Slashdot Mirror
On The Secret Life Of Videogame Voice Actors
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'Spot On' feature discussing the world of the videogame voice actor, as the article notes by way of introduction: "Their contributions are never seen, but their work can make or break the spell a game casts upon the gamer." The piece continues: "Brilliant performances, like those in Mafia and Freedom Force, help totally immerse players in another reality, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds and some Resident Evil games have voice work so bad they offer up unintentional B-grade-movie-style chuckles", before ending by pointing out: "A good voice actor can earn between $850 and $1,000 for a four-hour recording session. Well-known celebrities command tens of thousands of dollars for a single session." What are your favorite voice-acting performances in recent games?
Whoever did the voice of Kyle Katarn in Jedi Outcast & Jedi Academy. Best... voice... ever!
The guy that did the voice for Corwin!
That was the *best* bit of voice work hands down.
The voice acting in the Resident Evil games is INTENTIONALLY cheesy to reflect the Italian zombie movies of the 70's and 80's that inspired the series.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
The voice acting in this game was brilliant, and it really helped make the game.
Some of the voices were loops of star wars alien-speak, but the fact that all dialogue was spoken and sounded reallistic and in character really helped make the game.
Resident Evil games have voice work so bad they offer up unintentional B-grade-movie-style chuckles
I'd call that authentic, what is Resident Evil if not the videogame incarnation of the classic b-movie theme Zombies
You can hardly complain about the acting in a game/movie of that genre!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I became quite attached to the sound of my voice in that game ( not my voice but the voice of my character, which wasnt me, but I created him, not as part of the released game but in game after I bought it )
What are your favorite voice-acting performances in recent games?
Monster #72 from Doom. The way he howled when I blew his friggin' brains out was really moving. I nearly cried over that performance.
A close second place has to be whoever had the vocal stamina to do "wacka-wacka-wacka-wacka..." for hours straight when they were recording the soundtrack for Pac-Man! Someone with talent like that should move to Hollywood and be making Police Academy movies!
Hands down, it's got to be Bruce Campbell. His tone and the inflection he uses when blurting out even the weirdest of hints in Spiderman 2 for PS2 make the game.
For her work as Deionarra(Planescape:Torment), Fall-from-Grace(Planescape:Torment) and Mazzy Fentan(Baldur's Gate II).
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
One of the few games that managed to pull off a sad ending did it so well partially because of its superb voice acting. If you want to play a game with awesome voice acting, or just an awesome game, you can find this one in bargain bins for $10.
I gotta hand this one to Bruce Campbell as the "Tour Guide" in the Spiderman game. The only bad part about it was the fact that I was paying more attention to him than the game.. ;)
I haven't gotten around to trying Evil Dead: A Fistfull of Boomstick yet, but I imagine he's just as good in that one (even though the game got some pretty bad reviews)
End of line..
-Best concept for an end villain ever. -Best plotline of any game, period. -It does the best job of completely rejecting average FRPG stereotypes without becoming one itself, while still keeping an interesting setting you can relate to. -Best puzzle ever.(The tomb.) -Best NPC interaction, as its characters do grow, do banter with each other, and are three-dimensional. -Best areas.(Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lusts) In short, it's refreshingly original, has the best story and characters of anything we've seen, and never lets up on either.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
That is all
SimCity 2000 - the last best hope for the Sim Franchise.
James Warner as Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2.
David Hayter, voice actor for Solid Snake of Metal Gear Solid / Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance. Also, incidentally, the writer for X-Men and X-Men 2. Filmography at imdb.
I'm probably going against the general sentiment of the gaming community, but I found XIII to be an excellent game, do partly to the great voice acting. For those who never bothered to mess with the game, it's more or less a conspiracy story about how a man who allegedly killed the president and shortly thereafter loses his memory. It gets more complex when it is revealed that the alleged assassin is just counter-revolutionary agent 13 of 21. The game itself is a cel-shaded hybrid stealth/fps game that sits nicely on top of the Unreal engine. The gameplay is rather mediocre by Splinter Cell or Unreal standards (as is reflected in its often lackluster reviews), but it has some great voice work in it that really sets it apart from the typical FPS. David Duchovny (X-Files) plays the title character perfectly. Adam West also walks away from his infomercial grandeur long enough to lend his voice in the game here and there as well.
I picked up a new copy for GCN from GameStop for $20, and was not disappointed. Check it out some time.
"You and your third dimension."
Gosh, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the amusing voice talent in many of the LucasArts games, especially Day of the Tentacle. From the meek sounds of Bernard to the Thurston Howell III voice musings of George Washington. You gotta love it!
Sam n Max would be a close second.
Ohwait ;)
Actually I liked all the voices in Grim Fandango, but the main character Manny was one of the best performances I've heard from a computer game voice actor.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
This is one BUSY freakin' individual! TMNT, Grandia 2, Metal Gear Solid, Painkiller, Dark Cloud 2, Eternal Darkness, Legaia 2, Alundra 2, Xwing Alliance, even Rise of the Dragon. *huff huff*
This guy has been in so many kickass games, I hope he pulls in the high-end dough for it. If you've played a lot of the games he's in, a lot of times you can't even tell it's him until a word hits your ear just so, and its like "Hey, is that Leonardo?"
in a game, in my opinion, was The Guardian from Ultima VII: The Black Gate. The comments that the Guardian would make at key points in the game added an incredible amount of atmosphere and really 'made' the whole feel of the game. The "Thank you for the information in the notebook, it was -most- useful..." scene remains to this date one of the biggest scares I have ever gotten from a game.
I game, therefore I am...
"I'm going to tear your head off and shit down your neck," in the final battle... and then HE ACTUALLY DOES IT!
The street punk you play in GTA 3 had the best voice over ever!!!
In all seriousness, I liked the voiceovers in Hitman game a bit. Some Danish guy does it. Can't remember the name of the guy...
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
We didn't have none of these fancy voices, if we wanted to hear a noise we saw the text and read it.
Who can forget such memorable phrases as "Thwack" and "..." in the old SNES RPGs?
I don't know about anyone else but I really like silent voice actors, then I can focus on whats going on rather then going "meh, I can listen as I read slashdot and let this boring FMV pass... oh shit it's already ended" and I'm laying there half dead already.
I like muppets.
I suspect that if Zero Wing had been dubbed instead of subtitled that it would have been the all-time winner!
Of course, Kevin Michael Richardson was memorable as Jolee Bindo in ST:KOTOR but I'll always remember him as Saverok from Baldur's Gate. The true gems of KOTOR were John Cygan who also voiced Solidus from MGS2 and Kristoffer Tabori who voiced HK-47, probably one of the best droid comedic relief roles.
Thank Jeebus for IMDB!
I thought that most of the voice acting in the official Neverwinter Nights campaigns was really good (though I think the PCs could use a bit more than the 2 or 3 catch phrases). I especially liked the voice acting in the cut scenes in the original game. At the same time, a number of the community modules I've seen have some of the WORST voice acting I've ever heard. This brings me to an unintentional point...
While I respect the amount of effort that often goes into recording voice clips, and when well done they can often add to the game, bad voice acting can really take the player out of the game.
I honestly miss the good ol' days when there was no voice acting though. I credit Squaresoft to teaching me to read in my younger years. From age 6 up through highschool I read maybe 2 books total, yet always scored post graduate level on reading tests, and I think this is thanks to my heavy RGP habbit, which required loads of reading.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
One of the lesser known games, Armed and Dangerous has some fantasic voice acting. The cut-scenes in the game are some of the most well done in terms of the actual acting and in terms of their humorous content.
"No more darts!"
David Hayter - Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid)
George Byrd - Grey Fox (Metal Gear Solid)
Rob Paulsen - Grey Fox (Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes)
Jennifer Hale - Naomi (Metal Gear Solid), Alex (Eternal Darkness)
Guy Cihi - James (Silent Hill 2)
Chris Seavor - Most of the voices in Conker's BFD
But one person really and truly stands out among them all. Jennifer Hale . If you haven't played a game with her in it yet, you are SERIOUSLY missing out. RUN, don't walk to the store, and rent/buy/steal the game.
That would be Mr. Bill Johnson. The guy really made a mark on my mind as the Guardian. He even did so despite the "suck" of VIII and IX.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
While MtG:Battlegrounds did have poor voice acting, it was an excellent and original head to head strategy/fighting game. I know that combination sounds strange but it worked.
A very underrated game, IMO.
Chew: You Nexus, huh? I design your eyes.
Roy: Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes.
Joe Pants always makes me laugh when he's acting tough. Maybe it's because I never bought him as Guido the Killer Pimp.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Great voice acting all around, the characters in the movies were all great, and especially all the radio stations. A tip though, if you rip the Vice City radio stations, dont listen to them while driving, you start seeing pink arrows everywhere...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
A very underrated, yet very engrossing point and click adventure has, by far, the best voice acting I've heard in a game, period. The Last Express, a work of historical fiction, chronicles the last train ride of the Orient Express through Europe. The ride takes place on the brink of World War I, and given that this is Europe, has people of all nationalities riding the train for various reasons. The exciting thing about the voice acting is that people speak in their native tongues (your character can understand English, French, and some Russian - which are subtitled for you) and with authentic accents. The game revolves around character interaction, so a majority of the game is made up of dialogue. Thankfully, the conversations are engaging and interesting. It's a shame this title wasn't more popular - it's one of the best games I've ever played. The story is incredible (though I might just be a sucker for this kind of historical fiction), the gameplay rewarding, and the voice acting superb.
I worked on Shock 2, and a lot of folks like Shodan's voice. Shodan isn't voiced by a professional actor, she's voiced by the fiancee of one of the producers. All the characters in Shock 2 were voiced by members of the dev team and friends.
Freedom Force was developed by the same company after I left, but I think the voices were again done by the developers.
but Yoda never struck me as the semi-literate retard type, you know?
I mean, if Yoda couldn't speak english properly, I figure the rest of that species should be downright horrible in comparrison.
Disgaea. In Japanese.
The Japanese do voice acting much better. The voices are more emotive, even the sterotyped (big tough guy, for example) voices sound like they have more heart, and they can pull seiyuu (voice acting) talent to do such work.
American voice acting blows chunks in comparison. Seiyuu talent works on games and anime, which Americans treat as throw away.
I was planning on not buying anymore RPGs dubbed in English (Phantom Brave, yay!) but Final Fantasy 12 might make me change that. Hopefully Dragon Quest 8 will come with Japanese.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Right next to the excellent voice acting of the Legacy of Kain games. Garrett is played convincingly and all the conversations you hear in-game sound excellent.
In both these games, some of the biggest thrills I've had have been hearing a random NPC's voice and going "Holy shit, it's Tenchi!" (Matt Miller voiced Clasko in FFX and X-2) or "Aw yeah, Vash is on the bridge!" (Jonny Yong Bosch as an unnamed lieutenant on the Woglinde). The voice acting from all of the cast members was excellent; it's the anime alumni, however, who sometimes provide the most memorable performances (to anime fans, anyway).
On a related note, nobody's really mentioned Kingdom Hearts yet, either. Disney standards being what they are, the voice acting was top-notch from Disney and original character actors alike. I especially liked James Woods' performance as Hades (reprising his role from Hercules), and since Greece is an actual section of the game world for KH2 I'd be shocked if he didn't return for a third stab at the character.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Did somebody mention this already? Did I just miss it?
While all the voice acting in the games is good (that's correct grammar, btw), Ron Perlman's narration is the best.
"War. War never changes."
Second favorite is Harold. "Hey there, youngster. *cough, hack*"
How can we exclude Stephen Russell from the list. His acting in the role of Garrett from the Thief trilogy helps you feel like you're the one with the nerve, not a loser living vicariously through pixels.
I thought that the voice of the Prince was really good. I got a chuckle out of the little comments that he would drop as he ran along the walls... "Stop talking to yourself." I think they helped advance the plot in a non-obtrusive way. Farah's voice was good, too.
I remember Grimgnaw's voice in the first campaigh, especially his "I know you..." speach, was really creepy - exactly the way you'd expect a Sadistic Dwarf to sound. I also remember going around for a few weeks saying "Takasi! Oh, excuse my elven" in a british accent instead of the usual swearing.
I have always thought I would be a good voice actor. (games, anime, animated movies) I have a clear voice (enunciate and inflect well) and people also compliment me on my singing. Unfortunately I live in BFE (SD) and probably wouldn't have a chance. Any ideas?
Two of my favorite voice actors were David Warner from Baldur's Gate II. He played the main bad guy named Jon Irencus or something similiar. He is a well known actor with a ton of movie credits including "Titanic". My second favorite is from Baldurs Gate I. The voice of one the ambushing bandits that kept saying, "So I kicked him in the head 'til he was dead!". That made me and my friends laugh every time. Hahahaha!!
David Warner, as Irenecus in Baldurs Gate II. All around great voice acting in that game, with the exception of Imoen's bratty whiny prattle which sounded as if it were voiced by a 16 year old waitress...
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I have to say, R.A.D. (Robotic Alchemic Drive) and Way of the Samurai 2 are two of the coolest games that are nearly floored by their heinous voice acting.
R.A.D. is a little older, so it's forgivable, but I picked up Way of the Samurai 2 the other day and couldn't believe that a publisher hasn't learned their lesson yet about how much bad voice acting destroys a game. Wow.
Don't let your secretary voice the female leads people! I don't care what she does for the job!
One of the best things about SC3 was its voice acting. From the HAL-esque tones of ICOM to the friendly cluelessness of the Doogs to the classic timidity of the Spathi, I can't think of one voice that I'd consider bad. (Well, the Xchaggers were annoying, but that's not exactly the same thing.)
Rob
The awful voice acting made the game feel just like a badly dubbed 70's kung fu movie. Fantastic! I didn't enjoy the Tenchu sequels as much because the dialogue was too professional.
Tenchu quotes
Sound Clips
If you've ever played this game, they you must know what I'm talking about. Great voices. Ben was so gruff I almost laughed everytime he said something.
Given that one of the first posts talked about how good the Kyle Katurn voice was in Dark Forces (he's right), and how it made Luke sound lame, it's ironic that several of the voices were done by Hamil in FT!
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
The narrator of Myth and Myth 2 rocked.
(Never played Myth 3 - after Bungie sold out and gave the franchise to another developer I lost interest.)
You know, that game got good review scores and plenty of press, but I was hard-pressed to figure out what people liked about it. It had unimpressive weaponry and gameplay. The pathfinding wasn't phenomenal, nor were the tactics employed by the computer anywhere near par for current games. It was marginally better than Doom's "hunt-the-switch", but I haven't run into such simplistic path-to-goal gameplay in a long time. The environments (well, as far as I played into the game) weren't all that great. The only thing that might have been unique about it was that the reviews claimed that you could eventually control a large squad (~12, IIRC) of NPCs, which just isn't that amazing. If I wanted to play a game with multiple NPCs, I'd infinitely prefer the excellent Hostile Waters or one of the other games out there with good control over what the NPCs are doing...just "go to", "attack", and "return" isn't all that exceptional.
Freedom Force's implausible plotline could really have been good if it had been made as a Starship Troopers-style over-the-top satire -- what I was hoping for as soon as I saw the first bit of the storyline. Instead, it took a more serious approach.
May we never see th
If you liked the humor and voice acting in Armed & Dangerous (which I haven't played), you should pick up a copy of Planet Moon's GIANTS: Citizen Kabuto. The humor is brilliant, especially the Smarties and the Meccs.
... had an excellent soundtrack all around, but the English voice acting is phenomenal (I've never played it through with another language). Aside from my loyalty to the man for his great movies, I wasn't impressed by Bruce Campbell's performance as the narrator in Spiderman 2. His lines seemed very flat to me, as if he was relying purely on the fact that he's Bruce freaking Campbell to carry them and make them important (which it almost does). But, I guess that the quality level that he offers is right on par for the game though, because with the exception of a few of Tobey Maguire's spiderman quips, the whole of the spoken dialogue is nuinspired.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
-Voltaire
I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this game yet - the voice acting in it is superb, and coupled with brilliant cinematography makes the game easily stand out as one of the best I've played in recent years.
Other games where voice acting has added a lot to it? Well, there's "The Dig" from days of yore, which has very immersive acting, especially for its day, though admittedly that isn't what *makes* that game; that'd be the whole atmosphere when put together. It certainly helps though.
Anachronox was especially impressive, when it actually had voice acting, too - again, add that to cinematography, and you've got one of the best games I've come across.
As people have said, Irenicus is great from BG2, but I don't remember the voice acting from there being half so intense generally as I've found in other games. Could just be that time has addled my memory, though
-- Tobriand
as the lighthouse keeper in Return to Zork
"Want some rye? Course you do!"
Katy Segal (Leela & Peggy Bundy) plays the Monk - Lady Sakti
I really enjoyed her performance.
There is enough variety and yet just enough repetition of the on-click phrases.
"Ready to work" in WC3 got a bit bugging but "Me Kilt Itches!" still makes me laugh when I think about it now.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
On a couple maps in Battlefield Vietnam, there's a Vietnamese woman's voice playing over loudspeakers throughout the city through the duration of the level ala Tokyo Rose. "Defect, G.I... we will shoot down your helicopters like broken birds... your rich leaders grow richer as you die in the swamp, G.I." It's perfectly executed, and until I played the map enough times to numb myself from the voice, I frequently considered defecting.
The original warcraft had the awesomest voice acting of all times (especially when repeatedly clicking on the characters.) That was funnier than the game itself (at least after a few beers.)
That aside, I really liked Homeworld. The radio voices were really dispassionate and distant, and in combination with the sound effects and music gave the game a very eerie atmosphere.
My third favorite are the German soldiers in the sub pen mission in MoHAA--they're standing around discussing something like "why are all the Norwegians so mad at us? Just because we're taking their women to Germany to breed the master race." It's flawless unaccented German, and I honestly have to respect any German voice actor who could pull off a line like that without breaking up laughing.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
David Ogden Stiers's voice-overs for Icewind Dale are the best voice acting I have ever heard in a game. I can listen to the opening segment time after time and never get bored. Or the second intro: "And so you continue your journey... Alone." A lesser actor would have hammed up that line, but Stiers delivers it with understated grace and musicality.
The guy can do amazing things with his intonation. It came as no surprise to me that he's an accomplished orchestra conductor as well.
He's also in lots of Woody Allen films.
Obligatory joke answer: Marvin Mindbender in the C64 game Impossible mission.
Sentimentality is merely the Bank Holiday of cynicism.
- Oscar Wilde
The voice actor Masaya Matsukaze who voiced Ryo Hazuki for Shenmue on the Dreamcast was incredible. Even though I had to use the forklift on the docks for a job, a classic WTF moment in gaming history, I still had to finish the game because the story, along with the accompaning voice acting, was captivating.
The only thing that could have made that game better was if Ryo could have drop kicked that retarded Goro character everytime he said "Yo Bro."
"Sir target is outside seeker constraints!"
"Tailrotor is gone sir!"
"SAM launch! Eleven o'clock!"
What a classic.
Hands down the best "performance" in a computer game. I can still remember the lines as he recited Edgar Allan Poe's "The Red Death".
The way over the top one-liners and such add tonnes to the atmosphere. They helped to make the game even more fun. The only real gripe I have with SSX3 is the loss of the awesome voices.
XP is basicly 98 with a lot more extra features to hunt down and disable. --Dram
While he hasn't done a lot of work in gaming as far as I know, he has done a little voice work on the Baulders Gate: Dark Alliance PS2 game and in Champions of Norrath as the main villian in both. What I think is his best work though is as Megabite in the tv series Reboot. He has this spectacular deep rich dark voice that seems warm yet equaly frighting. He's an exceptional voice actor, he does such a great job giving deep sinister emotion and power to his voice, and he's not a young guy by any streach of the imagination too. He just seems perfect as the main villain for any storyline. Unlike many voice actors, I think he actually honestly can sound like a genuinely intelligent devious criminal mastermind and not one of the coders who's tryin to lower his voice an octive or two. Sentack
makes Sam Fischer of Splinter Cell one tough sounding dude. A lesser voice would make the one liners laughable instead of cool.
"I'm from the phone compant there's been a recall..."
Has no-one played Max Payne 2? The voice acting was excellent, really drawing you in to the film-noir atmosphere. Plus, most thugs also have some narration, plus the different TV Channels, plus the recorded tape you can start playing, plus, plus, plus...
I was first introduced (or so I thought) to the impressive talent of Michael Bell in the Soul Reaver series as Raziel. The story, but most especially the voice acting, really elevated the game's quality to a higher standard.
It was only after reading the man's filmography that I understood what a powerhouse of animation and game acting he was. It includes game roles in everything from I-Ninja to Warcraft 3, and my jaw hit the floor when I read some of the animation credits from my childhood that he claims (Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man). This guy has been doing this (and well) for a very long time!
(The other actors for the Soul Reaver series should not be forgotten either, including Simon Templeman, Rene Auberjonois of ST:DS9, and another fav of mine: Tony Jay as the Elder God)
When I think of bad voice acting, Rare's stuff, especially on N64, especially Conker's BFD, comes to mind. It was obvious that the one guy they hired to do like every voice except Conker and his galpal was running out of ideas...and Conker's delivery was like me in my middle school play, especially when they broke the fourth wall a bit and got meta.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Mark Hammil did some voice work for SOF2, which was being developed in tandem with JK3 by Raven. He was in the studio, doing his bit for Soldier of Fortune on THE SAME DAY the other guy was in there recording the Luke part.
What the hell were they thinking? They should have just swapped the scripts they were reading from!
I've always enjoyed the unit voices (and the dialogue, too) in Blizzard's games. With the exceptions of Diablo & D2. Those are kind of lame.
However, the voice acting in their RTS (they would say RPS) games, StarCraft especially, rocks. WarII: 2nd.
My favorite: the Archon. MUST HAVE ENERGY!
Anyone else feel me on this one?
She did a great job in all the NOLF series as Cate Archer.
Interesting thing is, she's also the voice for Cortana in Halo, and Princes Peach/Toad for all those Mario games.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1071768/
the funky obviously-american-imitating-a-german-accent-poorl y radio signals are hilarious.
"Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" for Playstation. You have to hear it to believe how bad it. It even starts horrible: "DIE MONSTER, you don't belong in this world!"
The game itself is fantastic, it's just a shame that they haven't kept the original voices with subtitles as an option.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
I rather like Bastilla in KOTOR. The almost british accent is kind of sexy. And lets not forget Zalbar. Those grunts and growls, how much more emotive can you get?
The best voices and dialog comes from adventure games with voice tracks. After all, what is an adventure game other than lots of dialogue and some puzzles? See any classic by Sierra or Lucas Arts.
Grim Fandango was very memorable, as was Fallout... I'm currently replaying Beyond Good & Evil, and i'm struck once again by how good the speech is (as well as the graphics, music, characters, plot, game universe, etc). Then of course there was Sam & Max... And Giants: Citizen Kabuto...
Myth I and II, by Bungie, had the most impressive narrations I've ever heard. Even the in-game commentary was damn good, for the most part. I don't know how they did such a good job -- it was honestly head-and-shoulders above any other narration I've ever heard.
Second place goes to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. For some reason, the acting melded with the character so well that it really leant the low-polygon Prince an empathizable personality. I don't know what their secret was, but it worked.
I hated the narration in Eternal Darkness. Again, don't ask me why. This is an area that I cannot explain rationally.