Chaos Wars for the PS2
Some people are still under the impression that it’s easy to do the voice acting for a video game. You just read some dialog and head home and call it an early day. One of these people seems to be the President and CEO of O~3 Entertainment, Chris Jelinek.
Their latest outing, a tactical role playing game (RPG) for the PlayStation 2, Chaos Wars, has been making the internet rounds lately for it’s sub-par performances in the English translation of the game. The video below in particular has been making the rounds on video game blogs for a little while.
A quick read of the game’s manual shows that the voice acting is credited to Quest Jelinek and Tyler Jelinek, with special thanks to Kay Jelinek and Lee Jelinek. Interesting to say the least.
Even though O~3 isn’t a powerhouse of a publisher they still could have hired some professionals, or even semi-professional at scale. I know I sure was available for the gig. But Mr. Jelinek either decided to hire his voice talent based solely off the criterion that they have the same last name as himself, or he just raided his own living room and got his family to do it.
Chaos Wars character inconsistency, employs CEO’s family [Insert Credit]
14 Jul 08 8:12 pm
…Wow.
14 Jul 08 8:33 pm
LOL, I dunno guys, it works for me.
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
14 Jul 08 8:40 pm
Uru sounds hot.
14 Jul 08 9:17 pm
I haven’t played any Japanese RPGs since the SNES Final Fantasy games, but I can say with absolute certainly I much prefer reading along and watching old-fashioned sprites than being subjected to terrible anime and godawful voice acting. Playing that whole game through would be torture (or perhaps just bearable if on ‘mute.’)
14 Jul 08 9:50 pm
OK, the voices in that video sounded awful. Like listening to the extras from a high school play being forced to stand in for the leads.
As a pro voice person… WHY do they sound so bad? What, specifically, would you say makes them sound so… yuck?
14 Jul 08 9:59 pm
Seems like URU is a little gay, and Neekole likes it!
Hot stuff
14 Jul 08 9:59 pm
That’s poop.
14 Jul 08 10:05 pm
How could you do it that bad. Its so boring.
It actually takes some effort to fuck it up that much.
14 Jul 08 10:21 pm
That’s horrible, the girl was the worst. I have a new found respect for voice actors, it’s all about emoting.
14 Jul 08 11:17 pm
Neat! I knew a Chris Jelinek from high school. Nice guy. He was into designing Rose Parade floats the last time I saw him.
15 Jul 08 12:43 am
Impressive. I think the word ’swine’ is an underused pejorative. We have much to learn from Jelinekese.
15 Jul 08 6:39 am
He should have just used the mac text to speech. More emotion. If I ever meet the Shizuku chick I will have to kneecap her. Like nails on a chalkboard.
15 Jul 08 7:27 am
Lol, this is made of UBER FAIL. The voices have no emotions, too nasal, no control…
The art of Speech is almost like singing. It does need to be refined and it does take practise. He’s got to be kidding when he emplyed his family to do this >_>; Have you ever wondered why voice actors can sing as well? They utilise their voices in a way different to normal everyday speech. Even though it doesn’t seem like it…
He should’ve learnt his lesson from this, no?
15 Jul 08 9:32 am
That is hilarious
15 Jul 08 11:49 am
URU sounds like the alien on American Dad.
15 Jul 08 12:53 pm
This is so funny. They should make more games like this. Dugg.
15 Jul 08 1:31 pm
Ignoring the voices all together, the dialog itself was terrible…
15 Jul 08 2:46 pm
The voice actors weren’t nearly as crappy as the script. That was horrid.
15 Jul 08 4:40 pm
Hayatemaru: “I know! What are YOU doing? That’s just wrong dude.”
Hyoma: “I’m gonna hurt you badly. I mean really badly.”
That has got to be the worst script I have ever seen. I’m going to go rinse my ears and eyes with lemon juice now.
15 Jul 08 5:03 pm
Has anyone noticed that these characters are blatant ripoffs of Yuri, Nicolas and Karin from Shadow Hearts: Covenant? Like, direct cut and paste character design.
15 Jul 08 5:05 pm
Hehehe… made my day. Thanks for that!
15 Jul 08 8:50 pm
They’re supposed to be Uri, Nicolas, and Karin. It’s a crossover game.
16 Jul 08 8:04 pm
Voice actors? Damn, what about the WRITING.
16 Jul 08 10:12 pm
[...] Hey, it’s some high-quality voiceacting: Don’t Hire Your Family to Voice Over Your Video Game — Voice Overture
19 Jul 08 7:53 am
Oh Lord, this thing again…
Yeah, it’s been floating around for a while and just proves a point made by friend and fellow VA Amy Howard-Wilson. Dubs don’t suck, but BAD DUBS SUCK!!!
While not a dub, per se, I think this falls into the example she was setting.
20 Jul 08 9:48 am
Karen sounds like they recorded her just as she rolled out of bed. I really don’t blame her for her performance. Kinda applaud it, really.
The rest of them sound like they’re doing high school drama theater.
21 Jul 08 9:19 am
I’ve been through the first chapter hearing those words… and decided to do over the game with japanese voice acting and hey… It’s better… (obviously)
23 Jul 08 12:45 am
worst voice acting ever, good thing there’s an option which you can turn the voices off.
29 Jul 08 1:12 am
Haha… that’s exactly what I did… I sat through the intro and then I was like “This is terrible, I sure hope they left Japanese voices in.” At least they did that right…
14 Aug 08 5:13 pm
4kids redeemed?