Voice vs no voice

[m0ds]

Putting briefly the Replay Game stuff aside, I think the most interesting notion I've heard lately is this "voice pack" vs voices in your head kind of appreciation. Some people like voice packs and characters, some people prefer designing the voices of characters in their head. So where do you feel voice acting is appropriate, what is okay with you for the text to be on its own and you decide who sounds like what? I don't know. I feel it's a kind of unexplored territory of adventure games, because we've all played a talkie yet we've all no doubt played one that didn't require it. Comments? Thanks

[Igor Hardy]

Voice wins.

[Armageddon]

Voice does win. But I did rather enjoy the voices in my head when playing the original Journey Down.

[Jaffles]

Personally, I think voice acting can be a double edged sword. Done well, it can only enhance the player's experience, especially in a genre such as Adventure Games, where you're trying to create a world in which someone can become immersed. But done poorly, and well... you get something like this... (HOW DARE YOU DISTURB MY FAMILY VACATION! GWAAAAAAARG!!) (perhaps an extreme example). I'd say it's easier to get good voiceover work in lighthearted, more cartoony games (provided the voices aren't annoying, that is) than more serious games where the immersion can be broken more easily. But overall, there's really no middle ground with voice acting: If you're going to do it, do it well, otherwise don't waste the time and effort.

[monkey0506]

I think I generally prefer voice, but it couldn't hurt to put it in the user's hands. That's one thing that AGS makes very easy. In fact, if they don't want the voice pack, you could even offer it as a separate download (that is, the game without the speech.vox).

I agree with what Jaffles said.

[Ali]

I agree that good voice acting is good, and bad voice acting is really, really bad. We had to play The Whispered World with the voice switched off because the player character's English voice was unbearable.

I wonder if that may be more common with German/Non-English-Language games, because there isn't such strong directorial control over the English voice acting. Or is TWW still awful Auf Deutsch?

I just found a clip of my favourite worst voice: the Scottish/Irish farmer from Return to Zork. The actor is so awful it makes me wonder if he just worked in the office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o1z1Q0K4tY

[cat]

TWW is awesome in German (I just didn't like the ending, it almost ruined the whole game for me)

[Igor Hardy]

I wonder if that may be more common with German/Non-English-Language games, because there isn't such strong directorial control over the English voice acting. Or is TWW still awful Auf Deutsch?

TWW is very decent Auf Deutsch. The Germans tend to dub almost everything into their own language (most video games and movies), and their experience shows. I'm actually quite attached to German versions of Broken Sword 1 and Syberia (especially the great voices of Nico and Kate).

[Ali]

TWW is awesome in German (I just didn't like the ending, it almost ruined the whole game for me)

I only meant the voices were awful in English, most of the game was lovely. The illusion of choice in the end was annoying, but I liked what they were trying to do with the ending.

[EchosofNezhyt]

In light of the thread I'm replying in a stupid piratey voice thing!


http://snd.sc/OORaMh

[CaptainD]

What Jaffles said, really.  It can make or break a game (but if you at least have the option to turn voices off, I guess that kind of solves the problem).

A weird addendum to this is in something like The Silver Lining - on the whole I enjoyed the voice acting, but the narrator voice drove me round the bend.  Fortunately by episode 2 you had the option to turn that off if you wanted. 

[Anian]

What Jaffles said, really.  It can make or break a game (but if you at least have the option to turn voices off, I guess that kind of solves the problem).

A weird addendum to this is in something like The Silver Lining - on the whole I enjoyed the voice acting, but the narrator voice drove me round the bend.  Fortunately by episode 2 you had the option to turn that off if you wanted. 

+1, have the option to turn off the voices.
Personally, I always feel like the game is on mute when there are no voices, but I agree that sometimes they can be annoying when not done right.

[Babar]

Aside from what people have already said how badly done voice acting REALLY REALLY ruins a game, to make it worse than no voice acting at all, there is also the point where if you're making a remake or a sequel or a reimagining, people probably already have an opinion on how that person would sound in their head, or even if they don't, they have an idea that "This sounds totally wrong", so you'd have to be careful to not ruin that (especially if you are not the original creator of the character).

[LimpingFish]

Al.
Emmo.

...

Yeah.

I also agree with TWW's English lead being unbearable.

Regardless of quality, though, I usually click past voices if I'm reading ahead of them.

EDIT: As a side question, if there are no voices, do people prefer dialog that silently appears on screen, or dialog that's accompanied by an audio cue (such as the beeping trill heard in 16-bit JRPGs)?

[mkennedy]

Personally I prefer not to have the voice acting, Mainly because I am quite a miser with my hard drive space and feel that digitized voice over inflates a games size, though I have nothing against making them available as a separate download. However if you do have digitized voice then you must also have an option to display captions. That was a major problem with the games "return to zork" and Myst. If you were a deaf player the games could be unwinable since some of the puzzles were dependent on sound.

[Crimson Wizard]

Heh. I hate how they dub the voices in russian localizations. Those so called "professional actors" seem to not pay any attention neither for the context nor to the character, and prefer to read everything in such manner that sounds like they are reading a fairy tale book for kids in kindergarden. Sometimes makes me laugh, but usually bores to hell. Hence I prefer to play english versions of the games when possible.
I remember only one game I played back in 90-ies which actually had better voice-over in russian than in original english. But.... that localization was made by pirates! oh, the irony

On topic. Well, what can I say, except for obvious? If the acting is good I vote for the voice. Otherwise better not. I remember I disabled voice in Laura Bow 2 because some of the actors just pissed me off (sounded too much off-character).
Regarding giving your own voice to characters. That's the same problem as when making a movie based on a novel - if you read a book before you will always be dissapointed a bit because some characters are not like you imagined. On other hand, if your imagination has a right to give character a voice, why game creator's shouldn't? And how can one say that it is their imagination that has higher priority on doing that? I suppose it is rather a matter of getting used to something.
Subtitles is a must have regardless of anything. Even if your game is translated to hungred languages there are still people who prefer to listen to original acting and check text when they do not understand something. I do .

[Nix]

Surely the BEST voice acting ever goes to Eric Idle in the Discworld series? Discworld would have lost some of its amazing humour without the hilarious comments in Idle's accent. Amazing. You've just got to make sure you get the right voice, otherwise it's just going to be annoying. We have to voice a ten year old girl as one of our main characters, I'm dreading trying to get that right!

[CaptainD]

I think a perfect example of the RIGHT voices are TellTale's Sam & Max - all the voices are great, but the lead duo are absolutely perfect.

On the other hand, the English versions of Secret Files had some pretty bad voice acting.

Ceville had some really fun voice work.

[Babar]

Are they different voice actors than who did the original Sam & Max?

[FamousAdventurer77]

One thing I liked about the old games was that I could imagine how the voices sounded in my head. As VO became expected, I found that I liked it better if I could click through dialog I found grating (I don't like not being able to click through text I already read.)

It can really add a whole new dimension to a game, but can take away from it if not cast well.