I think most of us have by now heard by now that the Gaming Industry has surpassed the Movie Industry in turnover. A venerable feat to be sure, but what brought this about, and what has it brought?
If you want to believe the game developers and distributers it has to do with the fact that gaming is much more accepted as a part of modern culture. It's not just a waste of time or an albatross around the neck of teenagers. Gaming is not as looked down on anymore. While this might be true, does the developers and distributers act upon this aknowledgement of their work and skill? There are things that point in the opposite direction.
Just recently the third installment in the Gothic series was released. It was preceeded by Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, a game embraced by many, but also shot down by fans of the earlier installments, claiming it to be less then complete and too hurt by the Touch of the Console to be enjoyable; that it has been over-simplified to suit the needs of the console gamers. Many gave up hope on the Oblivion forums and stated that all they could do was for Gothic 3 to make it right.
It didn't.
While superior to Oblivion in many ways, the developers where forced to release so early that the game was close to unplayable without a patch that was put out for download a few days after the release. Other faults are obvious, such as memory leaks, the lack of many features promised as the game was developed, and close to no female characters (basically because there had been no time to record the voice work). I could with ease go on about several other titles that got released too early, and thus sunk from a possible Game of the Year to "meh...".
Developers are cutting corners and sacrificing things to meet artificial deadlines, and one of the things most commonly cut back on is Voice Acting (Hey, I finaly get to my point). While some games contain excellent voice acting (Like Vampire: Bloodlines), they are few and far between. As far as strategy games go, the most recent would be Dawn of War. I dare anyone to say the Orcz voices are bad :D
Yes, there are examples of well done acting. But, there are also many cases of horrible acting, where you get the feeling that the developers just pulled some bozos of the street outside the studio, or made the voices themselves. That's the worst case scenario. Another which isn't as bad, but still bad enough is when the actors appear oblivious to what kind of situation the lines they read are supposed to appear in. In both cases the final product becomes laughable, and if the goal wasn't exactly to make a parody, this hurts the final experience. I recently picked up Neverwinter Nights 2, in which this problem becomes apparent. There are many scenes where what one character says in no way corresponds to what another says. You get a highly artificial feeling that hurts the storytelling experience.
Bloodlines proved that there are in fact talented actors out there, willing to do voice for games. If the gaming industry really wants to be taken seriously, they have to be serious too. Better actors and better directors is what's needed. If they settle for less than the believable they insult their customers. We wouldn't stand for parodically bad acting in movies if it isn't supposed to be a parody, or buy the record of an artist who can't sing. If they want to continue to grow, and have gaming be accepted as a cultural experience on the same level as movies and music, this is the least they have to do. |
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Peter 'Dectilon' Burman
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