Silent Hill 2's voice acting... (1 Viewer)

[Derrik Draven]

...why oh why, do developers make such a kickass game, spare no expense in scaring the shit outta you, phenomenal graphics, the best real time shadows and light EVER, disturbing and twistedly beautiful sounds...
...and piss poor voice acting.
WHAT'S UP WITH THAT????
Okay, here's my personal view on the characters voice acting:
James Sunderland: The worst voice acting in the game. Whomever did the voice, is so deadpan, with lack of emotion, it made me sit there and cringe sometimes.
The little girl: easily, THE BEST voice acting in the game. For me, she was completely believable. I was impressed with her ability.
Fat Eddie: kinda iffy. Somewhere in the middle ground. Sometimes alright, sometimes too overacted.
Maria: better than Eddie. She left me with an odd feeling of "what's up with this chick". I think that's on purpose? Personally, I think it was more a problem of her having stupid dialogue than an acting problem. She was believable for me.
The woman with the knife: Since I've only seen her twice, I can't really remember much about her except I remember not being too impressed.
But, this is just my opinion. The acting is better than Resident Evil which, has some of THE worst acting; ever. "You, master of lock picking".

Still haven't finished the game yet.
After I get my hometheater room finished, I'm going to put my system back together and play this game again just to REALLY experience it. I'm playing it on a 31" tv with no extra speakers and it's still one disturbing, creepy experience.
...Silent Hill 3, anyone?
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"...better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it". - Slater, True Romance

 

[Morgan Jolley]

From what you say, the acting is somewhat OK if not good. The only person you stated as having bad acting is James (main character, yes, but only one character).
The game isn't exactly at the same status as Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, or Zelda, so I would assume the voice acting would be sub par.

 

[Romier S]

I though the voice actin was well done. There was never point in the game where the voice acting jarred me out of the astmosphere the game setup. Some of it I think was more on the dialogue the actors were meant to speak than the acting itself. All in all though I thought the voice acting was decently high quality.
I have to disagree that SH2 is not in league with the bigger PS2 titles. SH one is pretty much considered to be in the top 25 titles ever to be released on the PS1. SH2 is most definetly a triple A title for the system and I'm sure the voice acting was given allot of care.

 

[Andre F]

"Hope it's not Chris's blood..." Sorry, couldn't help it but that one always cracks me up.
-Andre F
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-= Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape! =-

 

[Morgan Jolley]

"No...don't open..that...door!"
Resident Evil, best game quote ever.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

What do you expect? They use grade-Z actors. leave in the Japanese or sub it. Or better yet, do what Sonic does! Dub&Sub!
Jeff Kleist

 

[Dean DeMass]

"You...the master of unlocking things."
"What is this place?"
"Oh Barry."
Nothing beats the original Resident Evil for voice acting and dialog.
-Dean-
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My HT Equipment
"I've seen you and you are not cool."

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Silent Hill is probably one of the top 15 PSX games, but its still not as big as Final Fantasy or MGS for selling consoles. Many Japanese (and American) gamers bought PS2s for GT3, MGS2, and FFX. Silent Hill 2 just gave gamers even more reasons for them to want PS2s.
Sega did pretty good with the voices for Sonic Adventure but the acting sucked and was not well edited or matched with the game very well. From what I've seen, the SH2 actors fit, and only one person has disliked the acting.

 

[AndyVX]

For a game that everyone in the town must be retarded (for actually sticking around) it kinda suits the game to have retarded voice actors

Great game anyways though... can't wait for Silent Hill 3!
Andrew
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ICQ# - 119869807

 

[Romier S]

I understand what you are saying Morgan but your reasoning for what you assumed is sub-par voice acting doesn't hold any water. You said the game isn't in league with games that like MGS2 so the voice acting was expectedly not good. What does that have to do with the quality of the voice acting? You can't be seriously telling me that Silent Hill 2 isn't a big enough release for the PS2 to warrant good voice acting!??
In that case it must have been an act of god that endowed a game like Sword of the Beserk for the Dreamcast such phenominal voice acting cause it was a damn low key title when released. By your standards this game should have been voiced by the actors who did the original Resident Evil.
The quality of voice acting in a game has nothing to do with how much hype the game has before release. Its all about what kind of care the developers take to insure that thier games have good quality voices (budget notwithstanding). Of course you cant say SH2 wasn't given a decent enough budget either since it is a big release from Konami.
There are a good bit of high quality pretty well known releases that have really crappy voice acting. Take Castlevania Symphony of the night, (one of the greatest games released period!) that game has some of the worst voice acting ever IMHO. Again, I just dont see how your comparison has anything to so with the subject at hand.
I can tell you one of the main reasons that I personally bought my PS2 was for MGS2 and SH2. I think you underestimate how many people were looking forward to this game. I think if you ask a majority of PS2 owners what games they were looking forward to the most when they first bought thier PS2, SH2 would be in the top 5-10.
[Edited last by Romier S on October 03, 2001 at 06:47 PM]
[Edited last by Romier S on October 03, 2001 at 06:48 PM]

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Usually, if a game has good voice acting, the sequel does better. If the game is a bad game or a low-key title, its not expected to have good voice acting. Just because its a low key title doesn't mean bad VA, it just means a lower expectation. SH is a big series now on PSX/PS2. I would have assumed the sequel have good VA, but if it had below par VA, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Even if SH2 was never even made, many people would still have bought PS2s for the games I already listed. Maybe one or two less at launch or throughout time, but still around the same number.
I'm not saying SH2 should have had bad VA, I just wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't as good as the Japanese VA from FFX or the American MGS (which was stellar).
Also, to Jeff (Kleist), putting Japanese voices in a game that takes place in America wouldn't make much sense, especially for an American release. If anything, they should have included both languages and a subtitle option. Including the original Japanese in a game is good, but is not based on the context.

 

[Romier S]

Morgan, Now that you have explained yourself a little better I can understand what you are saying. Your previous post was a bit of a blanket statement which lead to my previous post to you. Thanks for clarifying your statements.
Also, I understand your point of view of SH2 not being a system mover and I can understand that and I will agree that it i not of the status of MGS2 or FFX as a system mover but that does not mean it does not hold the status of those titles in terms of quality and being a AAA big release title for the system (that will further sell people on the PS2). Of course this is my opinion and you are entitled to your own as we all are . (The forum wouldn't be as interesting if we didn't, it wouldn't lead to interesting debates like this)
I think the PS2 sold itself on the merits of the games that were due to be released and of course not what was released. Lord knows a majority of the launch games were very underwhelming (Note majority, not all). I'm glad the sytem is finally coming into its own and I feel the PS2 is finally worth the 300 bucks I paid for it.
[Edited last by Romier S on October 03, 2001 at 09:16 PM]

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The PS2 has more than paid for itself for me by now. If I can spend more money on games for a console than I can for hardware, then it is worth it. I have 6 games, plus I have rented or borrowed many good games that I don't own, plus there are more great games coming out.
SH and SH2 are both AAA titles. Then again, so was Chrono Cross and it didn't sell very well compared to Final Fantasy 8 or Metal Gear Solid. I was just saying that some games might be great but not have as much put into them as they should purely because of how gamers see them.

 

[Tom Oh]

I thought it was pretty good as far as videogames go.