Roger Craig Smith



Roger Craig Smith is the new voice of Sonic the Hedgehog, having succeeded Jason Anthony Griffith in the role. His first appearance as Sonic will be in Sonic Free Riders. His other noticeable roles include Chris Redfield in Resident Evil series starting with Resident Evil 5, Ezio in the Assassin's Creed series starting with Assassin's Creed II, Siegfried Schtauffen in Soul Calibur series starting with Soul Calibur Legends, Deidara in Naruto Shippuden, and Shinji Hirako, Ryusei Kenzaki and Noba in Bleach.

Alton Towers Controversy
Sonic Stadium member T-Bird visited the Alton Towers resort in the UK which featured the "Sonic Room," a Sonic-themed room. When the entry door to the room opens, patrons are greeted by audio recording of Sonic. People heavily criticized the Sonic voice saying it sounded too "surfer, cheesy, and very weak." People wondered who the person behind the Sonic voice was until the Sonic Stadium contacted Smith and asked him if he was the voice. He simply responded "yes." A commercial he did for Alton Towers sounded better than the room's actual voice.

As of August 16, 2010, however, it was revealed that the audio clips of Roger Craig Smith performing Sonic at Alton Towers were edited and slowed down, and some of the original unedited voice clips were released on the internet for download.

But as a cutscene of Sonic Colors was revealed on the internet, the final voice for Sonic varied alot from the The Alton Towers announcements. The voice got into a big change, sounding a lot deeper than the original voice that was done by Jason Anthony Griffith. The reason why the voice varied a lot from the one in the Alton Towers was earlier explained by Roger, he had said that SEGA had asked him to make Sonic sound "older" before the announcements that were given in the Alton Towers.

Reception
In the Sonic Colors Nintendo Power review, it was written that the good thing about the story was Sonic because he was voiced by Roger. They had praised Roger by saying that he gives Sonic a very "cool" personality, something they had claimed that Sonic looks cool "for the first time in a long while" and a "less cringeworthy persona". ScrewAttack.com also praised Smith's voice work saying that this is the first Sonic game in years where they can listen to the voice acting in the cutscenes and not cringe. However, Gametrailers.com criticized Smith saying that he and the other voices in the Free Riders review were "laughable" and in the Colors review said, "We would not object to Sonic being a mute hero".

His performance received mixed reviews from fans, some fans praised his voice for having a good potrayal of Sonic's personality and attitude, but others have heavily criticized it for being "too deep" and too anime-generic. Another addition to the disappointment was that he was offered the role by SEGA and did not audition which many fans felt unfair to other voice actors.