Posts tagged with “Cartoon”

Anyone else here tend to hate video game cut scenes? I know I do. I usually skip right past them as quickly as possible, ignoring large portions of the plot and the characters because I find them unimpressive. My general feeling is that I’m playing a game, not watching a movie, and if I wanted the latter I’d pick up the remote.

However, good voice acting is one of the only things I’ve found that can get me to watch the cut scenes. Most video game characters are still stuck in the uncanny valley visually, but I can always suspend disbelief when characters sound good. Some of my favorite voice acted characters in past games have included Yangus from Dragon Quest VIII, the various worm teams in Worms Armageddon, the cast of Uncharted and Uncharted 2, and just about any Terran unit/hero in Starcraft.

Recently we’ve started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum at the office, and one of the things we immediately noticed was that the game uses all the voice actors from the old cartoon shows; Mark Hamil plays the Joker, and Kevin Conroy takes up his familiar mantle of Batman. As someone who watched the old cartoon shows in the 90′s I thought this was a terrific move, and for the first time in ages I found myself watching cut scenes and talking to characters just to hear what Batman (or the Joker) has to say. While there was a bit of a disconnect with animation styles (see above image) it was still immensely enjoyable listening to the characters, in a way I haven’t heard in quite some time.

Of course, voice acting can go the other way too. The voice acting and dialog of the radio chatter in Star Fox 64 was notoriously bad (especially Slippy) though I like to listen to it just because how else would I know to do a barrel roll? Final Fantasy tends to be pretty hit or miss with voices, with the balance being overall negative. In FF 12 (arguably my favorite of the series) the main character Vaan is a chore to listen to, and only Balthier and Fran have interesting voices.

Do you normally watch cut scenes? How important is voice acting for you in games? Let us know in the comments!

We’ve been kicking this question around the office for a while and are unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. Is Inspector Gadget a man or a machine?

There is ample evidence that Gadget is some sort of Cyborg with extensive implants; that would certainly explain the fact that his limbs all seem to function in mechanical ways at times and “normally” at other times. It also explains his demeanor and human personality.

But at what point does one stop being a Cyborg and become a full fledged robot? Gadget regularly has things pop out of his head (see above image), implying that his skull is storage space and indicating that he may in fact be a robot. An alternate theory is that he is entirely human and has some sort of advanced nano-robotic implants which construct (and then deconstruct) his gadgets upon verbal “Go Go” commands.

The rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one; if Gadget isn’t human, what is his relationship to Penny? Is she actually his niece, or perhaps some sort of highly trained and competent caretaker? Evidence in the cartoon show would certainly support this theory. And what about Brain? Does he have some sort of neuro-stimulation of his own going on? How else could we explain his extraordinary intelligence as a K-9?

What do you think? Let us know where you stand on this in the comments!