Posted by Bob Mackey
Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.
I have to apologize because today's WTFriday is more than a little dated; but since my buddy picked up The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return (not exactly a graceful title) for the Wii, I've had Goldman on my mind. Who's Goldman? Why, he's the series' recurring villain, whose plan to "cleanse the world" involves filling it with the most disgusting, abhorrent creatures to not really exist: zombies. But the important thing here is that he's clearly voiced by someone speaking English phonetically. The original Resident Evil tends to come to mind when we think of bad voice acting, but House of the Dead 2 is much, much worse--and rarely ever gets the credit it deserves.
Check out the following video and dare to tell me that stuff like "the master of unlocking" is even half as bad the marble-mouthed Goldman:
I have to give Sega credit for making sure that every line reading was performed completely out of context; in the lead up to the epic final battle, Goldman sounds more like a passive-aggressive biology teacher than a madman bent of world domination. Making something this terrible in 1998 was also pretty ballsy; remember, Metal Gear Solid came out just a month later. Sega and Capcom may have retconned their poor choices later in life by claiming that bad voice acting added to the B-Movie charm of their games--but it's more than obvious that back then they were being sincere.
Once again, I apologize for the old news; it's just that I'm personally bummed that Goldman never found a home in our land of video game memes; but maybe that's what makes him so special. In the end, though, I think we've all learned something from House of the Dead 2's voice acting: shouting "No! Don't! Come!" is no way to stop a zombie. Or an accidental pregnancy.
Related Links:
WTFriday: Play it Loud
WTFriday: Frawless Victory
WTFriday: The Adventures of Sonichu
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About Bob Mackey
For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's
Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.
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