Voice acting in videogames always seems to be hit or miss. The voice actors either do a fantastic job, which immerses us into the story, or they
fail spectacularly, leading to years of Youtube memes and bad jokes on gaming forums. In the past I have written about some of the most famous instances of laughable voice acting, so today I'd like to try something different.
If you're a geek like me, you enjoy looking up game voice actors on IMDB in order to see all the various game characters they've voiced throughout their careers. There's no doubt that while they may be proud to have voiced certain characters, they most certainly harbor deep feelings of shame at the thought of some of the other pixelated bozos they were suckered into voicing.
Take for instance
John DiMaggio, the voice actor for Marcus Fenix of the
Gears of War series (as well as roughly one billion other game characters).
As hard as it is to believe, the voice actor of the chainsaw-wielding bad-ass is also the same guy who voiced the goofy hairstyle-challenged Wakka from
Final Fantasy X.
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| Let's go kill some Locust, ya? |
Ouch right? That's not even the worst case. Remember our good buddy Grunt from
Mass Effect 2?
This unstoppable tank of a Krogan was voiced by
Steve Blum, who just happens to be the same guy who voiced the super-creepy Yellow Monkey in
Ape Escape 3.
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| Tingle's got some competition in the creepiness category. |
Hearing Grunt talk about killing things just won't be the same after learning about this unfortunate connection to the
Ape Escape franchise. Anyway, now we move on to what I consider the most tragic story of all:
Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem.
We've all heard the awesome one-liners, and we've all witnessed the 80's action-hero badassness that is Duke Nukem (ok not so much in his latest outing, but we can look past that because he's the Duke!). But did you know that Jon St. John is also a voice actor in the somewhat recent (Dreamcast era to present)
Sonic the Hedgehog games? If the knowledge that Duke's voice actor is present in the Sonic series didn't make you run from your computer to go cry over your copy of
Duke Nukem 3D, then maybe this will: Jon St. John voices Big the Cat.
No you didn't read that wrong, the idiotic, annoying, clumsy blob Big the Cat shares the same voice actor with Duke Freaking Nukem. It's painful isn't it? I had to emulate a copy of
Sonic Adventure just to verify it and witness the horror for myself. Curse you Sega!!
And that wraps up this quick look at the dark side of voice acting. Have you ever had any funny/shocking moments upon discovering the various characters a voice actor has...um...voiced? Let me know, I'd like to hear your stories!
