Considering how much effort DICE has clearly put into Star Wars Battlefront‘s presentation, it’s a little strange that they appear to have scrimped on the voice acting budget.
As pointed out by several players, the voice acting in the game is a little… off. By “off” we mean that while a few characters sound relatively similar to their movie counterparts, others sound like they were recorded by “voice actors” who were dragged off the street by publishers EA, and whose only experience with the Star Wars franchise was being shown brief YouTube clips of lackluster impersonators trying to “do a Darth Vader” by cupping their hands over their mouth and pretending they had a sore throat.
An example of the poor voice acting can be heard in the video below. At 2:20 you’ll hear a particularly timid Darth Vader trying to tell you about the power of the dark side, which doesn’t sound as convincing as when James Earl Jones said it:
Then you have Emperor Palpatine, who is somewhat hit and miss. While the beginning of this video does sound a lot like the sinister Darth Sidious, the excerpts of dialogue he mutters during gameplay is far less reminiscent of the iconic villain.
Take the below footage, for example, which has been unfavorably compared to British comedy character Mr. Bean:
We can hear the resemblance:
Star Wars Battlefront received its official launch in the US today after being made available for a select period of time via EA Access. Early reception has been relatively good, though many have bemoaned the lack of content the game has to offer.
