[edited] English writing and voice acting is horrible

[Ultaan aka REEJ]

Is it the same for the German original? Or did the translating/VO people butcher the game?

Edit: tutorial part of the game was particularly crap, and nearly made me uninstall. It does get better from that point, just as some people suggested in this thread.

[Mr. Huckleberry]

The main character is like flat and looks too damn much like Christian Bale.

[Zloth]

The story gets better as the game goes on. The main character almost always sounds like he's ready to rip somebody's lungs out, though.

[Y Ddraig Ddu]

Don't speak or read German but I've heard it's way better.

I don't think the English voice acting is particularly good (especially for the main, who sounds like he's permanently stricken with laryngitis) but it's hardly "bad" by video game standards. The writing is inconsistent but rarely any worse than "vaguely charming," and can be really good (the Margoleth conversation in particular) and sometimes even jaw-droppingly funny (the "suspicious duck" quests on Fog Island!).

[DavidRubes]

Come on, we all know that both Jaffar's writing and voice acting are brilliant. And a big DUH - German voice-over was always better ever since Gothic 1.

[ktmwoodsrider]

Originally posted by SkillMASTA_974:

Come on, we all know that both Jaffar's writing and voice acting are brilliant.

The dialogue and voice acting for Jaffar was as enjoyable as Jar Jar Binks. Both of them should have died in a wood chipper.

[Zloth]

That duck quest was classic! I wish it was longer.

This game's voice acting isn't that terrible. Two Worlds 2, however (language {and acting} NSFW):
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=253929665

And the Witch in ArcadiA... yikes.

[Y Ddraig Ddu]

"I AM LYRICA!!!" (Despite the fact her name is "Lyrca")

But I think the worst voice acting in aRPG history would either go to Divine Divinity or G3: Forsaken Gods.

[Ultaan aka REEJ]

It just makes me wonder, do those developers who are making and testing their game in their native language, have any clue just how awful the English version is.

[DavidRubes]

Originally posted by REEJ aka Zergmar aka SirScumbag:

It just makes me wonder, do those developers who are making and testing their game in their native language, have any clue just how awful the English version is.

Hmm, Piranha Bytes' next game, ELEX - which is an acronym for "eclectic, lavish, exhilarating, xenial", well all the words in this acronym are english - this leads me to believe that they do think about their games being translated into other languages. Heck, think about the word RISEN - another english name for a german made game. BTW, polish voice-overs of the Gothic series are really good if you ask me, so maybe it's only the english versions that are, in your opinion, awful, because I don't see anything wrong with them.

[Elizabello]

There was a particular game i uninstalled after watching one particular character say Dont ♥♥♥♥ with Aria...

[Y Ddraig Ddu]

I thought "I AM OMEGA" was an even worse line, especially considering I think it was a reference to an Asylum movie.....

[Elizabello]

Oh yea...dont remind me pls

[kaay]

Makes youtube video of himself crying bitter tears and saying "Leave Aria alone!" :P
Seriously though, i think you guys are exagerating a bit.
I relate to SkillMASTA_974 here, i saw nothing wrong with any of the above mentioned voice actings, including Divine Divinity and Forsaken Gods.
Maybe because i always have in my mind that these are games, and fantasy RPGs like Divine Divinity and Gothic are very close to fairy tales on top of that.
A "serious" voice acting would have ruined Divine Divinity in my opinion, i liked it very much exactly the way it was.

Playing Gothic 3 again right now and the voice acting is hillarious, many of the lines combined with the character animation really crack me up, but i wouldnt call the voice acting bad...its a game, its not supposed to be all that serious, is it?

I never understood the eternal voice acting complaints in games, i really tried to understand what people are complaining about but i was never able to figure it out.
Even your ME2 examples, i remember the scenes very well and yet im scratching my head trying to understand what was so bad about them....other than they show an over the top almost caricatural personality of that character maybe?
Then again the whole game is over the top with neo-Superman (aka Shepard) almost single handedly saving the whole universe. I enjoyed ME2 as a comic related game, similar to Batman, X-Men and such, because i think thats pretty much what it was.

[Elizabello]

I m not kidding. I did uninstall ME2 after that dialog.

[Zloth]

Originally posted by kaay:

I never understood the eternal voice acting complaints in games, i really tried to understand what people are complaining about but i was never able to figure it out.

I think a lot of them were people trying to look like they knew what they were talking about. There used to be complaints in nearly EVERY GAME about how the voice acting was bad. They would never tell you what was actually bad about the acting (never mind distinguishing bad acting from bad writing). Instead, they just throw a bunch of insults around to try to prove they're right.

That's out of fashion now, though. Now the pseudo-intellectuals go on about how the "optimization" is bad. Obviously they haven't got clue 1 as to what a graphics pipeline even is, never mind how a particular game is doing it. But they seem to need to complain about *something* - heck if I know why.