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Gothic 2 is awesome in every respect but voice acting - Why?
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RPGDot Forums > Gothic 2 General

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oozle
Keeper of the Gates
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Joined: 18 Dec 2001
Posts: 112
Gothic 2 is awesome in every respect but voice acting - Why?
   

Gothic 2 is easily one of the best games I've ever played. However, it is perfect in almost every respect except voice acting. Why did they hire B-grade English voice actors, when the German voice acting is so good?

I just wish they put more effort into voice acting, which adds so much to the immersion of the game.

Very few games have top quality voice acting (only ones i can think of are Delta Force BHD, Warcraft III)

Nearly all RPG's are ruined by poor voice acting. I just don't get it. The musical score is so good, everything is spot on, except voice acting. Why Why Why????
Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 1:07 pm
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Shrapnel
Rocket Scientist
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Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 1325
Location: Newark, NJ
   

Its not so much the acting is bad is more like every 3rd-4th person you talk to sounds like Xardas, Diego or Lord Andre (or versions thereof).

They say they used 12 people, feels more like 5 people lowering their voices lol
Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 1:34 pm
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elkston
High Emperor
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Joined: 21 Sep 2002
Posts: 691
Location: North Carolina, USA
   

Overall, I'd say the quality of the voice acting varies. At its best, it is good and at its worst it is somewhat sloppy. The voice of the hero seems to be good throughout but Shrapnel is right when he says they could have had just a few more actors. Xardas and Lord Hagen seem to be everywhere! I understand the realities of budgeting a game like this and its normal for voice actors to perfrom more than one voice, but just 1 additional one in the mix would have addded a lot.

It is still a fantastic game so far (in ch. 4) and the voice acting isn't bad enough that it distracts from the expereince.
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Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 2:05 pm
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AnimalMother
Head Merchant
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Joined: 08 Dec 2002
Posts: 56
Location: UK
   

One other game that had good voice acting, The thief series. I thought the voicews in that were excellent.
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Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 2:22 pm
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Hagen
Counselor of the King
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Joined: 18 Jun 2003
Posts: 350
Location: England
   

hmmm, I semi agree, some of its bad, there a certainly farmer that sounds absolutely stupid! lol, but most of its ok...
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Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 6:08 pm
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scooter
Village Dweller
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Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 7
   

I never get tired of hearing that
"You Aint gettin in here my boy!"
Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 10:05 pm
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olaf73
Eager Tradesman
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Joined: 19 Jun 2003
Posts: 30
   

I cant stand Lee's voice, and that actor voices a lot of characters also.

olaf
Post Wed Jun 25, 2003 11:45 pm
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the mighty stamar
High Emperor
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Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 602
Location: arcata ca, humboldt county
   

Heh the worst example of this is one of the farm girls is voiced by one of the male actors trying to sound female.... sort of. It really stands out as bad to me. Its a farm girl near the land owner, if anyone wants to find her
Ill have to check out her name next time im in that area.
Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 1:55 am
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Irf
High Emperor
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Joined: 18 Jul 2002
Posts: 1032
Location: England
   

Well, voice acting = expensive, and i guess rpg's tend to have rubbish voice actors because of their settings, Gothic 2 is set in medievil times, they hired american voice actors, but america didnt exist back then (well, no english speakers were there) so obviously the voices will not fit, they should ahve hired british voice actors, IMO it would have sounded alot better. It would have been good if they didnt have the same actor for both a lead role and citizens/farmers. And i agree lee, and a few other lead characters have terrible voices
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Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 2:16 am
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FetishFool
High Emperor
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Joined: 15 Sep 2001
Posts: 484
Location: Toronto, Ontario
   

Nothing regarding the english voice acting was done right.
The translaters used British slang in the translations. Then Americans, that have never used words like "Fancy" and "Chap" before, were told to give a personality to the script.

What ended up happening was a lot of on-the-fly editing, which left many sentences incoherent. It also seems like entire dialogues were missing.

Gothic 1 had flawless voice acting and a beautiful script.
Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 3:29 am
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Detori
Head Merchant
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Joined: 29 Nov 2002
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Location: Hungary
   

quote:
Originally posted by FetishFool
What ended up happening was a lot of on-the-fly editing, which left many sentences incoherent. It also seems like entire dialogues were missing.


I also felt the same, I am slightly irritated by 'pubs' being called 'taverns' and some other inconsistencies...
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Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 10:06 am
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
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Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia
   

I don't tihnk I can agree that nothing is right with the voice acting in G2 and Gothic is perfect. The quality of voice acting in G2 does vary and there is a little too much repetition but overall it's quite satisfactory; apart from the repetition it's not that different to Gothic.

Bear in mind very few RPG's have full voice for every line; it's really quite ambitious for a small developer.
Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 10:07 am
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olaf73
Eager Tradesman
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Joined: 19 Jun 2003
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I think the voice acting is better in G2 than G1, at least in the English versions. The voices are the same in many cases, but they seem to be more familiar with their lines and/or have more experience in reading them.

olaf
Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 5:36 pm
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FetishFool
High Emperor
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Joined: 15 Sep 2001
Posts: 484
Location: Toronto, Ontario
   

The voice acting was satisfactory. It'd still be satisfactory if only one guy and one girl did all the voice acting.

Apart from the not-so-great script, emotions weren't always portrayed.
If it wasn't for the emotes (eg: (angrily), (annoyed), (grumpy) ) that are throughout the subtitles, you'd never guess the character was angry, or annoyed through many of the conversations. Grumpy was depicted with a throat-clearing sound at the beginning of the sentence, most of the time.

But of course, most players have subtitles off. So they wouldn't have noticed any change in mood.

What makes Gothic so special is it's immersive dialogue. The storyline is pretty straight-forward, and it's not as open ended as other RPGs.
The voice acting needs to be something more than just satisfactory.
Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 7:11 pm
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Dez
King of the Realms
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Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 455
Location: Fortress of Tell Halaf
   

I decided not to put spoilers here..afterall this is spoirless discussion..so that text of mine was a bit too much spoiler heavy
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Last edited by Dez on Thu Jun 26, 2003 11:15 pm; edited 3 times in total
Post Thu Jun 26, 2003 11:00 pm
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