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7 Times Celebrities Screwed-Up Games

7 Times Celebrities Screwed-Up Games

Voice acting is hard. Some say it’s harder than normal acting. Instead of having people to play off of, you are locked in a room with a microphone and basically no one else around you (because sound quality has to be conserved). Heck, you can’t even see your character. All you can really do is rely on the voice director and other people in the recording booth to tell you what sort of character you are playing. If they don’t do their job, then even the most accomplished actors can give dry, uninteresting, unemotional performances. These are 7 actors that did just that.

Christopher Walken in Ripper

Christopher Walken in Ripper

Christopher Walken is an actor who only ever plays one character, and that character is Christopher Walken. The only way to get a bad performance out of Christopher Walken is to try and make him play any character other than Christopher Walken. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Ripper tried to do. Walken as a hard-boiled  detective just doesn’t scan. The performance is almost meta in a way. It kind of feels like Christopher Walken is playing himself, attempting to play a hard-nosed detective.

Matthew Perry in Fallout: New Vegas

Matthew Perry in Fallout: New Vegas

Benny was a major character in Fallout: New Vegas . It’s just a shame that his voice acting performance was something more along the lines of a 3 rd grade puppet show than anything competent. Matthew Perry was supposed to be playing a snide, confident jackass who would stab you in the back because of how much he thinks he is better than you. Instead, the highs and lows of his performance are muted so much that the entire performance is stiff and unbelievable. It’s actually hard to describe because it’s just so mediocre. Better to check it out for yourself.

Peter Dinklage in Destiny

Peter Dinklage in Destiny

I’ll be honest. Dinklage’s performance in Destiny is what served as the inspiration for this list. Dinklage was supposed to be playing an emotionless A.I. companion, but instead he just came off as kind of bored and, honestly nonsensical. Of course, part of that has to do with the dialogue he was forced to work with. You try saying, “that wizard came from the moon” in any sort of serious manner. Didn’t think you could. Anyway, Dinklage’s performance was so bad that Bungie put a ton of effects on it, took out many lines, and eventually decided to replace it all together, but not before he catapulted to meme stardom.

Michael Biehn in Aliens: Colonial Marines

Michael Biehn in Aliens: Colonial Marines

It seemed like a natural choice to get Michael Biehn to play Hicks in Aliens: Colonial Marines . After all, he played Hicks in the actual movie! But as I said in the intro, screen acting and voice acting are two completely different beasts. Maybe the voice director didn’t do a good job describing the scene or the emotions involved. Whatever happened, we got a situation in which an otherwise awesome actor sounded like he was brought into the studio after being shot by a dart gun filled with elephant tranquilizer.

50 Cent in Any Game Starring 50 Cent

50 Cent in Any Game Starring 50 Cent

50 Cent’s horrible performances in games like Blood on the Sand and Bulletproof are doubly hilarious because he’s playing himself! Yes, when good old 50 is put into a room and told to speak like he usually does, the only thing he can come up with is a slightly uninterested  take on badass thug speech. Then again, the game actually animates him as slightly uninterested in all of his cutscenes. I’m not sure if that means that 50 Cent was playing himself just as the voice director wanted him to, or if the animators compensated for 50’s complete inability to show emotion.

Mena Suvari in Kingdom Hearts 2

Mena Suvari in Kingdom Hearts 2

Mena Suvari’s butchering of Aeris (Aerith… whatever) in Kingdom Hearts 2 was like a personal insult to every Final Fantasy fan in existence. Remember when your teacher used to call on you to read a passage from a book back in grammar school? That’s what Suvari sounds like when she delivers every line of dialogue for this iconic flower girl. She pauses at strange intervals, has no emotional affect to her voice whatsoever, and just sounds confused by every line of dialogue that comes out of her mouth. It didn’t help that she was trying to match the awkward non-altered Japanese lip flaps when doing her performance, either. But what’s most astounding is that she manages to sound flat across from Steve Burton’s Cloud, a part that was written to sound like sentient wet cardboard. Now that’s impressive.

Bruce Willis in Apocalypse

Bruce Willis in Apocalypse

Bruce Willis’s role in Neversoft’s Apocalypse bundles up all the problems we have seen in previous entries on this list into one. His performance is flat, but he is trying to be a badass. He pauses at strange places, but also constantly interrupts other characters. He reads his lines too fast and shouts out one liners like “baby” all the time. Listening to him, you’d think he was in a rush to get his lines out in whatever first take he could throw the director’s way, and then rush home with his paycheck. The game itself isn’t really that bad, but it’s obvious that Willis could not care less about his role in it.

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