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Best voice acting performances in gaming?

Willenium said:
What, 2 pages in and no mention of this legend?
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I liked when he didn't talk.
 
One of the main reasons I like Bioshock Infinite as much as I do is due to Courtnee Draper's performance as Elizabeth. The character is brought to life a good deal by the animation through the game itself but she brought such a powerhouse of emotion and you can feel all those beats come through in her delivery. By the end of the game you know who Elizabeth is, how she feels, and the entire ending is her coming to the realization of what must be done. Easily one of my favorite characters in gaming period.

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Also, Dave Fennoy as Lee and Melissa Hutchison as Clementine in Telltale's Walking Dead Season 1. They made that game with their performances and made care more about them and their journey than I thought I would.
The final scene between them absolutely broke me.

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I loved Ashly Burch as Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, and Steve Valentine as Alistair in Dragon Age: Origins. Claudia Black as Morrigan was also wonderful!
 
Kyle McCarley as 9S gave one of the best performances of all time imo. Robin Atkin Downes as Kaz in MGS V was incredible too.
 
Silent Hill 1 through 3 all had very well-voiced dialogue. It sounded awkward and unsettling at times, but the actors and actresses themselves put in those inflections to make it sound like every character had something a bit off about them.

Notable performances:

Thessaly Lerner as Lisa Garland - SH
Monnica Horgan as Mary/Maria - SH2
Donna Burke as Angela Orosco - SH2; Claudia Wolf - SH3
Heather Morris as Heather Mason - SH3
Richard Grosse as Douglas Cartland - SH3
and of course Guy Cihi as James Sunderland - SH2
 
The best voice acting performance, for me, is by Nicole Fantl, who does Fran in Final Fantasy XII. Her work is stunning! Ali Hillis does an impressive work as Lightning as well.
 
I thought Lori Alan as The Boss in Snake Eater was pretty damn great.

I knew I recognised the voice, but I was still surprised when it was the same person that voiced the female newsreader from Family Guy.
 
In part it's the great writing, but I have a fond spot for the Prince and Farah in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. They totally sell how their characters grow more fond of each other over the game.

Then there's the cast of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Jack is the best asshole in gaming.

The trio of Portal 2 is a joy to listen to. They all nail it.

Edit: Oh and of course Jon god damn Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2. He's too awesomely evil.

Huge Succeeded said:
It'll be absolutely criminal if I'm the only person in this thread whose pick is the new Prey. Even throwaway characters are acted well.
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Prey does great with its VA. It helps that they talk like actual people, too. A lot of VG writing is so bad that no VA can sell it. They could have hired the best actress in the world to voice Zelda in BOTW and it wouldn't work with the crappy cutscene dialogue (which is sad because the non-voiced writing is really good in the game).
 
Pretty much every single main character in Legacy of Kain. But especially Simon Templeman.

He was giving amazing performances in the first Blood Omen in 1996 during a time where voice acting in games was barely a thing, much less good voice acting.
 
Nolan North as every personality sphere in portal 2 was real good.

I think he also voiced some of the turrets as well.




Dude is great at not sounding like Nolan North.
 
Van Bur3n said:
Yep. I couldn't help but to really like Dethmold despite how nasty of an individual he is. But that all the more tells you how great of a job the voice actor did for the character.
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Makes me sad that his role as Hector Kraft Ebbing in TW3 got cut.

But then they made him the butler, Barnabas Basil in the B&W expansion. David Annen has talent.
 
Pretty much every Blizzard game. It always astounds me how much work goes into every card for each Hearthstone expansion, and Overwatch doesn't have a single weak link.

For specific actors, you can hardly go wrong with Michael McConnohie, Kari Wahlgren, Crispin Freeman, Robin Atkin Downes or Troy Baker, no matter how far back into their careers you go.

For two recent examples, Max Mittelman as Ryuji and Cristine Marie Cabanos as Shiho in Persona 5 were both really good. I waffle a lot on how I feel about that game's dub (mix of bad casting in spots, takes that shouldn't have made it into the final game, and some characters like Ann and Igor not being able to maintain a single voice for long), but those two were strong constants. Only problem is that Shiho barely factors into the story.

Sumio Mondo said:
Killer7 is next to NieR, MGS1, Legacy of Kain series and FFXII as the best I've heard in a game. Every character voice fits perfectly.
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K7's casting is pitch-perfect, but some of the performances can be really wonky, even if a ton of it is well-acted.
Tricky I Shadow said:
The entire cast of Virtue's Last Reward.

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I'd agree for everyone except Quark and Clover. Tenmyouji steals the show, though.
 
Huge Succeeded said:
It'll be absolutely criminal if I'm the only person in this thread whose pick is the new Prey. Even throwaway characters are acted well.
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This is also my pick, I especially enjoyed the acting of Alex Yu and
the way Mikhaila delivered her judgment in the ending
.
 
Rebecca Whittaker and Abe Goldfarb as Rosa and Joey from the Blackwell series. They grew into their roles super well.

Also Planescape Torment had a ton of great VAs, Rob Paulsen, Tony Jay, Jennifer Hale,Sheena Easton, Keith David, John DeLancie, Dan Castellaneta, etc.
 
Guys, Guys, you're missing the greatest performance for a villain ever.

S. Scott Bullock's performance as Hades in Kid Icarus Uprising is the stuff of legends.
 
The VA for Nanako in Persona 4 was really good. If she didn't sound like a believable/adorable young girl it would have kind of ruined the experience.
 
OP already mentioned David Lodge as Grigori in Dragon's Dogma, so I'll describe another game whose voice acting elevated the experience for me.

Chivalry.

I wouldn't have expected quality VO in a mod-turned-indie game, but the voice work done by Ryan Patrick Buckley and others on his acting team along with the Shakespearean insults really accentuated the comedic nature of the game to the point where I regularly busted out laughing in the middle of a match just from hearing players interacting with each other using the voice commands. It's quite impressive how the folks at Torn Banner managed to give each of the eight characters/classes in the game a fairly unique personality solely through their voice lines.

It's hard to find a good video of the voices being used in the course of regular play without commentary, so I'll instead link one of the excellent machinimas made by a member of the community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jBzXaGNYlw;t=3m25s

FOR AGATHHHAAAAAAAA

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I also agree with all of the mentions of Soulsborne, but I would like to highlight one actor in particular: Andy Gathergood, who voices Laurentius and the Crestfallen Merchant in Dark Souls. His performance for the latter character in particular is brilliant, depicting a character tottering on the edge of going hollow.
 
I recently played through Silent Hill 2 for the first time and Monica Taylor Horgan's performances as Mary and Maria are incredible.
Her reading of the letter moved me close to tears. "You made me happy."

Richard Hawley as Sigismund Dijkstra in The Witcher 3, one of my favourite characters in the game. He's charming and threatening in equal measure, and he expresses profanity in lyrical fashion. I was quite amused to find he also plays the factory owner in Coronation Street.

John Cygan (RIP) as Solidus Snake in MGS2. His voice was just cool as fuck. "Don't say you've forgotten me... Snnnnake."
 
I hold Nolan North's performance as Capt. Walker in Spec Ops: The Line as the best one I have experienced. While I love his Drake the nuanced performance as Walker was just sublime.
 
Some of my favorite performances that immediately came to mind

Red Dead Redemption - Rob Wiethoff as John Marston
The Last of Us - Ashley Johnson as Ellie
The Last of Us - Troy Baker as Joel
Life is Strange - Ashly Burch as Chloe Price
Mass Effect 2-3 - Martin Sheen as Illusive Man
Arkham Series - Mark Hamill as Joker
 
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