Hi all. Let me use my first post here to weigh in on this controversial topic.

Before anyone slams me for my opinion or because I've bumped a tired old theme here, please stop reading now if you're going to post "get over it" or "geez I'm sick of this". Some of us just bought the game, and it's new to us, and we're entitled to our opinion and hopefully our ability to influence Larian's direction on future games. Unless they hear from us and what we do/don't like, how can they continue to improve?

I think the death knight's voice, re-recorded or not, is substandard, for a couple of reasons, which have probably already been mentioned ad nauseum.
- This is a role playing game, and immersion counts a great deal in the storyline. When a character is very jarring in their portrayal, it rips you out of the sense of immersion and IMO enjoyment. And I'm not alone - my wife walked by my computer as I was playing the initial cutscene and did a double-take at the voiceovers.
- The person who recorded it should be thanked for their effort, but Larian should have invested in a professional voiceactor who could have brought an interpretation to the character. The lines unfortunately sound like they've been read one-for-one, and there's no real emotional character development there, other than "let's talk in a big scarey voice". Bitterness and snarling at the situation, careless cruelty, the occasional sigh of exasperation from a character that is very annoyed at being forced to journey with you, coupled with rare and very grudging admiration - it seems that the EMOTION was not present that an experienced actor could have brought to the role, and volume was substituted instead. Not that I'm a professional myself, but sometimes the best "evil" voice is a quiet, deep, matter-of-fact one that does not sound so forced all of the time, and when that voice gets loud, you know something's up.
- It's the number one speaking role in the entire game, which makes it a big, big part of the experience - which increases the need to do it right.
- Some of the scripting is excellent, with fabulous humor and high entertainment, but the lines given to the DeathKnight in the first two cutscenes (that's as far as I've made it) are simply not well written. These speeches don't set a very good precedent, and add to the lack of involvement.

Don't get me wrong here, I really, really like the <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> series. But the story components are brought a bit further into mediocrity by the lack of actual character involvement, and it turns a compelling role-playing experience into a mechanical one.

Hopefully Larian will spend some more effort when considering this for Divinity 2. Their games are great, even if some facets can use improvement.

-- Retro