Every Video Game Jack Black Is In, Ranked

After a lot of anticipation, The Super Mario Bros. Movie finally hit theaters, and so far, it has been a massive success. Despite some concerns over Chris Pratt’s voice as Mario, the movie very clearly does what it intended to do. The stand out of the entire film, though, was Jack Black’s Bowser.

Black perfectly encapsulated the silly side of Bowser that is prevalent in a lot of the Mario RPG games while still having a bit of a sinister tone to him that was necessary for when he had to remind everyone he was the Koopa King. This led to a thought: With Jack Black so perfectly encapsulating a video game character in a movie, how has he done in all of his actual video game voice acting roles I put some thought into it and here is what I consider the definitive Jack Black video game character ranking.

Psychonauts 2 is a wonderful game. It also features Jack Black’s best character of any game, Helmut Fullbear. When the player initially comes across Helmut, he’s nothing but a brain in a jar, but through a ridiculous ’70s-inspired world, the player eventually helps him return to his old self.

Helmut is the best performance of Black’s voice acting career. He hits every emotional note perfectly, but he also manages to leave you laughing until your sides hurt — the player gets to experience a great concert scene involving him that single-handedly makes purchasing the game worth it. If you want to see Black show some incredible range as a voice actor, then Psychonauts 2 is the game to play.

This is the only game where you will get to play as Black voicing the main character. Brutal Legend is an extremely weird game. It’s set in a world run by Metal (the music genre) and in many ways is an homage to rock and metal icons with actual voice roles given to Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Ozzy Osbourne, and Lita Ford. The combat frequently flips between a third-person adventure hack and slash to a real-time strategy game, and all of it features Black as Eddie Riggs.

When Black agreed to voice Riggs, it still wasn’t common for celebrities to do voice roles in video games and Black was still better known as the guy from School of Rock and Tenacious D than as a voice actor. As a result, it was a little surprising when Black went on to give a genuinely good performance. He’s funny, charismatic, and fits into the role of a roadie thrust into becoming a hero perfectly. The game itself was well received and the relationship he formed with creator Tim Schafer lasts to this day.

Double Fine games are historically very silly, but every once in a while they’ll hit you with an emotional gut punch the way Broken Age does. It’s a story about growing up, and it will leave many of us wondering if we have made the right decisions when setting up the future for the children in it. Unfortunately, part two left many disappointed with some of its writing decisions.

What didn’t disappoint was the character voiced by Jack Black, Harm’ny Lightbeard. A total delight, laugh-out-loud funny, and also a crook trying to scam you out of your money, what’s not to love about this character He even dropped the O from his name because “it makes him lighter,” which makes absolutely no sense. This minor character was perfect for Black to play and is one of his funniest, but it’s this low on the list primarily because it’s such a minor character.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is one of the best examples of how to do a remake and a total joy to play. The controls are crisp, the music is full of nothing but winners, and every guest character is perfect. This includes a longtime staple of the series, Officer Dick. A recurring character throughout the series, Officer Dick has always been meant to be played for laughs, but Pro Skater 1+2 took it a step further and gave us Jack Black voicing the character.

He’s funny, all his lines are well delivered, and he’s a fantastic addition to the game. Unfortunately, this is not exactly a character but more just Black delivering quippy one liners while you do tricks. He can’t be any higher on this list because that would be putting him above actual characters, but even in a small role, his performance here is great.

Let’s keep this one brief. King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is Black voicing a character that he already voiced in a movie. The performance itself is not awful considering this was his first foray into video games, but it is far from his best. His actual performance in the King Kong movie is underrated, in my opinion, but this one isn’t. However, if this is what inspired him to go on and do more video games down the line, then it’s great that he did it.