Voice Acting

Quality voice acting in Videogames needs only two things in order to work. The first is a fantastic narrative and the second is believable characters, especially at least one you can emotionally connect with. The rest is simply down to decent voice actors.

The three games that I think have the best voice acting has to be... I would say, Uncharted Drakes Fortune, Metal Gear Solid 2 and.... Half -Life. Definitely those three.

Uncharted Drakes Fortune (and I presume Uncharted 2) has literally blockbuster quality dialogue and voice acting. Everything about it is just completely incredible, from the way that every syllable just completely conveys all of the emotion, all of the empathy all of the sadness all of the joy that each character feels... and of course the Banter! From Drake and Sully firing witty quips regarding a "Tasty Little Barmaid" to the way Drake anxiously chants "No, No No!" when a grenade gets just that little bit too close to his person. Genius. It's just fantastic, and really raises the bar for videogame voice acting, proving that famous celebrities do not a good voice actor make.

Metal Gear Solid 2 may not seem like a good choice, but do you seriously think YOU could say half of the dialogue without just wetting yourself laughing, or killing yourself? Personally I honour the voice actors in Metal Gear Solid because they just ARE the characters. Their voices just match their appearances perfectly.

Half Life 2. It's the same as Uncharted. A bit stale at points, I would certainly agree, but apart from that slight niggle... well come on. Think about it. It's certainly as cinematic as the game around it!

Uncharted Drakes Fortune 2: Among Thieves

Regular readers will no doubt be aware of my undying love for Naughty Dog’s PS3 debut “Uncharted Drakes Fortune”. It is, in my opinion, one of the greatest games ever made. It’s cinematic, punchy, exciting. It’s quite simply one of the masterpieces of this generation.

 

So imagine my surprise when I saw this beauty:

Coupled with the screenshot at the start of the post… Hell. This is a no brainer. It’s going to be good let’s face it. It’ll be the same controls as the first one, a similar storyline with a completely unexpected ending and it’s gonna be a whole lot prettier. I can’t wait!

The Treasure Of El Dorado

Now here's a GOOD game. A game that breaks the boundaries between a game that could have been released on the PS2 and a game that can be noted as "Truly next gen" - Original Dungeon Keeper.

The stories incredible (I never saw the ending coming, not even from a mile off), the gameplays terrific and it's a decent length too. I completed it in under 8 hours which for a me is a good length. I'm hopeless at completing games, and it's only in recent years I've been able to complete practically all the games I buy purely because there so short.

So yea, I'm playing through it again taking advantage of the unlockables and trying to get all those delicious trophies!

Uncharted

I love this game. I was on it last night for a few hours and have got completely back into it. It's well good. I'm not finished it yet, I'm up to chapter 14 or something, but It's incredible. Stories enigmatic, the graphics are far more superior than many other games and the controls are perfect. Brilliant game, 10/10 brilliance. Buy it. Now.

Now That's Realism

I got Playstation Official Magazine the other day. It came with a free Demo disc as per usual, and before discarding it (It's had the same demos on the disc for a few months now), my girlfriend had a look. 

I'm one of those really lucky people who happen to have a girlfriend who shares the same hobby as you, and in our case we both adore games. Together, we've finished Half Life and a few others and regularly compete on Team Fortress 2. So, as she glanced over the list of games and I pottered around the room she came out with this.

"There all the same though, aren't they?"

Bemused by this statement, I asked "What do you mean?". She replied "There all too realistic. Whatever happened to... Sly Racoon! And original Spyro games! Games these days, especially for PS3 and Xbox are too realistic." 

She's right of course. Most modern day developers are determined to create the most realistic of experience they sometimes go as far to forget to check if the game is actually fun. I agree that Call Of Duty is a masterpiece, Metal Gear Solid 4 is amazing and Crysis is a good laugh but there all very realistic. 

In the mainstream, I believe there's four different types of games lining the shelves. The "Brutal Shooter" in which a man with lions for arms charges through a desolate war torn landscape killing everything in his path and eating them (Avec Gears of War), The "Crybaby Shooter" in which a group of hardened men go to a desolate war torn landscape to die and kill many MANY people (Most realistic, and Call Of Duty 4), The "Inbetweener", this is normally the same as the other two but with a sense of humour or a stupid 

story (Metal Gear Solid 4). Finally, we have the "Everything else". These are the games that normally deserve our attention more than the rest. 

Personal opinion of course.

And what did happen to Sly Raccoon? I'll tell you. There making this promising looking superhero sandbox game. But like most modern day companies there doing something more adult, just like Naughty Dog did Drakes Fortune and Insomniac did Resistance. 

*sighs*