What game do you think has the best use of celebrity voice acting?

In order to make this fair no FMV games allowed.

Probably GTA: Vice City or Sleeping Dogs. The actors fit their characters in Vice City, and it was hard to tell Sleeping Dogs used film celebrities until I looked them up. Sleeping Dogs did a good job of casting their roles, and didn't spend all their marketing focusing on it.

Vice City is a good one. GTA: San Andreas was the one that came to mind first for me.

While there's a multitude of complaints to be leveled against "Heavenly Sword" and "Enslaved: Odyssey to the East", Andy Serkis plays two vastly differently roles in both of games, and delivers some of the most memorable performances I've seen in a video-game, period. Unless I'm missing something obvious, I really can't think of any other game that can really contend with either of those in this regard.

.. Actually, there's one that just might top the both of those. Mike Patton in "The Darkness". If that wasn't the most disturbing thing I'd ever heard in a video game...

I like how they're used in the Yakuza games, since it's pretty much what they do in the live action shows.

GTA:San Andreas. Sam Jackson is killer in that, they gave him the perfect role. Tenpenny is still one of my favourite villains he's so menacing and despicable.

It's such a large cast of celebrities too, and so many of them are well used to fit their characters rather than just being a celebrity voice marketing angle.

I really like Keith David in Saint's Row IV

Kiefer Sutherland as Snake was genuinely really good

GTA: San Andreas, and it isn't even close.

When does actually speak, Sutherland is great in MGS5.

my vote is GTA:SA- but thats a top 5 game for me so.............

Do the wrestling game count?

Ellen Page in The Last of Us

Seriously it's San Andreas

Stephen Merchant in Portal 2.

I am also on the Kiefer as Snake boat. They should have done that earlier.

Portal 2 and Vice City are top tier too.

@brodywb: That is my choice too.

Bonus points for Keith Davis playing (exaggerated) Keith Davis...

Brutal Legend was amazing...but I grew up being a metal-head, also Patrick Stewart in Oblivion was really cool

Chronicles of Riddick games without a doubt.

Not only does it make great use of Vin Diesel it also stars Xzibit, Ron Perlman as well as Cole Hauser. Show's over guys.

It's great and there's a lot of it. It's a role not a cameo.

Keith David in Mass Effect came to mind. But pretty much Keith David in any game he's done.

Michael Douglas was pretty cool in Mass Effect. I also liked Ellen Page and William Dafoe in Beyond 2 Souls.

Kiefer as Snake was good.

Andy Serkis as anything is great. That dude is the most versatile voice in hollywood.

Also Keith David and Martin Sheen in Mass Effect.

Riight...

I liked Jenna Louise Coleman's voice for Melia in Xenoblade Chronicles. That was in 2010 so after she was on Emmerdale but before Doctor Who.

Either Vice City or Portal 2, for sure.

I think the Saint's Row games are being very underrepresented in this topic.

The video below in particular is an absolute highlight, but let's not forget about stuff like Burt Reynolds, or Hulk Hogan among others in these crazy ass games. When the hell is Saint's Row 5 out?

Brian Cox in Manhunt.

Hell yes.

Roddy Piper & Keith David were great, but Hulk Hogan's Angel character was so fucking booooooooring. Also, the SR games had an awful lot of celebrity actors before SRTT. The original had the likes Michael Clarke Duncan and David Carradine. And also Keith David.

@yummylee: I'm one of those motherfuckers who's in the minority that thinks that Brian Cox's portrayal of Hannibal in Manhunter was the better one.

@cale: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention J. K. Simmons in addition to Stephen Merchant. Both were great performances.

Deus Ex Machina for the Spectrum.

Ian Dury? Jon Pertwee?

Frankie Howard?

C'mon!

@dixavd:

Yep, I like Xenoblade for this one. I also quite liked her Dad, played by Peter Dickson (among other things, the X-Factor announcer).

Portal 2 is also a top pick.

Definitely Stephen Merchant in Portal 2. Kiefer almost spoiled MGSV for me because all I can hear is Jack Bauer.

They've been mentioned already, but GTA: San Andreas, and GTA: Vice City are my favorite uses of celebrity talent in games.

In Vice City, nearly all of the characters were written to embody 1980's stereotypes. These characters weren't extremely well written, and would have been boring without the quality voice performances of Ray Liotta, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, Debbie Harry, Luis Guzman, Philip Michael Thomas, Danny Trejo, Gary Busey, and Lee Majors.

All of these people have the genuine personal experience of living through, and contributing to, the pop culture of the 1980's, and their experiences contributed to the quality of their performances. This is especially true of Philip Michael Thomas, who became a way-point on any retrospective journey through the 80's through his role in Miami Vice, and played Lance Vance whose betrayal was telegraphed, but still evocative.

Similarly, San Andreas built on Vice City's formula. While San Andreas didn't have the volume of talent that Vice City had, it made up for it by including a powerful performance by Samuel L. Jackson, and my favorite character James Woods has ever played.

Woods' portrayal of Mike Toreno is 50% ruthless G-man and 50% scummy used-car salesman, and has always been one of my favorite GTA characters.

I also nearly forgot to mention that San Andreas continued to capitalize on the voice performances of people who lived through, and contributed to the pop culture of the late 1980's and 1990's, with performances by Ice-T and Axl Rose among others.

John de Lancie in SCII:LotV is fucking fantastic.

Probably JK Simmons in Portal 2, especially because that character was all in his voice work and a few portraits.

GTA: San Andreas for sure for me. James Woods and Sam Jackson killed it in that. There were others as well but those two stood out.

@captainkamikaze:

SickJuggaloHD

I'd probably go for Portal 2, solely because of Simmons. Merchant is awesome as well.

Fallout has a cool cast. And 9: The Last Resort is quite... interesting. Too bad that one is really hard to play.

Saints Row series, for sure.

David Warner as Jon Irenicus in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

Dang, thought no one would have mentioned that yet. But agreed. I don't know that it tops some of the more common answers, but it was reeeeeal good.

Gary Oldman as Viktor Reznov in Call of Duties World at War and Black Ops. Screaming Oldman is my favorite Oldman.

Metal Gear Solid 4 had a Catwoman in it.

I think Danny Wallace does a great job narrating Thomas Was Alone.

Peter Dinklage.

I might have to go with J. K. Simmons in Portal 2.

One of my favorite performances in a video game is Ashley Johnson in The Last of Us.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has both a good and interesting selection of celebrity talent, notably with people like Samuel L Jackson and James Woods.

Mass Effect 2 was pretty cool too with Martin Sheen, Keith David, and Carrie Ann Moss. (Edit: Oh right, and Seth Green)

There are only two games I can think of where not having the specific celebrities they used would've actually impacted the game's quality; Portal 2 (Stephen Merchant and J.K. Simmons), and Arkham Asylum/City (Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy). It's kinda cool that Elijah Wood voices the main character in Broken Age. It's kind of cool that Patrick Stewart is the emperor and Sean Bean is his son in Oblivion. Those games would've been perfectly fine without them though. I can't see Portal 2 working any other way though, and not having the voices of Batman and Joker for your Batman game would've made me dismiss Asylum out of hand.

More recently I think Charles Dance was great in the Witcher 3 even if it was essentially his role as Tywin Lannister.