Video game cutscenes rival and sometimes outdo the grandeur of the CGI bonanza that Hollywood blockbusters unleash upon us — both in good and bad ways. Still, even great games often fail at achieving dramatic moments. I’m totally cool with that, though, as it usually results in comedy gold. To that point, I’ve got a list here of unintentionally hilarious video game moments, memorable for reasons the devs may not have intended.
The original Resident Evil’s awful cutscenes (actually have an explanation)
I could spread the rumor that Tommy Wieasau’s The Room got a lot of inspiration from the original Resident Evil. The writing and voice acting are that, uh, experimental.
And none of that is new. ’90s gamers make so many jokes about Resident Evil’s narrative shortcomings I can never look at a sandwich or a lockpick without feeling sad for Jill Valentine. We all know the original RE remains infamous for its writing and voice acting, but most don’t know why it turned out so messy— and the reason is marvelous.
Apparently, the actors were quite good (a rare case back in the day), but they didn’t have the direction to utilize that talent. The language barrier between the actors and Capcom’s voiceover directors didn’t serve a global audience. Instead, the directors focused only on sounds that sounded cool to Japanese speakers. So, to folks elsewhere, the inflection and reactions from RE’s actors didn’t make as much sense.
Devil May Cry fills your dark soul with laughter
Dante from the Devil May Cry series is an absolute rockstar — even if he never sings or plays instruments. Either way, you wouldn’t expect to hear this guy’s voice cracking. That’s especially true because recording studios could already afford to do more than one take, even back in the early ’00s.
For the scene where Trish dies, however, they either went with their very first recording or with the worst one. Once Dante begins to utter the words “light”, his voice cracks, and if that weren’t enough, there’s a weird echo that further hammers the awkwardness in.
That’s very weird coming from what’s either the best or second-best game in the series. Still, everything from the original Devil May Cry is gold, so it naturally ended up becoming a cult classic moment.
House of the Dead 2
This arcade classic has the heroes meeting Goldman, the only big boss in history who doesn’t want to be there.
His lines imply that he’s a ruthless business bro who’ll do whatever it takes to achieve unlimited power. His voice, however, implies that he’s just a regular guy the developers kidnapped and forced to read lines without context. The only heartfelt delivery we hear from Goldman’s mouth is “goodbye, friends” when we finally defeat him. I just hope Goldman’s voice actor made it back to his family.
The G-Man from the Half-Life series sounds weird on purpose. An actor had to work to nail sounding like a monster poorly masquerading as a human. The guy who did the voice for Goldman in House Of The Dead 2 sounds like G-man by accident. What an absolute natural talent.
Mass Effect Andromeda’s baby Krogan fight
Remember what Krogans sounded like in the previous Mass Effect games? Cherish that.
It’s not as much just a voice thing here, but the animation and sound effects make this a mess. The actor’s delivery lacks that post-production alien effect, but the animation and sound effects are even worse. The blows seem to have no impact. This looks like the most fixed fight in the history of Mass Effect Andromeda‘s illegal boxing scene. However, this does make one of the most physically imposing races in the ME universe look like big babies. And that’s pretty cute.
To compare the reception this scene first received, go look at how many times people have uploaded it on YouTube. Then, see how many of the uploads don’t feature a laugh track.
Peter Dinklage in Destiny 1
This is an artifact as Bungie replaced his work with Nolan North’s, but it failed to replace our memories.
Bungie cast Dinklage in Destiny after his Game Of Thrones success. However, the Destiny recording lacks the charm and personality Dinklage was known for as Tyrion Lannister. He sounded miserably bored and rather robotic in comparison.
This one’s a very rare (perhaps unique) case of an A-list actor getting replaced by a video game voice actor. Usually, it’s the opposite.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Who doesn’t love bloopers? Bethesda knows we all do, so it saved us the trouble of having to wait until the ending credits. What I’m saying is, yes, The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion features voice lines where you can hear the actors mess up.
You can hear the voice actor saying, “Wait a minute, let me do that one again”. She does that after a line delivery that she wasn’t happy with, then she does a better take. It’s beautiful.
Layers of Fear’s layers of slapstick
Layers of Fear just isn’t very scary even when it is at its best, but the ghost kid here doesn’t help the tone. In a haunting classic, the little girl ghost bumping her head against the wall had most of us hooting.
It’s funny enough if you just witness it once, but going forward and backward at its trigger point in the map will cause the scene to play as many times as you want. An unintentionally hilarious time loop.
Alone in the Dark
There’s a lot going on here, none of which are easy to decipher or breakdown in a way that’s a little more “all ages” friendly. I’m just asking that you watch the short clip above.
Let me try to sum it up in PG fashion. It shows Edward Carnby in Alone in the Dark, the game, saying something seemingly more coke-induced than his Alone in the Dark movie adaptation counterpart. Yes, the one by Uwe Boll. Now that’s art.
Well, at least his voice didn’t crack.
