Support NeoGAF

[driqe]

Hearing the same voices over and over again in so many games really breaks immersion.

Honestly, really just kind of sick of Troy Baker in general. He's a great VA, but instantly recognizable. That alone breaks immersion.

He's even the fuckin Maw in The Medium...

Yo look at this sick chase scene I hope Troy Baker doesn't catch me hahaha so fun

You always hear the same handful of famous voice actors in every single video game so it's a breath of fresh air to play RDR2 where relatively new voice actors get a chance and every single one of them does an outstanding job with their characters.

I play Arkham Knight occasionally to watch Laura Bailey and Troy Baker talk to themselves


Laura Bailey - IMDb

Troy Baker - IMDb

 

[Pedro Motta]

Oh poor boy. Any more first world problem you wanna share?

 

[Danjin44]

I don't mind voice actors but I hate, HATE famous celebrity faces in games.

 

[Moogle11]

Nah. But I’m not good at even recognizing famous actor voices in cartoons much less voice actors (most of home I don’t know by name anyway) in games.

 

[Carna]

It's tiresome, sometimes a lesser known va fitted a character better, than someone with thousands of voice acting roles under his belt imo

 

[ScarletSpider]

No, because I typically play with the sound off anyway.

 

[driqe]

Oh poor boy. Any more first world problem you wanna share?

Yes.

I was very deep into p4g, then comes along Troy Baker in the form of Kanji Tatsumi...

I was playing Bioshock Infinite for the first time... I fuckin knew the MC was Troy Baker from the first sentence. I ignored that initially, THEN HERE COMES LAURA BAILEY.................

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc...

 

[kretos]

Turn the sound off and read subtitles

 

[driqe]

When you hear troy baker talking to troy baker

 

[wordslaughter]

Yes, knowing the actor is immersion breaking for me.

For example, I LOVE the TV series The Expanse. But then I go on YouTube and there are videos where the cast sit around and talk about their experiences making the show - I avoid these like the plague!

James Holden and Amos Burton are some of my favorite characters. I don't wanna be reminded that they are actually Steven Straight and Wes Chatham. I prefer to think that right now Holden and Amos are off having some adventure out in The Belt right now.

I don't wanna know the actors or anything about them.

 

[Nester99]

I never notice, - Unless its the guy from Archer

 

[driqe]

Turn the sound off and read subtitles

NATHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

This is Troy Baker btw

 

[Pedro Motta]

Yes.

I was very deep into p4g, then comes along Troy Baker in the form of Kanji Tatsumi...

I was playing Bioshock Infinite for the first time... I fuckin knew the MC was Troy Baker from the first sentence. I ignored that initially, THEN HERE COMES LAURA BAILEY.................

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc...

wanna know what is more immersion breaking than Troy Baker and Laura Bailey? Shitty voice acting. So, give me Troy Baker and Laura Bailey everytime.

 

[Zeeed]

With my personal experience...

Voice actors are able to subtly change their voice up. I would rarely know who was voicing acting. Only recently with the VGA did voice acting come to my attention.

I usually find out who the voice actors are after the fact and get even more impressed that I did not recognize the voice.

The only time I do recognize a voice are when they get a known movie/tv actor in and don't ask them to change anything about their voice, because, that is what you paid them for, is that familiar celebrity actor voice. Like Lance Reddick. It seems every game he is in, the director probably just tells him to NOT change up his voice at all.

Maybe I just have bad voice recognition or don't follow what voice actors will be in an upcoming game. But looking at the IMDB for Troy Baker, I didn't realize he was in 80% of the game listed there that I played.

 

[driqe]

wanna know what is more immersion breaking than Troy Baker and Laura Bailey? Shitty voice acting. So, give me Troy Baker and Laura Bailey everytime.

I agree. Troy Baker and Laura Bailey should be the only voice actors in existence.

 

[Rentahamster]

I have no idea who Troy Baker is.

 

[BusierDonkey]

I kind of agree with OP, but one the other hand I understand why the same people keep showing up. Many voice actors typically get work for being good at it, especially in higher budget games. You hear the same voices often because they excel at the job and people want to work with them. Some of them have some pretty incredible range too. Some get because they can gobble up cock like a champ.

It's not like you can just pull anybody off the street and toss them in a sound booth. Voice acting is apparently a lot harder than it seems. Trying to convey emotions when you're staring at a piece of paper and have nothing to go off takes a special talent. You can always tell which voice actors didn't need mouthwash after the audition.

I don't mind voice actors but I hate, HATE famous celebrity faces in games.

I do too, if I want to see actors I'll watch a movie. I prefer my game characters to be unique, or at least an attempt at it. One exception was when Nathan Fillion's face showed up in Halo 5, mostly because his character looked absolutely atrocious in Halo ODST.

 

[supernova8]

Hearing the same voices over and over again in so many games really breaks immersion.

Honestly, really just kind of sick of Troy Baker in general. He's a great VA, but instantly recognizable. That alone breaks immersion.

He's even the fuckin Maw in The Medium...

Yo look at this sick chase scene I hope Troy Baker doesn't catch me hahaha so fun

You always hear the same handful of famous voice actors in every single video game so it's a breath of fresh air to play RDR2 where relatively new voice actors get a chance and every single one of them does an outstanding job with their characters.

I play Arkham Knight occasionally to watch Laura Bailey and Troy Baker talk to themselves


Laura Bailey - IMDb

Troy Baker - IMDb

For me it's more annoying when they use his face as the base for a character or flat out just use his face as is. Infamous Second Son, COD Advanced Warfare, Uncharted 4 (to a lesser extent but still obvious).

It's video games they could surely use whatever face they want why fucking use Troy Baker's face?

Only exception to that is Kevin Spacey in COD Advanced Warfare. Maybe it's because I had been watching House of Cards at the time but Spacey as the villain just fit perfectly aside from the fact there weren't really any other famous faces in it (Troy Baker isn't famous famous, ie most people outside of GAF/ERA wouldn't know who he is if you asked them).

 

[Ikutachi]

 

[driqe]

I have no idea who Troy Baker is.

Lucky you

 

[driqe]

For me it's more annoying when they use his face as the base for a character or flat out just use his face as is. Infamous Second Son, COD Advanced Warfare, Uncharted 4 (to a lesser extent but still obvious).

It's video games they could surely use whatever face they want why fucking use Troy Baker's face?

Only exception to that is Kevin Spacey in COD Advanced Warfare. Maybe it's because I had been watching House of Cards at the time but Spacey as the villain just fit perfectly aside from the fact there weren't really any other famous faces in it (Troy Baker isn't famous famous, ie most people outside of GAF/ERA wouldn't know who he is if you asked them).

The ONLY exception is Gus Fring

 

[Moonjt9]

There have got to be good voice actors out there. It’s ridiculous that the same few people are in every game.

 

[Chris_Rivera]

Only Troy Baker, for some reason/

 

[Aenima]

NATHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

This is Troy Baker btw

No its not. Its Joel and Nathan Drake.

Loved Troy Baker as Joel but unlike Nolan North, he dosent change his voice much so its easy to recognise his voice in the multiple chars he voices from many games. I like more the way Nolan acts by changing his voice so much i only knew he was David on TLOU when i saw the credits roll.

 

[kunonabi]

Troy Baker is also an asshole which doesnt help matters.

 

[Carna]

Troy Baker ruined Ryu Hayabusa for me, I didn't mind his previous 2 english voice actors (justin gross, Josh keaton) but Troy made Ryu sound like a smug dickwad

Other than that, Xenoblade Chronicles's english dub is Superior to any other game with a by-the-numbers anime dub cast.

 

[Butch_0451]

Don’t know what you’re talking about op.

 

[eyesabitdull]

I think VA get a pass for me mostly because as VA's know very well on how to switch up their voices.

I mean, Troy Baker is probably most often asked to sound like himself I'd like to assume because there are some jobs he voiced characters that I did once even assumed it was him.

Same goes for Nolan North, I never I expected him to be the creepy old dude in TLOU. But there are times where Nolan has been asked to do the Nathan Drake voice for other games.

I have a bigger problem with celebrities/actors who cant VA for shit.

Samuel Jackson in GTA:SA? Perfect.

Alanah Pearce in CP2077: Ew fuck no.

So yeah, good VA is important
along with the voice direction.

Without it, I could never excuse the constant reuse of the actors voice over and over.

 

[MDSLKTR]

For me it's more annoying when they use his face as the base for a character or flat out just use his face as is. Infamous Second Son, COD Advanced Warfare, Uncharted 4 (to a lesser extent but still obvious).

It's video games they could surely use whatever face they want why fucking use Troy Baker's face?

Agreed and you didn't mention the worst:

Completely ruined my favorite character in the series.

Then Kojima had to of course one up himself and give us Troy Baker with an eyeliner.

 

[supernova8]

Agreed and you didn't mention the worst:

Completely ruined my favorite character in the series.

Then Kojima had to of course one up himself and give us Troy Baker with an eyeliner.

Honestly Kojima is a bit of a weirdo. Last good game I thought he made was MGS3. Everything beyond that has just been weird bollocks that's just him waving his dick around.

 

[Alexios]

Not if they're doing a good job. And if the job is bad then it's immersion breaking even if you don't know them :d

 

[kiphalfton]

No, because I typically play with the sound off anyway.

We're talking about video games, not porn.

 

[ScarletSpider]

We're talking about video games, not porn.

Workshop it

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Troy Baker even ruined Fortnite. He's the voice of Jonesy, the most iconic videogame character of the last 10 years.

The industry needs more than 4 voice actors.

 

[Rentahamster]

The industry needs more than 4 voice actors.

Put me in, coach!

 

[driqe]

Troy Baker Saved Fortnite. He's the voice of Jonesy, the most iconic videogame character of the last 10 years.

@Pedro Motta needs Troy Baker in every game.

fixed

 

[Tschumi]

Yeah, i kinda think it is.. beyond two souls was weird.. ellllliot page isn't a convincing badass... And their back was weird in that evening gown scene... Yeauh.. twas weird

 

[Fredrik]

I’d say they should give him an oscar for his work in The Medium, had no idea it was Joel

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Yes.

I was very deep into p4g, then comes along Troy Baker in the form of Kanji Tatsumi...

I was playing Bioshock Infinite for the first time... I fuckin knew the MC was Troy Baker from the first sentence. I ignored that initially, THEN HERE COMES LAURA BAILEY.................

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc...

U ok hun?

 

[Ar¢tos]

I don't care about voices or faces. The main thing for me is gameplay and story.

 

[Forsythia]

I agree with the OP, I'm tired of Troy Baker and Laura Bailey as well. They're good, but they need to mix it up more so they don't sound so samey. And devs should stp us in their faces as well.

 

[sublimit]

I prefer unknown actors and i always hate it when they use the actual actor's face in the models especially when they are well known actors. That really breaks my immersion and i try to avoid games that do that (like Death Stranding).

And i think Troy Baker is highly overrated but at this point the guy has so many connections in the industry that we will not get rid of him so easily.

 

[Boss Mog]

Nah, this is a bunch of nonsense OP. It's no different than any big actor that does a lot of movies, I've never had a problem seeing guys like Denzel Washington or Leo DiCaprio as any of the characters they played and I'd say it's even less of an issue in videogames because the characters they play look completely different. There's no doubt that Troy Baker is a top voice actor if not the top voice actor of the last decade. He always gives great performances so I don't mind hearing him a lot and he can make his voice sound quite different for certain roles like for Joel or Sam.

My first time hearing him was in 2008 when he voiced Yuri in Tales of Vesperia and I said to myself "wow, this guy is really good I hope he does more games I play in the future". He went on to be a big part of a lot of the big games I played: FF13, Bioshock Infinite, RE6, TLOU, CoD: Advanced Warfare, Uncharted 4, MGSV, Infamous SS and that's just off the top of my head.

 

[YCoCg]

The industry tends to have a bit of a problem with playing favourites, it happened in the PS3/360 gen with Nolan North and then it happens now with Troy Baker/Laura Bailey. It's like anime dubbing too where Ian Sinclair always turns up somewhere in pretty much everything.

 

[Ammogeddon]

No not at all.

But I do roll my eyes at what feels like the industry trying to make A list voice actors for games. It’s certainly not a draw for me. So long as they do a good job I’m happy.

It’s one of the unique things that separates games from movies. I like that characters are the focus of attention in games rather than the personality portraying them.

 

[hemo memo]

Nah Baker is talented. Most of the time I go “Oh this character performance is great. Wait let me google this character. Oh Troy Baker. That’s why”

 

[MrJTeera]

Yes, knowing the actor is immersion breaking for me.

For example, I LOVE the TV series The Expanse. But then I go on YouTube and there are videos where the cast sit around and talk about their experiences making the show - I avoid these like the plague!

James Holden and Amos Burton are some of my favorite characters. I don't wanna be reminded that they are actually Steven Straight and Wes Chatham. I prefer to think that right now Holden and Amos are off having some adventure out in The Belt right now.

I don't wanna know the actors or anything about them.

Understandable. Here is Capt. Holden being a literal caveman.

BTW, Wes Chatham is the most macho red blooded American name I’ve ever heard. Gave me and my brother a chuckle everytime we see his name during the intro.

 

[Hoppa]

Yeah Troy Baker in Miles Morales took me out because there was no characterisation to his voice and he just sounded like Delsin

 

[xrnzaaas]

Well as long as the character doesn't clearly look / sound like Troy Baker I don't mind. I'm not a fan of him as a person (especially not after he sided with Druckmann to actively fight TLoU2 bigots/haters), but he's a talented VA and he can make his voice harder to recognize.

 

[Calverz]

Tbh its because of troy baker, i thought joel from tlou was an older nathan drake. So I thought it was a sequel or something. Like nathan drake older but with zombies.