Why you so bad: Dialogue in Video Games

[Rxanadu]

Is there a major reason why most video game characters don't talk over each other? I've noticed how wierd its absence is ever since I saw (oddly enough) an anime called Red Garden. Specifically, I'm talking about a scene where a main character and her ex-boyfriend were getting into a heated argument about whether or not she was dating a teacher. The main thing I noticed, however, was how both character were constantly yelling over each other's words trying to get their piece in. It added immensely to the scene's believability (it even shocked me a bit).

Ever since that scene, I can't help but notice how dry video game dialogue sounds in comparison. This is especially true in adventure games (yes, even The Walking Dead), where the characters are clearly pausing to allow for another animation or part of the scripting to play through before the player can continue with the game. It's even more showing in adventure games when the player is clicking/pressing buttons on objects to potentially solve a puzzle only to stiffly 'talk' to the player and note that the object is useless of that the player is daft for thinking the object would work in the first place.

Now granted, some games have good (even great) dialogue... as long as it doesn't relate specifically to (or contradict) the gameplay. Any time the characters go from engaguing in a dramatic conversation to talking about what I need to do to move the story forward, it always takes me out of the experience. Also, any character that wants to "get out of the game" (i.e. not be a bad guy) always seems to turns arounds to gun down tons of thugs at the drop of a hat for some NPC he just met a couple of seconds after said conversation. It's extremely jarring when, in An Elysian Tail, Dust is still willing to kill some of the enemies in the game after findint about their past and eventually vowing to help them out through the rest of the story.

Unfortunately, I can't remember a game where there were no situations where the diaolgue didn't break the experience for me at any point. Than again, I can't find out a proper way to fix this issue, nor can I find many games that are using dialogue as I wish (again, I know The Walking Dead exists). Do any of you guys know of any ways game writers could fix this problem or any games that are doing interesting things that other games could implement in their dialogue systems?

[syntheticgerbil]

I can't think of them off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure there's a few adventure games where some recordings have both actors talking over eachother to achieve that effect. That usually involves getting the voice actors you need in the studio at the same time, which I've heard can be difficult.

[mikemariano]

That usually involves getting the voice actors you need in the studio at the same time, which I've heard can be difficult.

This is the correct answer. Voice acting for all media is notorious for this. It's far cheaper to get one actor in at a time than to coordinate their schedules, let them read-through or rehearse together, etc.

You can fake it with good audio engineering—but in terms of man-hours and team priorities that's expensive, too!

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yep, actors record their lines separately. It's very unusual for VO actors to work together on the same day. I guess, as Mike points out, scheduling is part of it, but even for TV shows -- like The Simpsons -- where the actors are available all the time, I'm pretty sure they still do it separately. Anyone know for sure?

[syntheticgerbil]

According to the Simpsons commentaries I've heard they will often schedule the voice actors to do a scene together plus they generally do a script read through with almost every voice actor in the room at some point. But I've only listened to the earlier episode commentaries and they did note that this was rare especially coming from the cartoon hell of the 80s, which I'm sure it still is in cartoons and games.

But I'm sure many of the side characters and smaller roles for the Simpsons don't involve voice actors in at the same time as everyone else. Plus I'm betting it depends on the importance of the scene more emotional weight and such.

[ThunderPeel2001]

According to the Simpsons commentaries I've heard they will often schedule the voice actors to do a scene together plus they generally do a script read through with almost every voice actor in the room at some point. But I've only listened to the earlier episode commentaries and they did note that this was rare especially coming from the cartoon hell of the 80s, which I'm sure it still is in cartoons and games.

But I'm sure many of the side characters and smaller roles for the Simpsons don't involve voice actors in at the same time as everyone else. Plus I'm betting it depends on the importance of the scene more emotional weight and such.

Interesting!

FYI: Every sitcom does a read-through (aka table-read) with all the cast present, but that's very different from recording it. That's just when the cast goes through the script together. It's largely so the the writers can gauge what's working and what's not, and so the Network can give notes.

Here's a Community read-through:

[TychoCelchuuu]

All video games are voice acted by two people (Nolan North and Jennifer Hale) and they can never be in the same room at the same time because if some disaster struck, no video games could ever have voice acting again. So since they have to record separately and because it's a tough editing job to get two separate recordings to interrupt each other (also it's hard to have someone interrupt themselves) it's easier just to make all dialog sequential. This is why Robert Altman never made a video game (he can't go 10 seconds without having someone talk over someone else) and it's also why Nolan North and Jennifer Hale are very polite in person: they've had hundreds of hours to practice talking without ever interrupting anyone else.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I think it's more rare for cartoons to do table reads as well, but I'm not really familiar if it happens with other prime time cartoons like Futurama or Family Guy. I know King of the Hill did them as well though. I somehow doubt it ever happens for Saturday morning type stuff.

All video games are voice acted by two people (Nolan North and Jennifer Hale) and they can never be in the same room at the same time because if some disaster struck, no video games could ever have voice acting again.

:tup:

[youmeyou]

As we see more games doing 'performance capture' as was done in Enslaved and the upcoming Quantic Dream game, I bet we'll get a few more examples of decent verisimilitude in video game acting. Essentially, it's a mix of motion capture and voice capture with the actors usually in the same physical space, occasionally interacting. Personally, I think it's what makes Enslaved's performances stand out above much of the rest.

[SiN]

All video games are voice acted by two people (Nolan North and Jennifer Hale) and they can never be in the same room at the same time because if some disaster struck, no video games could ever have voice acting again.

:tup:

:tup:

[Frenetic Pony]

Jennifer Hale is actually Nolan North when he went back in a time machine and switched his Y chromosome with a nearly identical X one at birth, just so he could be in MORE video games.

But seriously, it's partially because video game creators aren't directors. Most movies don't even do that, to the point where the only director to do so regularly, Robert Altman (see Gosford Park btw), was famous for doing so.

[syntheticgerbil]

:tup:

:tup:

[Rxanadu]

Interesting!

FYI: Every sitcom does a read-through (aka table-read) with all the cast present, but that's very different from recording it. That's just when the cast goes through the script together. It's largely so the the writers can gauge what's working and what's not, and so the Network can give notes.

Here's a Community read-through:

I was completely unaware that this was a thing. That seems extremely useful for actors that can't get onto the set to practice their lines. I like how it's used as a way to get a feel for the lines, too. I could see how this could be hard to do for cartoon voice actors, though. From how many times I've heard Steve Blum's voice in every other game/Marvel cartoon/anime, he'd have to be in 5 places at once to get it all done on site. Then again, I'm not quite sure how VAs "phone it in". That just means they go to a local recording studio and send the files to the people that need them, right?

But, if they're doing that, then can't the audio developers splice the audio in such a way that it sounds like they're having a more realistic conversation (regardless of the direction of the voices)? I remember a scene in Persona 4 where the main characters cheered for victory about something. Given the information from the people posting on this topic, I can't possibly see all of these voice actors coming in to all essencially yell, "Woohoo", then leave to do other things. The only alternate explanation I can think of is that the VAs phoned-in all of their lines, and the audio developers just synched the separate yells together to sound like they said it simultaneously.

[TychoCelchuuu]

"Cheering for victory" is not the same as "having a more realistic conversation." If you think splicing together Altman style dialog is as easy as layering one voice track onto another, open up Audacity and give it a try. It's not that easy.

[Joewintergreen]

Half-Life 1 totally had a "guy interrupts another guy" part that worked pretty well. It's the part just before the test chamber where a guy says "although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely, I remain uncomfor-" "GORDON DOESN'T NEED TO HEAR ALL THIS HE'S A HIGHLY TRAINED PROFESSIONAL". The second line cuts off the first one entirely when it begins, which for whatever reason isn't always at exactly the same time. The .wav for the first guy's line goes all the way to "I remain uncomfortable with theuerrrrr....."

Of course, this was easier to do back then, when there was no manual facial animation going on - people's mouths in HL1 just opened and closed based on the volume of the .wav they were speaking and there was no other animation going on.

Relevant!

[ThunderPeel2001]

I was completely unaware that this was a thing. That seems extremely useful for actors that can't get onto the set to practice their lines.

No, this isn't useful for actors to practise their lines, it's actually mostly for the writers and the network, as I said. For a start, this isn't the final script, so there's no point in the actors even learning their lines, let alone practising them (this is why they're just reading them straight from the page). You're thinking of rehearsal, which is completely different. An actor in a sitcom wouldn't be hired if they couldn't get to the set for rehearsal -- they're paid to be there!

[syntheticgerbil]

Sort of deraling as this thread has made me think of the the part in Grim Fandango where you can constantly interrupt the chant of the Sea Bees by being out of key.

Here's a video sort of showing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OvreuxCh_xQ#t=954s

It's possible I'm the only one who got 15 minutes of enjoyment out of doing this over and over again.

[osmosisch]

Oh my, what a fine contribution to this Video game forum!

[Noyb]

practice their lines.

It's a depressingly rare occurrence for game VAs to get any of their lines in advance of recording. Far too often you're hearing cold reads of poorly written material.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yikes. That explains a lot!

[Rxanadu]

It's a depressingly rare occurrence for game VAs to get any of their lines in advance of recording. Far too often you're hearing cold reads of poorly written material.

Wow. This explains a lot about why things are the way they are. It even explains why Nolan North didn't even know he was voicing a character in Portal 2 and why the voice of Adam Jensen is

due to the popularity of his character in Human Revolution.

This reminds me of a trailer for Trauma Team where one of the actors says, "

." At first, I was only thinking of this as a blunder on Atlus' part for letting such a striking statement into an advertisment for their game. However, my opinion on actors in games is solidified: even to this day, when so many games have proven how powerful voice actors are for creating characters players can identfy with, voice actors are thought of as expendable completely optional.

I also know the same treatment is generally shown toward the sound department, epsecially when they have up to 40 mb of space available on a retail disk to place all of the sounds (music and all) in the game. I know the gameplay and interactive experience is paramount for most games, but to treat your other elements so poorly is beyond my comprehension. Just imagine playing The Walking Dead with no voices or sound, or playing Journey with no sounds whatsoever. Hell, unless they're deaf, most people couldn't imagine this scenario for most, if any, games made during this console generation.

[BigJKO]

Why there isn't acting rehearsals before any recording happens, is beyond me.. Surely it's less expensive to sit with the actors for a couple of hours than having to figure things out while an entire recording studio is on the clock?

[Tirranek]

One of the things I think Alpha Protocol and the Walking Dead did really well was create a time limit for giving a response. It's not a replacement for overlapping voices but it does make conversations flow much better. It also models the stress/importance of giving an answer within a specific timeframe.

[Frenetic Pony]

Why there isn't acting rehearsals before any recording happens, is beyond me.. Surely it's less expensive to sit with the actors for a couple of hours than having to figure things out while an entire recording studio is on the clock?

As far as I know VA's are paid by the hour. If you rehearse everything you've just spent a ton more money. Most games cost enough already, and most game studios today seem far more interested in spending that money on visuals than voice acting.

[BigJKO]

My point was without rehearsals more time is spent inside an expensive studio full of people paid by the hour, what with figuring out character, making mistakes. Just wondering if the cost of one actor for an hour or two would be more or less expensive than maybe a half hour of mistakes/misdirection in the studio.