Scene-stealing NPCs

is that accent meant to be Australian? my best guess would be South African

yes lol it’s just one of the extremely american developers doing their best

what the fuck. how do Americans mess it up this badly

4 Likes

BUT THEY NAH HER BUSINESS IS DERN

2 Likes

it always seems like people overemphasise it, which is strange, because if i had to think of any general descriptor for aussie speech patterns, it would be “lazy”

just start with the queen’s english, slur syllables together like crazy, form every vowel at the front of your mouth and just trail off rather than ever sucking the sound back in

3 Likes

don’t forget “cram as many vowel sounds you can think of into any and every long ‘O’”

1 Like

a weird thing happened in the 80s involving Crocodile Dundee and American-Australian relations have never fully recovered

1 Like

if people at least quoted “that’s a knife” properly i’d be cool with it

i feel like Californians are just as egregious on this front though

4 Likes

Dammit why aren’t there any good videos of Grimshaw from Perfect Dark

The vowel cramming thing really stuck out to me when i was listening to worst idea of all time recently. Whenever they say “no” it sounds like “naeuou” it’s wild

tbh i wish my accent had more vowels but it’s all glottal stops, boring

ok but i just looked that up and they’re kiwis. you can tell easy coz their short ‘i’ noises are more like schwa, and their ‘ä’ is more of an ‘eh’

or does that just describe how AU accents sound to US ears

also i love a glottal stop! i’ve been obsessed with the Northern English accent lately

They are definitely distinct but I think people just have so little contact with both that they get rolled up into being the same alien thing

Sometimes you can do a thing where like “no no see Steve Irwin is one thing and Jemaine and Brett are the other thing” and people will be like “oh yeah I can see it”

1 Like

i was out to lunch with someone from NZ and was amazed at how little i could pick their accent until they said something about their igg

2 Likes

oh no sorry i knew that tim and guy are kiwis i should have clarified, ive heard that vowelsmashing with a couple different accents it just really stuck out with them (as you’d expect from hearing them talk over many hours)

i definitely knew they’re from NZ because i once had to puzzle out what the fuck “God’s Eyeourn” meant

It’s somewhat annoying because in the US “Brett” and “Britt” are both names, distinct from one another, and these kiwis just bully right over it. Britt Rights Now

yeah Britt becomes Brutt, try to keep up

5 Likes

Will the madness never cease

I thought about voice acting while reading the ‘well-written videogames’ thread but couldn’t figure how to fit it there. I realised what I like about a lot of instances of text delivery and narrative writing in games isn’t actually very remarkable writing. What makes it special is the delivery, the enunciation, the tones and timbres of the voice. It’s the meeting place of literature and music. Some remarkable NPCs come to mind.


Madworld’s writing is an ashtray of cliche but the commentator writing in Madworld is remarkable lowbrow character acting and manages to work as fictional sports commentary. It’s hard to make fictional commentary punchy and relevant whilst also building out a broader sense of the characters talking and keeping the banter relevant to gameplay. Everyone talking is a horrible person and even when the jokes don’t land it makes sense for the world.

The way these two talk is so syncopated and feels vaguely pleasant to hear despite the crassness. They’re also easily the most charismatic characters in the game.


D.C. Douglas as the Pod in Nier Automata is another case where I could just listen to that voice all day. Pod isn’t really an NPC (party member at most?) or ‘scene-stealing’ but the quality of the voice is alluring and acts as a cold yet comforting contrast to the generally melodramatic voices of the main cast.


Surprised no-one has mentioned Ahti from Control.

5 Likes

Dammit why didn’t I think of Ahti. Just an absolute king

5 Likes