Fame doesn’t guarantee talent. When celebrities take a break from their day jobs to lend their voices to games, the result isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it’s bad writing or poor casting to blame. Sometimes it’s over acting or worse yet, under acting with all the personality of a potato. But whatever the reason, enlisting star power to boost a game’s appeal has given rise to some truly terrible - and hilarious - performances of Mystery Science Theater 3000 proportions. That’s why we decided to dust off our libraries to dig up the best of the worst voiceovers from famous folk that videogames have to offer.
Christopher Walken
The Game: True Crime: Streets of LA (Xbox, PS2, GC, PC)
The Star: Christopher Walken as George
There’s something about Christopher Walken’s deadpan voice that works. It’s his distinct style of speech - which only he can do - that made us laugh out loud when he demanded “more cowbell” on SNL and related the gruesome story of how he hid the infamous gold watch in Pulp Fiction.
But Walken kicks it up one notch too many when he did the voiceover for the narrator, George in True Crime: Streets of LA. This time around, he almost sounds like he’s trying to do an impersonation of himself. The result: something truly awful.
Listen to the way he emphasizes that “nobody knows what happened to Henry all those years ago...” and you’ll get a good feeling for Walken’s over exaggerated acting in the game. Not since his role as the headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow has Walken disappointed us so thoroughly.
Fame doesn’t guarantee talent. When celebrities take a break from their day jobs to lend their voices to games, the result isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it’s bad writing or poor casting to blame. Sometimes it’s over acting or worse yet, under acting with all the personality of a potato. But whatever the reason, enlisting star power to boost a game’s appeal has given rise to some truly terrible - and hilarious - performances of Mystery Science Theater 3000 proportions. That’s why we decided to dust off our libraries to dig up the best of the worst voiceovers from famous folk that videogames have to offer.
Christopher Walken
The Game: True Crime: Streets of LA (Xbox, PS2, GC, PC)
The Star: Christopher Walken as George
There’s something about Christopher Walken’s deadpan voice that works. It’s his distinct style of speech - which only he can do - that made us laugh out loud when he demanded “more cowbell” on SNL and related the gruesome story of how he hid the infamous gold watch in Pulp Fiction.
But Walken kicks it up one notch too many when he did the voiceover for the narrator, George in True Crime: Streets of LA. This time around, he almost sounds like he’s trying to do an impersonation of himself. The result: something truly awful.
Listen to the way he emphasizes that “nobody knows what happened to Henry all those years ago...” and you’ll get a good feeling for Walken’s over exaggerated acting in the game. Not since his role as the headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow has Walken disappointed us so thoroughly.
