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Celebrity Voices in Games

Started by Sin Agog, November 08, 2018, 04:17:54 PM

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Sin Agog

And I'll extend that to notable character actors and basically anyone who's made their mark on film and tee-vee lending their voice to a vidya game character.

Probably the first time I ever noticed one was that Bruce Willis twin-stick shooter on the PS, Apocalypse, which cycled through about six quips so fucking often that my brother and I will have them programmed into ours and our ancestors' DNA forever.  Our genetically-engineered, pansexual great³³ grand-children will be telling one another to open up their respective cans of whoop-ass and have no idea why.

Brundle-Fly

I'm afraid I couldn't be dealing with Stephen Merchant's voiceover in Portal 2. Nothing against him or his performance but it took me out of the game hearing Darren Lamb from Extras wittering away in the background. It's like when British comedians rock up in U.S. films or sit-coms, it sometimes can be distracting.  The "Oh look it's Eric Idle" Syndrome'

bgmnts

Matthew Perry was a particular abortion inspiring performance in New Vegas.
Just didn't give a shit.


biggytitbo

This kind of died off in the late 2000s didn't it? Some of the ps2 and 3 era games have absolutely insane quality Hollywood casts (San Andreas) but it seemed to gradually fall out of favour, perhaps because of costs, and now it's more specialist voice actors with the odd star here and there.

bgmnts

Quote from: biggytitbo on November 08, 2018, 04:39:45 PM
This kind of died off in the late 2000s didn't it? Some of the ps2 and 3 era games have absolutely insane quality Hollywood casts (San Andreas) but it seemed to gradually fall out of favour, perhaps because of costs, and now it's more specialist voice actors with the odd star here and there.

Vice City more so than San Andreas no?

Utter Shit

I quite like how it's going the other way now, with games actors becoming so well-respected that they end up on screen - it was great seeing Trevor from GTA turn up in The Walking Dead. I actually thought Mac's dad from IASIP was Trevor for a while.

Lemming

My favourite incarnation of this is when they clearly couldn't afford to hire the actor for too long, and so the character is somehow removed fairly quickly. Patrick Stewart in Oblivion is the most obvious example I can think of - shows up right at the start, says about five lines, and then is killed with absolutely no fanfare or glamour. It's like an unintentionally hilarious version of the joke in Police Squad where the guest stars would be killed in the opening credits.

As long as there's another thread about Rik Mayall going on right now, he's in the game Hogs of War, which is a Worms ripoff but a pretty good one. Go check out the intro, he's great in it.

Quote from: bgmnts on November 08, 2018, 04:31:11 PM
Matthew Perry was a particular abortion inspiring performance in New Vegas.
Just didn't give a shit.

Came here to say this too. It's absolutely beautiful in its godawfulness. The sex scene in particular is outstanding.

"Nice charlies, too. Give em a shake for the Ben-man. Hello."

You can actually hear him sighing into the microphone, and get the impression that the Obsidian voice recording staff are stood nearby just wincing.

NoSleep

Bruce Campbell voiced Ash in the Evil Dead games, Hail To The King & A Fistful Of Boomstick. In both games one of the control buttons just makes Ash quip.

Several of the actors from The Warriors returned to their roles from the film in the PS2 game:

QuoteThe Warriors features voice actors for both the 1979 film and the game versions. The film and game version cast Michael Beck as Swan, the protagonist of The Warriors. Other notable voice actors included returning actors, James Remar as Ajax, Deborah Van Valkenburgh as Mercy, Dorsey Wright as Cleon, Thomas G. Waites as Fox, and David Harris as Cochise. A special effort was made to preserve the official voice actors of characters from The Warriors movie used in the game itself.

Alberon

Eric Idle was quiet good in the Discworld games. More recently John Cleese popped up playing a loony in the Elder Scrolls Online game. Had a good few lines.

NoSleep


Sin Agog

I found Martin Sheen's The Illusive Man in Mass Effect 2 pretty distracting at first, but then I imagined him as the clone baby of Sheen's two presidential characters in The Dead Zone and The West Wing and was OK with him.

Fry

Quote from: Lemming on November 08, 2018, 04:54:31 PM
My favourite incarnation of this is when they clearly couldn't afford to hire the actor for too long, and so the character is somehow removed fairly quickly. Patrick Stewart in Oblivion is the most obvious example I can think of - shows up right at the start, says about five lines, and then is killed with absolutely no fanfare or glamour. It's like an unintentionally hilarious version of the joke in Police Squad where the guest stars would be killed in the opening credits.

Haha, Bethesda loves doing that. Spending a bundle on getting a big name star who can who phones in like, 3 minutes worth of audio for a character that barely appears in-game. Then saving money by having about 4 people voice the other 300 characters you meet on your adventure.

Barely related but this just came to mind and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to post it again:
https://youtu.be/OX8najPmiyc?t=36

Hee hee that game looks so fuckin ugly now

Deyv

Quote from: Alberon on November 08, 2018, 08:32:02 PM
Eric Idle was quiet good in the Discworld games.

Rob Brydon did a good impression of Christopher Lee as Death, too. I was convinced it was Lee for an embarrassingly long time. 12 minutes.

Glebe

Paul Darrow - Avon in Blake's 7 - voiced Zarok in Medievil. Helen Lederer voiced a witch or summit too.

Quote from: NoSleep on November 08, 2018, 05:21:46 PMBruce Campbell voiced Ash in the Evil Dead games, Hail To The King & A Fistful Of Boomstick. In both games one of the control buttons just makes Ash quip.

I never finished that because disc 2 was fucked.

Deyv

There's Michael Dorn in Mission Critical. Maybe a bit of typecasting going on there with it being a sci fi adventure, but he's playing a very different sort of character, with more charisma than Worf. Very creepy game, recommended for people who actually enjoyed the 7th Guest.

Ferris

Quote from: Sin Agog on November 08, 2018, 04:17:54 PM
And I'll extend that to notable character actors and basically anyone who's made their mark on film and tee-vee lending their voice to a vidya game character.

Probably the first time I ever noticed one was that Bruce Willis twin-stick shooter on the PS, Apocalypse, which cycled through about six quips so fucking often that my brother and I will have them programmed into ours and our ancestors' DNA forever.  Our genetically-engineered, pansexual great³³ grand-children will be telling one another to open up their respective cans of whoop-ass and have no idea why.

Blodwyn mentioned this obscure game in the pub just the other week. What a small world!

My shout - Derbyshire-born grammar school rent-a-cockney-'ardman Jason Statham doing the voice of vehicles specialist Shrike in 2002's Red Faction 2.

NoSleep

Quote from: Glebe on November 09, 2018, 02:23:06 AM
I never finished that because disc 2 was fucked.

The single peril of buying secondhand PS2 games (I'm guessing you didn't mean Hail To The King on the PS1).

Glebe

Quote from: NoSleep on November 09, 2018, 06:05:56 AMI'm guessing you didn't mean Hail To The King on the PS1

I did, actually! I bought it new and all. Dunno why I didn't bring it back...

NoSleep

I don't think I made it to disc 2 of Hail To The King. PS1 discs would usually manage to play even if they looked like someone had use it as an ashtray and then sandpapered it clean so it must have been something more fundamentally wrong. I wonder if it was just yours or a general problem?

gmoney

Kumail Nanjiani did the voice of a random Orc in Shadow of War. I had no idea about it and stumbled across him randomly. It was great fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gjb0tmeJEM

biggytitbo

Of course Nicholas Lyndhurst read for the part of the lead character in Manhunt, but lost out at the final audition.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Utter Shit on November 08, 2018, 04:45:11 PM
I quite like how it's going the other way now, with games actors becoming so well-respected that they end up on screen - it was great seeing Trevor from GTA turn up in The Walking Dead. I actually thought Mac's dad from IASIP was Trevor for a while.

They do have the exact same voice, don't they? It's weird.

Watching Steven Ogg on Walking Dead you can see Trevor's mannerisms, it shows how much of his physical performance actually went into the game's character.

Utter Shit

Quote from: AsparagusTrevor on November 09, 2018, 12:52:40 PM
They do have the exact same voice, don't they? It's weird.

Yeah it's mental, just watching a bit of the Sunny bloke now and it really is a precise likeness.

QuoteWatching Steven Ogg on Walking Dead you can see Trevor's mannerisms, it shows how much of his physical performance actually went into the game's character.
Yep 100%, I'd love to see the other guys on screen to see if they are similarly well-represented.

Mister Six

Trevor also appeared in a Better Call Saul episode as a similarly volatile blowhard who was carrying a ridiculous number of weapons (which I assume is a GTA in-joke).

Custard

He also turned up in Westworld. I like to imagine the showrunners of all these shows simply loved him in GTA

kngen

Quote from: Shameless Custard on November 09, 2018, 02:52:34 PM
He also turned up in Westworld. I like to imagine the showrunners of all these shows simply loved him in GTA

As audition showreels go, it's a pretty fucking good one!

Black Ship

David Bowie in Omikron: the Nomad Soul - which I still haven't got around to playing yet.

Glebe

Quote from: NoSleep on November 09, 2018, 06:20:08 AMI don't think I made it to disc 2 of Hail To The King. PS1 discs would usually manage to play even if they looked like someone had use it as an ashtray and then sandpapered it clean so it must have been something more fundamentally wrong. I wonder if it was just yours or a general problem?

No idea Sleepy, but it was a right pain in the arse!

Rolf Lundgren

Having a well known voice in a game isn't really worth it. Like when 75 year old Sean Connery was in From Russia With Love voicing 33 year old Sean Connery. Get a soundalike for a lot less.

GTAV was interesting in that the guy they hired to be Jimmy sounded exactly like Jonah Hill but turned out to be an older version of Little Pete from Pete and Pete.

VelourSpirit

I can't think of any big celebrities in GTA V, thinking about it. Cara Delevigne was the host of the pop radio station but I'd never heard of her before then.
It also just dawned on me that I've not heard a single thing about the voice actor for Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2. Seems pretty strange considering so many people are spending about a hundred hours hearing his voice. I'm not going to ruin the mystery for myself now though.