Don’t Cast Hollywood Celebrities in Video Games | Precisely
Mortal Kombat 1 received critical acclaim, with particular praise for its original story and new gameplay systems. However, there is one area of the game that has drawn criticism: Megan Fox’s performance as Nitara. This is the second time Mortal Kombat has been embroiled in drama involving poor celebrity performances, with Mortal Kombat 11 facing similar criticism over Ronda Rousey’s lackluster performance as Sonya Blade.
However, Mortal Kombat isn’t the only series to experience this problem. Despite his huge success on Game of Thrones, actor Peter Dinklage received negative feedback for his performance as Ghost in Destiny, which ultimately led to developer Bungie replacing all of his lines. And who can forget Matthew Perry’s voice-calling performance in Fallout: New Vegas or Tobey Maguire’s in 2002’s Spider-Man?
This leads to the question: Why do games feature celebrities when the odds of a tough performance are so high? And why don’t games rely on actors who understand games better since they offer so much more to the culture? That’s exactly what Tam and Lucy discuss in this Spot On episode.
Spot On is GameSpot’s weekly news show where Editor-in-Chief Tamoor Hussain and Executive Producer Lucy James discuss the latest gaming news. Given the massive video game industry’s extremely dynamic and never-ending news cycle, there’s always something to talk about. Unlike most news programs, Spot On takes an in-depth look at a single topic rather than summarizing all the news. Spot On airs every Friday.
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