Sep 21, 2023

Celebrities are not the best voice actors... a Mortal Kombat rant

 In the previous Mortal Kombat we were "graced" with Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade. Dreadful is the most polite word to describe her performance. In the new Mortal Kombat 1, we have Megan Fox as Nitara... she makes Rousey look good. There are good actors that can do voicework. But let's face it, when you choose celebrities because of clout instead of actual talent, you get Ronda Rousey or Megan Fox.

Vanessa Marshall, Jennifer Hale, Grey DeLisle, Tara Strong, Lisa Ann Beley, Ashleigh Ball, Tabitha St. Germain, Nicole Oliver, Cree Summer, Kathleen Barr, or Rebecca Shoichet could've delivered MUCH BETTER PERFORMANCES and a lot cheaper than hiring Rousey or Fox.

I bet that this is Ed Boon trying to be Hideo Kojima... wait, what? He wanted to have Mortal Kombat 1 to be 100% voiced by celebrities? While Keanu Reeves playing Kenshi isn't that bad, since it's obvious that Keanu was an inspiration for the character, this isn't the smartest idea. Big name actors require bigger budgets and not all actors are suited for voicework. When making videogames, the priority should be Gameplay, not celebrities. There is a Pecking order:

Gameplay and controls are tier 1:
You need to have great gameplay and ibtuitive controls in order to have a better gaming experience. Bad gameplay and/or bad controls can ruin an experience. 

Story is tier 2:
Not all games need a complex story, but it should be engaging enough to make you want to keep playing.

Visuals and audio are in tier 3:
I'm not saying that they aren't important, because they are. But what you'd rather have:
-a bad game that's pretty to look at and with great music and acting.
-a good game with bad graphics and bad acting.

The lesser of these two evils is the second one. With Boon's desire to kiss up to celebrities, it FEELS like he's more interested in tier 3 over tier 1.

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