Voice acting in video games was once an enthralling, amazing, almost unheardof thing.  It was pretty awesome to hear ‘VALKYRIE SHOT THE FOOD’ come from a Gameboy’s mono speaker.  Yeah, I saw that shit-eating grin, you remember.

As technology grew though, it became more and more common to have soundbytes of your hero screaming and yelling, and eventually games became fully voiced.  There are ups and downs to such things that I won’t discuss here, ’cause that’s best left to an article dedicated thereto.  Here, I wanna discuss Star Fox.

Star Fox 64 is an on-rails 3d shooter, and a retelling of the events of Star FOx for the SNES.  The main highlight for many was the full voice-acting, with every character (except for that bizarre raccoon thing in the tutorial) having a voice actor.  Much of the english dialogue was parody of science fiction movies such as Star Wars, and nearly every line is incredibly memorable.

Fox was voiced by Mike West, who is a relative unknown to my knowledge, and doesn’t take his role as leader too seriously.  Bill Johns plays Falco, Issac Marshall plays Peppy, and I don’t know who plays Slippy but their voice is incredibly whiney.

The acting for every character is absolutely abbysmal, but for me, that’s a big part of the charm.

The game starts out with Fox giving instructions to the team as they enter the atmosphere.  Falco sounds calm here, and nowhere else in the game.

Memorable quotes seem to be thrown at the player one after another, though my favourite (Which was later referenced in Star Fox Assault for the GCN) is the opening to the last level before Venom on the Hard path, as Falco says, in the most obnoxious tone you can imagine, “TOO LATE!  GAME OVER PAL!”

Obviously, not every game is so successful with its voiceovers.  In fact, a majority of video game actors should probably not quit their day jobs.  Final Fantasy X was absolutely embarassing, in both English and Japanese (And don’t even try to deny it).  The Soul Reaver series took its serious nature and threw it out the window with all the phoned in, overdramatic lines spoken throughout.  And don’t even make me mention Symphony of the Night, with Richtor and Dracula’s famous dialogue.

Games with really good voice acting are rare, games with really bad voice acting are plentiful, but games where every single line is both terrible and wonderful?  Those are few and far between, and I’ll always remember Star Fox 64 for that reason.