynical

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

Best voice acted line in all gaming history

Put some respect on Slippy's name he was awesome. Edit: I see you're a man of culture, my mistake.

they've definitely gotten better with video game voice acting. I got in the running for the PlayStation exclusive Kena Bridge of Spirits as the instructor she runs into that teaches her how to use her powers in the game. I made it to the final round of picks, but I was beat out by someone who had WAY more experience than me lol. Probably for the best, but I do get to say I was in the running lmao!

@nignamedmutt7270

9 ай бұрын

Plot twist: they just told everyone who auditioned they were "runner ups" I mean... did they actually set up a bracket and have you all compete in person, over the course of multiple rounds? It's possible(and would disprove the first sentence here), but holy shit that sounds like an unnecessary waste of time when they could just have each audition try a few times and pick the one they want.

@-Teague-

8 ай бұрын

​@@nignamedmutt7270Why did you feel the need to analyze this comment so deeply? They included so little detail but you extrapolated so much from it...

I know next to nothing about Megaman, but that Megaman 8 performance is such a classic. I quote the "thats a good kwestion" occasionally

How do you accuse Kingdom Hearts of bad voice acting among the side characters, use a scene from 358/2 with only the main characters and stellar emotional performance, a fine enough scene from 2 where kid characters act like kids, yet don't bring up Aerith from 2? Like Kingdom Hearts has some very bad voice acting in it, but you somehow only chose good moments?

@benraven9087

10 ай бұрын

I couldn't believe how bad Aerith was in that game. Mandy Moore did perfectly fine in KH1, but then they decided to get the same actress from Advent Children for some reason. I have heard unpaid amateurs that could do a performance miles better than that trash.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn are both incredible games with equally incredible cutscenes with animation that holds up to this day, but the English voice acting sounds like they gave the VAs a vague description of what Fire Emblem is and then they phoned it in with no attention to character or context. It's so bad.

The voice acting for the NBA game sounds EXACTLY like when my teachers in school called on a random person to read a passage from the book out loud. That's the voice of someone that doesn't know the content and is only focused on saying the words. There's no tonal variation, no emotion, no regard for the natural flow of speech, just words being read one after the other. This is why you can't just pluck someone off the street, hand them a script, and expect them to be able to perform well without coaching and a lot of practice. Voice acting is about so much more than just saying the words you see. I'm not a voice actor but I can get a good idea of what a line was intended to sound like from the context of a game and within a scene, and it's incredibly jarring when the voice actor completely misses the mark. I feel like a lot of voice acting flops would be helped by having more communication between the script writers and the performers. Nobody knows how a line was intended to sound better than the people that wrote the line in the first place, and I feel like there should be a lot more of writers stepping in and saying hey man, that's not quite what I was intending for this scene, can we try it again? Some of these people need some tough love. We need a Gordon Ramsay for the voice acting world to step in and tell people what they're doing wrong and how to fix it so awful voice acting doesn't take away from otherwise great games

Ring terror realms on the deamcast. There's a cutscene at the start where a concerned neighbour rushes over to the scene of an accident that is glorious. Then pretty much anything from Blue Stinger.

The saddest part of Slippy in Starfox 64 is that the compression algorithms used to store the voice files played the actress DIRTY. If you listen to the uncompressed voice linea from the Nintendo Leak, she did an amazing job. In fact they all did.

Shenmue with good voice acting would make the game worse.

@coreycasciano3255

10 ай бұрын

Exactly 👌

Sloppy was my favorite too. Autocorrect changed that from Slippy and I’m keeping it.

good video but slippy is not annoying! yeah his voice acting is a bit weird in sf64 but the VA they gave him in sf assault is really good!

"Sometimes my vision goes black. And I can't see anything. Help me." 😆

Bad writing =/= bad voice acting. At least half the examples here are just bad writing or bad pacing, rather than actual bad voice acting.

No excuse to not include Animal Soccer World. So many other KZread videos have ranked it the worst. I was literally waiting to hear your take on it!

@WickedParanoid

9 ай бұрын

I'd say they actually have an excuse, what with Dingo Pictures being pretty low budget and all. Now, AAA studios TRULY have no excuses.

>Castlevania has bad voice acting >Shows the PSP remaster voices and passes them off as the original games’ voices

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

Castlevania does have bad voice acting though, why cant people admit that good games have bad voice acting?

@IvanDubsK7

9 ай бұрын

@@noodlepotreal Even if SOTN has “bad” voice acting, the original performances are charmingly bad. The ones Rocket Sloth showed are the updated ones which aren’t the worst but lack the charm of the original in my opinion I just don’t like how he framed them as the original voices when they’re not

this was the first time I've seen a clip of the saint's row reboot where the player character wasn't an inhuman monstrosity or Shrek or something.

Hey! That duck noise at 7:50 is the same one DonutOperator uses to censor out the sound of arms being fired!

House of the Dead 2, with the "How could anyone do this?" 2 times, in the first couple of minutes, really set the tone, for how bad the voice acting was going to be

@s.bakyhnh1756

Ай бұрын

"What's wrong with this city?"

@AJZ0626

Ай бұрын

@@s.bakyhnh1756 "How Could anyone do this?"

I read the title as most voice acting in video games lol

oblivion is the gift that keep on giving.

Slippy is an icon

@kawanbruh

10 ай бұрын

true that

i thought RAD was a fever dream i had as a kid. i have been searching for years to find and replay it THANK YOU!

19:42 don't worry, we got used to that like 20 years ago. Also it's funny how you mentioned Megaman 8 and X4 but forgot about X7. I thought it would be your first pick, since X7 was so well received.

Shenmue 1 2 and 3 are a great game franchise and are fun to play but yeah the voice acting was kinda bad

@coreycasciano3255

10 ай бұрын

Its part of the games charm, will always have a special place in my heart

@johnballentine6638

10 ай бұрын

@@coreycasciano3255 same my dad played it in middle and high school and then passed it down to me

D4 only having one chapter is a crime. I wish Swery couldve finished it.

@tornekotaloon9732

10 ай бұрын

Also, you need to check out the original PS2 release of Castle Shikigami 2. Bad VA Hall of Fame material there.

@coreycasciano3255

10 ай бұрын

D4 was so fucking good, i will never forgive Swery for deciding to abandon another chapter to then make that pile of shit Deadly Premonition 2, also has one of the best theme songs ive ever heard in a game, its so fucking good

@tornekotaloon9732

10 ай бұрын

@@coreycasciano3255 Oh yeah, I won't deny I did enjoy some of Deadly Premonition 2 but it was still a major disappointment in my eyes and I would have much rather he had finished D4. And yes, the D4 theme is one of my favorites, it's very good!

I like the topic but it would be better if the video had a bit more structure, e.g. having the first half dedicated to the best of voice acting and the second half to the worst. Also looking at the games in chronological order would help to show how voice acting evolved and make it feel less chaotic and all over the place. I appreciate the effort that went into this video though and just think that improving on these points would really help take it to the next level.

What is the song from 22:08 to 24:45 (And I mean the particular remix I know the base song is Life Will Change)

That NBA one is like that scene from Rocky 2 where he tries to do the advert.

I’d take more Slippy VO over the voice acting of NBA 2K15

“I’m me he says” iconic just iconic

Playing Two Worlds after looking into it being called the “Oblivion Killer” definitely gave a shock. I knew it didn’t kill Oblivion, but still 😭

Gaps between dialogue lines can also make the delivery seem worse than it is.

It's been 21 years since I first played Kingdom Hearts and I don't think I have ever heard one of the cutscenes from the games and thought that anyone had bad voice acting in it. Maybe it's just me but idk about that example.

So the version they showed of SOTN was not the original version. Now SOTN is one of my favorite games ever...but oh god the voice acting. Also fun fact, the original PS1 release voice actor for Richter Belmont is the same as Chris Redfield for PS1.

@SHADOMEGA7569

10 ай бұрын

i keep forgetting RE1 had 2 casts for the characters. i was thinking Scott McCulloch was his live action actor for a second there.

Funny thing about Chaos Wars. None of the people providing voices were professionals in any sense of the word. They were all comprised of staff, as well as friends and family of said staff. The game was published by 0-3 Entertainment and it was released in 2006, with it being their last game before shutting down. And considering when it released (The Great Recession), it's likely the decision to use friends, family, and staff was because the studio had no money to hire professionals. And if you want to see BAD in that game? Look at Tonaty's cutscene.

21:07 I believe that sound is from the PSP port. Richter's voice is deeper in the PS1 version (I own both).

Some of these arent really bad Voice acting, just weird writing

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

Just admit your favourite games have bad acting, most of us are able to admit that

@Cthulhu1991

9 ай бұрын

@noodlepotreal Just admit that not everything people say is Cringe, except for you

@noodlepotreal

9 ай бұрын

@@Cthulhu1991 ? Butthurt over hearing the truth? Silly goose

@BlueEyedVibeChecker

6 ай бұрын

Wrong. It's more along the lines of bad direction, as opposed to writing. Take Sonic Adventure for example, the direction is whack, but the things they're saying and the context therein makes perfect sense despite that.

The NBA voice acting sounds drunk.

I remember my first time playing Oblivion. It was in a hot garage, and I overheated, lmao.

Wow I'm insane I was like "why does this guy sound familiar" and then realized you're the guy with the animal crossing videos LOL

black ops 3 campaign was the first thing that came to my head

Brisco from Michigan: Report From Hell. That is all.

Megan Fox in Mortal Kombat is a hate crime against my ears.

ROBOT ALCHEMIC DRIVE! I PLAYED THE DEMO OF THAT GAME SO MANY TIMES! I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR IT FOR SO LONG THANK YOU FOR FINDING IT!

Horizon Zero Dawn had a weird thing going on where about half of the cutscenes had at least one line that made me go "So that's the take you went with?"

One thing that many early games with voice acting samples didn't understand is the importance of foley. Without it, voice acting sounds really bad and cringey. There's also at least one modern game that completely lacks foley in its cutscenes. It's considered one of the worst games ever made.

The SOTN clips are from a redub Konami did for the PSP, this version being the one in Requiem for PS4. It's not bad at all, you're thinking of the original dub from the PS1 version (not that the PSP performances are fantastic or anything).

Bushido Blade 2, I remember having pretty bad voice acting.

6:17 That's where the "YOU MUST DIE!" meme came from... Naw, the KH voicing acting was fine in each game that had it. Yes there were some cringe voice moments, but they were quickly overshadowed if the player enjoys them. 30:47 lmao! My good chap, how could you not add the terrible voice acting for Megaman when you showed Megaman 4 and the terrible voice acting for Zero and Axel for Megaman 7?

Most of the Voice Acting in Persona 3 is great, but there are some characters that just don’t sound natural, I thought maybe it would be in the list but it’s not terribly bad, just not great

Heavy Rain's voice acting MADE ME LAUGH so hard

Bro, you can't insult "Jill Sandwich" like that! It's a perfect line beloved by RE fans old and new. Even to the point it kept getting referenced in future RE games.

@GarthTheDestroyer

9 ай бұрын

It's really powerful, especially against living things!

The castlevania voice clip is not as i remembered way back when i played it on psx, i think im having a mandela effect haha

This has to be the best video on this topic yet. It's long enough, covers plenty of examples both popular and deep cuts, and ofc goes right ahead with NBA2k15 with is imo the pinnacle of bad videogame voice acting altogether.

7:52 those stock duck noises crack me up

Chaos Wars (PS2) makes 2K sound like it was done by professional thespians.

I'm glad you included Chaos Wars, it is hands down the worst dub in the game industry. Fun fact: the horrendous voice acting was because the guy in charge of the dub invited his family members and friends to do the voices. If I remember correctly, he didn't even have the budget to hire actual voice actors.

you mention the voice acting in dw3 but didnt feature "feel the power of my maggggiccccc" line

Wasn't the entire voice cast of Chaos Wars various friends and family members? XD

24:15 satirize. "Satiricalize" is not a word.

We're meeting G over there.

that gta london voice acting is the absolute best thing ive ever seen

30:17 What the heck is a SEGA CS2?!

@noneofyourbusiness4616

9 ай бұрын

It's the name of the game development studio which created the game. They skimmed the start of the Wikipedia article on the game so fast they didn't make sure they understood what they were copying and pasting, and didn't have the knowledge of game systems to know there was no such console.

@juliannocartagena2007

9 ай бұрын

@@noneofyourbusiness4616 Oh. I see.

This list needs to be updated to include Yong Yea's voicework in the new Yakuza game.

Heavy Rain was the first game to actually have your choices matter as well, with many different endings. Ethan, Madison, and Scott have the best acting in them, if not some stilted lines due to gameplay. But the Oragamy, instead of Origami and my personal issue Idear instead of Idea, meaning most of the bad voice acting is just actors from the uk not having a great grasp on how to say certain words is why there are bad moments (I assume Sean being bad, since he’s not just speaking a new accent, but is a kid doing it). And Resident Evil’s is due to translation, the time, and lack of context. The Japanese subtitles in their version has much more context last in the original tracks. But it was one of the first, so people should give it a bit of a pass. I know the game ObsCure (2): The Aftermath has some crappy voice acting, minus Amy’s and Mei’s voice actresses, where as the original ObsCure just didn’t have tons of voice dialogue for them to make a big impact, but was saved by veteran actors in some early roles.

@sakuraorihime3374

9 ай бұрын

For the heavy rain, you mean in the style we have in western cinematic story games, right? Cuz different choices lead to different endings has been a thing in all types of RPGs and visual novels whole thing since the 90s o3o The OG text based adventure story games were also basically that too, their whole thing is making choices and seeing what happens o3o

@adamsmoberly

9 ай бұрын

@@sakuraorihime3374 Yeah, I should have said in games that are like this, because I did forget RPGs do that. More in the movie like games, like Until Dawn, Heavy Rain, those types of games (pick your own adventure games like TaleTell games too). Horror games like Resident Evil 3, ObsCure, and most notably, Silent Hill had done them too, prior to Heavy Rain. I just forgot. Most people say Until Dawn started the multiple endings in these movie like games, dissing Life Is Strange and Walking Dead games, but Heavy Rain had multiple endings before any of those games came out.

The British GTA guys kind of sound like Dankpods testing out bad mics.

resident evil voice acting lives in my mind all the time. I often think "A dining room"