Bad VO

Doing good voice-overs is a much harder challenge than one might initially think.  Acting itself requires a particular set of skills that don't always come naturally, and to get good at it (in a broad sense) one must hone their craft.  Voice acting is no exception to this and, in fact, comes with its own specific challenges.  On one hand the actor doesn't need to worry about things like makeup and wardrobe, but on the other they often have to create a performance essentially through imagination alone.  Even other actors are unlikely to be present, forcing the person whose voice is being recorded to essentially do it all solo.  

There are many great examples of people who have risen to this particular challenge; both in animated films and shows, as well as video games.  I'm sure anyone reading this can think of a few, and if not a cursory internet search will provide some thoughtful lists.  Instead of that though, I want to touch on the bad...but not just in general.  I want to break it down into three categories of bad; each with their own example.  

Phoning-it-in:

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Super Wing Commander was (surprisingly, given the title) not a SNES port of the original Wing Commander.  The Nintendo version kept the exact same title and visual assets as the original aside from a slight fidelity downgrade.  The "Super" version of this game was made for the 3DO and Mac.  It featured all new portraits for the characters as well as redesigns of all the spacecraft.  Content from expansion packs were seamlessly integrated into the campaign and even a few unique bonus missions were included to better tie the original to its sequel.  What it didn't receive was improvements to the voice acting.  The SegaCD version had competently done VO, but for some strange reason Super Wing Commander had it's own separate recordings done with different actors that were shockingly flat and dull.  One character in particular, "Iceman", has such a lifeless way of delivering lines I couldn't help but chuckle...overall, it seems like the cast were in large part made up of people who happened to be doing other jobs in the studio offices since most have very few, if any other, acting credits to their names.  

Nails-on-a-chalkboard:

Shadow of the Comet (later repackaged as one of two Call of Cthulhu point-and-click adventure games) was an early adopter of the CD-ROM format.  As such, voice acting was used to improve the game's marketability as well as justify all that extra storage space.  For the calmer parts of the game, it isn't bad.  In fact, some of it could even be considered decent for the standards of the time.  However, there are a number of scenes in which things become "heated".  In these instances the actors rightfully intensified their performances to match what is occurring on-screen.  Sadly, their enthusiasm for the material didn't translate to the final product.  As RagnarRox of Youtube fame puts it, "I highly recommend playing this game text only.  It makes it much more easy to take the game seriously and you avoid both the cringey voice acting and syncing problems with the subtitles." In addition to that, I would like to add you are less likely to suffer ear/speaker damage due to people blowing their mics out during audio recording sessions.      

So-bad-it-is-actually-good:

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins reminds me a lot of that goofy comedy film "Kung Pow! Enter the Fist" in that it pokes fun not at the culture from which the media came, but rather the shoddy job in which it was localized.  Roles such as the narrator and Rikimaru are played straight, but most of the supporting cast are incredibly over the top in terms of delivery.  Some especially egregious examples include the corrupt merchants Bizenya and Echigoya.  The latter of which has a bodyguard who sports an outrageous Japanese accent. "Rooks rike you picked the wong pah-tee to clash."  It doesn't stop there though the Manji cult leader is on a whole other level of cheese.  Combine that with Ayane's deadpan snark, a pirate captain that only speaks Spanish and whatever the heck Onikage (plus his boss "Lord Mei-oh") are trying to channel, and you have a recipe for comedy gold. 

There are, of course, many more examples I could bring up.  Famous (or should I say infamous?) examples such as the original Resident Evil are easy to cite.  Then there are equally obscure examples such as Phase Paradox, a game that I can only describe as "bizarre" in terms of line delivery.  I think that I've made my point though - just because it is bad doesn't mean I can't be interesting.