Ever since the Metal Gear series stepped into the third dimension in 1998, it has remained one of the greatest in the gaming pantheon thanks to its focus on cinematic presentation and iconic characters. Metal Gear Solid for the PS1 was one of the first games to make sure
everything was voice acted, from dramatic cut-scenes to countless codec conversations, to basic gameplay instructions. This is why the relatively short game still managed to span two discs! And ever since then, we've been sneaking toward those giant walking battle tanks in anticipation of the next line of dialogue. This also means a lot of voice actors reading a lot of lines. It seems that everyone we meet has something to say, from the folks back at mission command to the sleepy sentries unfortunate enough to be in our way, and while we love the wide range of verbose personalities, it's a sad fact that not all the acting is equal. As you might expect, it's the job of the Voice Director to help the actors with performances. The Metal Gear series has had the same Voice Director ever since MGS1. Her name is Kris Zimmerman, and I have no doubt she deserves credit for many of the amazing performances we've had in the series. In fact, when I contacted the great David Hayter on Twitter to ask whether Kris Zimmerman cared about the script and gave plenty of direction to actors, he replied and confirmed it:
So, that should shut any critics of her's up. I applaud Zimmerman for trying to squeeze the best possible performance out of the actors, no matter how oddball the script or how many pages they have to get through in a day. In some ways, Metal Gear games are the perfect opportunity for voice actors. The main characters have many more lines of dialogue than your average gig on a TV show or movie, where screen time is very limited. Unlike 99% of games, it's a series where character development is actually a selling point; that's a fantastic combination. It's got a devoted fanbase around the world, with people cosplaying their favourite FOXHOUND member or version of Snake every year at conventions. Just look at the crazy devotion surrounding David Hayter to see what can happen when you do it right (for the uninformed: Right now, fans are convincing each other that Kojima is trying to pull a "New Coke"-type stunt by saying that Kiefer Sutherland will be replacing Hayter as Big Boss in MGSV. They can't conceive of their favorite actor being replaced by a big name and consider it inferior!). We spend a whole lot of time with these characters, especially if we start calling them up on the radio, which is why it's only natural for us to have strong feelings about them. We love Al Pacino in Scarface, but what if the movie was 9 hours long? Games can take days, weeks, or even months to complete, which means a performance has the potential to make or break a game. Great performances will make us crave the next cut-scenes for the sheer joy of spending a few more minutes with a fictional friend, while a bad performance makes our skin crawl, has us laughing at all the wrong moments, and - if we're lucky - becomes an online meme to be thrown around in gaming message boards. Here are 5 performances that did more harm than good - but first, click "Next" for some honorable mentions...