One of Destiny’s most lackluster features is Peter Dinklage’s voice acting. In a new video, a fan imagines what the game would’ve been like if Samuel L. Jackson had been playing Ghost instead.
t0nin0t inserted Samuel L. Jackson movie quotes into many of the cutscenes from Destiny. This makes these scenes about 500% more bearable. Here’s a sample bit of dialogue:
Speaker: In its dying breath, the Traveler created the Ghosts, to seek out…
Ghost: This ain’t none of your goddamn business.
Speaker: Your ghost will guide you.
Ghost: (looking at Guardian) He is the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.
Speaker: I only hope he chose wisely.
Ghost: Get the fuck out of my face with that shit.
It goes on like this for about three minutes. Sam the Man spouts lines from Pulp Fiction, Snakes on a Plane and a few other films. Some of the lines used by t0nin0t are a bit random but he makes a convincing case for replacing Peter Dinklage’s voice acting. with a Samuel L. Jackson soundboard
It’s really sad that even if Bungie had simply recycled Samuel L. Jackson lines from other movies, Ghost would be a more compelling character than he is right now. The combination of stale writing and a bored Peter Dinklage made Ghost a non-entity in the game. He’s about as lively as text prompts.
The problems aren’t limited to one character, though. Destiny power leveling just suffers from a complete lack of personality. Every NPC – whether it’s the Speaker, Cryptarch or the Stranger – is devoid of emotion. Their enemies are faceless hordes that never bother saying a word before trying to kill them. A robot spouting a random collection of Sam Jackson sound bytes isn’t exactly a three-dimensional character but at least there’s a discernible character there.