It’s true, voice actors can make or break a good story in a video game. Story-driven gameplay relies heavily on scripts that give voice actors some content to work with. But as Andy Emery states, sometimes good voice actors can ruin a game because of bad voice directing, or even worse, a bad script.
In a story being run on gameindustry.biz, they have an interview with Andy Emery, an audio specialist who believes that video game scripts are going to need to improve, to take full advantage of the voice actors. As Andy states, "You wouldn't cast Matt Damon as the lead role in a gritty WWII film and then ask him to also play a couple of German soldiers, a French ally and a bartender, whilst keeping all performances naturalistic. Yet these are the compromises continually made for voice acting in games,"
I guess this method works for games like GTA where the dialogue is as cheesy as it is compelling...I guess. Still, Andy points out that a lot of developers compromise the quality of a decent script by under-casting proper voice actors, or sometimes over-casting voice actors for a cruddy script. Either way, Andy states that the industry needs to shape up when it comes to casting good voice actors for bad scripts. In some cases, however, he points out that better voice directors are needed to compensate for the script – even if the script is decent. This is because some voice actors aren’t utilized to their fullest potential and quality story-telling can sometimes suffer due to inexperienced voice directors.
You can read the entire interview at <="" href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=21339">, and get some insight into the voice acting/directing process.
