Opinions on the voice actors?

[GunnerofLife]

Many reviewers and players dislike the voice acting for some reason. I think it's superb, even better than Skyrim's, in my opinion. It's probably my nostalgia, but I just love hearing them talk, especially the Dunmers.

 

What are your opinions on Oblivion's voice acting?

[Hickory]

Six and two threes, really. Some is far superior (and that's without mentioning Patrick Stewart or Sean Bean) to Skyrim, some is just plain annoying -- the female Imperial (I think the same actress does Bretons, too) NPC voice, for instance. Love the female Redguard voice, male one too. Same with the mer races. Oh, the Breton male voice is pants, too. Not really a full summary, but I haven't played it in a while.

[Loukiana]

Greetings.

 

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Edited February 28, 2013 by Loukiana

[AnArcticAnt]

I used to find them pretty lame, but I've grown rather fond of them recently...they're far from perfect, and have a lot of flaws, but I find most of them believable enough. I think the problem is the limit in actors used, and the static way they're applied to races, something that Skyrim avoided quite well. If they'd used the variation we saw in Skyrim, I think the actors they used would've worked out great, it's just a bit...peculiar...when half the conversations sound like someone's talking to themselves.

 

The actors - and for the most part, the acting - are pretty underrated though. I'm especially fond of the Imperial male one, who sounds to me like an actual pro. My least favourite? Probably the Redguard male, who sounds like he never quite grasped the concept of punctuation. Or intonation. Or subtlety...the Imperial/Breton female is a bit grating, but fine all in all, very classy and suitable. The male Breton is lovely too, so soothing, and sort of mentor like. It's got this wise air about it, and works for so many different characters (shrewd businessmen and wise mages all the way to dumb drunks, I love the work on Reynard Jemane) The elven male has a bit too much "crazy" going on, he can get grating too at times, but he does give a lot of characters, well, character! I found Glarthir to be just superbly done. The Redguard female sounds a bit bored and like she doesn't care enough to me, that's a shame, she's got a very appropriate and fitting voice. The elven female is...tricky. She's not outright bad, and I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with her, but for some reason she fits some of her characters very well and some not at all. I can't think of any issues with the Nord/Orc ones right now, but I'm sure it'll come to me once I hear enough of them again...but all in all, they're definitely good enough.

 

Khajiiti/Argonians...ergh. I mean for Argonians, the female is mostly fine, but I don't think she quite suits Khajiiti characters. The guy, on the other hand...yikes. Listening to male Argonians is really grating, and takes a lot of patience for me, for some reason, and the lines they made him say for Khajiiti, combined with that voice...am I the only one feeling like that one's some sort of awful racist joke? Some of them are fine, and fitting enough, sure, but a lot of them really rub me the wrong way. That's got to be my main complaint about the voice acting in the game, Khajiiti kinda got shafted as far as suitable acting goes. I like their voices better in Skyrim, where you can at least smile at the fact that they come off as some poorly done Arabic stereotype because their voices are kinda cute, but in Oblivion...gah, a lot of Khajiiti and (male) Argonians just sadden and annoy me, even when I don't feel the douche chills coming on.

 

Just so that makes sense, I like the male Redguard the least in terms of actual voice acting, the issues I have with the beast races' voices are less about the acting per se, they're fairly well done as far as reading goes. Beast races = bad characters, Redguards = bad actor, I suppose.

 

...that got a bit longer than I anticipated, heh.

Edited March 2, 2013 by TheNiceNightmare

[Kataiser9]

Interesting that there's such a range of opinions. I personally like the male Redguard and really dislike the female one, although my least favorite has to be the Breton male, who sounds incredibly placid and bored all the time (it works well in some situations, but definitely not in all). Some of the actors, like the elf female, seem reasonably skilled but badly casted. The male elf is a really good actor, but his goofy approach doesn't always work well. I'm a fan of both Argonian/Khajiit voices too.

 

Nords/Orcs... not a fan. (I remember hearing that the female actor there is married to a CEO of Bethesda...) And I'd imagine most people like the Imperial male, even if he gets a bit overacted/cheesy at times. Dude's awesome.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Spelling Police

[nenina]

They are just as good and bad as Skyrim's voices. But when any of them try to voice the roles of teenagers / young adults that's when it falls apart.

 

Most interesting voice: K'hajiit male.

Funniest voice role: Mazoga

Worst interpretation: Vaermina ( or whichever tried to have the Scottish accent )

Best suited: Urkel Gro Orkel from Slash and Smash

Raspberry Award: Ungolim from the Chorrol Mages Guild quest

Most Flowery Wibbly Wobbly Award: Dagail

Both good and bad at the same time: All Mer males

Strangely likeable: Dar Ma

[Brittainy]

I think almost across the board the SI expansion has fantastic voice acting. Haskill and Sheogorath are a joy to behold. And oddly enough some of the actors who usually annoy me don't in SI (for example, the fellow who voices Thadon works brilliantly in SI and yet he can really be a pain the rest of the time. As stated above by someone else, the goofy approach often misfires.)

 

The rest of the main game (inc the Knights expansion) is completely hit and miss.

 

The Redguards drive me up the wall in particular. Can't handle those awful American accents. It's definitely up there as one of the most inappropriate and jarring accents to use in certain genres and it absolutely does not work in TES...at least not in my opinion. Not to mention the fact that the male and female actors are definitely sub-par.

 

Overall I think the males probably come off a bit better in general, but not by much. Most of the females are fairly annoying and none stand out as particularly impressive and some (Reguard and Imperial) actively irk me. Probably the only time I prefer the females over the males is with the Khajiit's and Argonians.

 

As to how it stacks up against Skyrim, I'd have to say I prefer Oblivion's voice acting overall, though not by a great deal and it's more about liking the characters than the performances in many cases. I'd say on the actual acting front it's quite even. Oblivion just had better / quirkier characters and three particularly great performances to clinch it (Martin, Haskill and Sheogorath.)

 

And it thankfully didn't have annoying American kiddies running about...

 

Favourite character: Haskill

Best performance overall: Martin

Funniest character: Thadon

Best weird character: Jayred Ice-Veins

Best nutter: Sheogorath

Best b&@*$: Relmyna Verenim

Edited March 8, 2013 by Brittainy

[AnArcticAnt]

I agree on the lines made for SI, I guess they had more fun doing those (or maybe it just suited them better?) ;-)

 

They should have got a real Scottish voice actor for Sheogorath instead of telling the Imperial guy to just imitate one, I think, because it feels like the accent wavers at times...he's not bad at it, it just feels like he forgets to stay in character at times. Haskill though...man, Haskill, just incredible performance there, you should summon him as often as possible just so you can get to hear every single line he says, because they're all wonderful.

[Brittainy]

I agree Sheogorath's accent did indeed waver, which was a shame...but the lines were so priceless I can overlook it.

 

It's a pity not everyone could be up to the standard of Haskill, though. Have to wonder why, given that there must be huge numbers of voice actors to pick from. Skyrim had some real duds as well. You'd think they'd try and be a bit more consistent with their standards.

[gaminggriffin]

I can never get tired of hearing owyn scream his lungs out at me, it's just so funny ;D.