Easily the number one complaint gamers and critics had of Bungie's Destiny alpha was the voice acting of Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage.
Dinklage's lines were flat and uninspired, and some of the lines were particularly bad.
Most notorious of these was the now infamous moon-wizard line. "That wizard came from the moon," Dinklage's AI voice intoned, to much chuckling and shaking of heads.
Bungie even released a t-shirt with the quotation on it, which---according to their official Twitter account---immediately became the best-selling item in the developer's online shop.
Well, Bungie promised to update the voice work for the beta and they've made good on their word.
The moon wizard line is no more, and Dinklage's voice has been run through a filter, giving him a more robotic sound. And it helps, it really does, though perhaps not as much as it should.
The above video is from CVG, and gives a few examples of the original voice work and the filtered results in the beta.
It's certainly an improvement. When I first played the alpha and heard Dinklage's voice I thought it was from a nearby NPC. It was only after looking around for a minute that I realized this was my AI companion. Quite possibly the most bored and uninspired AI companion I've ever encountered.
The robot voice filter at least sounds like what we might imagine an AI to be. Then again, there have been other AI companions in both games and film that didn't need a filter to work out.
Think Cortana in Halo 4---oddly scantily clad outfit notwithstanding:
Then again, the writing for Cortana in that game was top-notch. Dinklage's voice work is compounded by some very silly lines that would likely sound silly no matter who says them. "That wizard came from the moon" being just one example. Perhaps in the larger game this is less of an issue.
In the film Her, the AI operating system---voiced by Scarlett Johansson---even manages a Ukulele song. And it works.
Still, hopefully the filtered voice work makes Destiny's constant companion more bearable, perhaps even likable. Not Tyrion Lannister likable, but we can't have everything.
Destiny launches on September 9th on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. (Alas, not on PC.)
