Actors in Games...
I've been watching Heavy Rain all day, and thinking how much it looks like a movie, so I was wondering: would it be better if the charecters had faces and where played by famous actors?
there have been a few "modern atempts" to bring actors to games, like the new John Woo game with Chow Yun Fat (or the bruce lee game for XBOX) and I think it was omnimusha 3 that had Jean Reno...
But non of this games had a "Big Gun" actor (I'm not counting Godfathers, since it was ispired on the movie) or was a "major game".
Do you think this could make games better or more appealing? (imagine Brad Pitt in heavy rain)
Or is it the appeal of video games, the fact that every charecter is a new product for our imaginary?
what do you guys think?
there have been a few "modern atempts" to bring actors to games, like the new John Woo game with Chow Yun Fat (or the bruce lee game for XBOX) and I think it was omnimusha 3 that had Jean Reno...
But non of this games had a "Big Gun" actor (I'm not counting Godfathers, since it was ispired on the movie) or was a "major game".
Do you think this could make games better or more appealing? (imagine Brad Pitt in heavy rain)
Or is it the appeal of video games, the fact that every charecter is a new product for our imaginary?
what do you guys think?
Post edited by VanTammen on
Comments
Let's say a big game costs $20m to make, you might easily spend the same again adding big names in for just the voice-overs, their agents would fleece you for the rights to use their likeness in a game.
Too much in its infancy, but once they get the stories/script written by the respect of Hollywood, then is the time.
If that's the case, why are there equally huge names in San Andreas? And there's a few well known names in GTA IV too.
eddie royal in COD.. mr transporter.. etc..hehe .. the guy who does fonejacker also does game voice overs as well..
you can get a "sound alike" and it's purely coincidental.. anyway they should be grateful for the work...
folk like Michael Caine etc can do low budget films now... it should be about that first.. instead of doing turkey's for big bucks
Dennis Hopper and Teri Garr - Black Dahlia
Christopher Walken and John Rhys Davies - Ripper
Brad Dourif - Myst 3
Peter Gabriel - Myst 4
David Bowie - The Nomad Soul
David Duchovny - XIII (haven't actually played that game but it's supposed to be really good)
They are loads more of course. :)
The voice of the main character in San Andreas was Young Maylay (half-decent US rapper). Obviously not in the same league as Liotta, but still...
I think if it's done right it makes all the difference... Gun just wouldn't be the same without the voice of Tom Jane, for example.
he had an accident or something , and it disfigured him? and curses star wars for forever been known at that character I guess.. june brown will always be dot cotton to me..haha
Best sports commentary was Alan Green in "Olympic Soccer" for US Gold - "The substitute is warming up beneath me - not literally!"
Murray Walker was excellent for F1 (Psygnosis/Bizzare Creations) too.
Ultimate would be Sid Widdel commentating on any minigame mayhem. "He's landed that hammer on the nucleus of a proton! He's the Dionysis of <insert game name here>. He's the creme de la milk!"
EDIT: And here's Bobby George looking like a dayglo electric licorice allsort.
EDIT2: Sid has a first class degree in classics from Oxford I think ;)
Let's not forget a certain Samuel L. Jackson, Ice-T, Chris Penn, James Woods and William Fichtner. They all provided voices for San Andreas too.
and you had
Samuel L Jackson
Chris Penn
Ice-T
James Woods
Peter Fonda
Danny Dyer
and even Shaun Ryder!!!!
there's a massive list on IMDB I've just picked a few that I thought everyone would know.
Vice City
Just read that it included
Tom Sizemore
William Fichtner
Burt Reynolds
Lee Majors
Debbie Harry
Gary Busey
Danny Dyer
blimey GTA3
Michael Madsen
Kyle MacLachlan
Robbert Loggia
Joe Pantoliano (woo saaa)
another visitor.. stay a while.. stay foveeeever
and that aggggggggh! sample
although Ayrton Senna on megadrive.. "final lap" sounded funny on it
I know Samuel Jackson is in SA but I don't recall any A list Hollywood actors in IV. I've an issue of Edge that has an interview with Dan Houser (who's numero uno at Rockstar) just before GTA IV was released where he mentions getting burnt with Liotta and the trouble having to massage such egos so he only wants to use lesser known actors now.
That's true, there aren't any in GTA IV... the only A-list celebs in that are the radio DJs.
Notice in the instance of these 2 games nobody mentions Jenna Jameson :D
I'll have to check that
cor lummy
Is she one of those cheeky ladies I'm not supposed to look at any more because I'm married?
Then his cover of "Barcelona" came on and I was like "WTF, that's Shaun Ryder singing the chorus".
Whatserface who played the original wonderwoman did all the womens voices in Oblivion, even the one who wanted to know what the fine for necrophilia was. And Sean Bean was the main good guy, but didn't do his Sheffield accent :(. Patrick Stewart had a breif appearance at the start.
Or you could just get the programmers and the company receptionist to do the voice work. Then again, listening to Perfect Dark*, perhaps not
And didn't Jon Pertwee, Frankie Howard and someone else do the voices on the (cassette recording of) Deus Ex Machina? And the bloke off Are You Being Served did the song on the B-side of the Everyone's a Wally cassette, I think, so the Speccy had was no stranger to the trend.
*Perfect Dark (N64) was voiced by Rare's employees instead of professional voice actors, and sometimes it shows.
As another example of what I mean, imagine if it was a perfect likeness of Patrick Stewart or Sean Bean in Oblivion....I wouldn't like that at all, as I like to believe I'm wandering around fighting monsters in some sort of virtual dimension....seeing their fizzogs staring back at me would only remind me that it's all false and make me think of bloody Sharpe or Star Trek, whereas if it's just their voices I can imagine that whoever the in-game character is just sounds like the actors...but even that removes me from the game a bit...
I suppose at the end of the day, I'd prefer it if they just hired decent voice actors and gave them a good script and proper direction...some of the voices in Oblivion are terrible, and the less said about the Forbidden Siren games on PS2 the better...but if they pick people that don't have too distinctive a voice, or can change it enough to sound different, it can be really good...How many people would realise that Ron Perlman is the voice of the Narrator in Fallout 3 without being told for instance??
D'ya know what? Despite being a big fan of his, it took me a good day or so before I realised the voice blasting out of the eyebots (the president) is Malcolm McDowell. I think he's been in a few games... he was in Wing Commander IV, along with Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson and John Rhys-Davies. Darn good game, that was.
Just thought of another great GTA voice over... Phillip Michael Thomas ("Tubbs" from Miami Vice) played quite large roles in both Vice City games.
See, that works because that character practically is Tubbs....which reminds me to note that when a videogame character is supposed to be somebody famous in the role (see Stranglehold with Chow Yun Fat or Apocalypse with Bruce Willis), then it's annoying when it doesn't sound like them....for example, Jean Reno in Onimusha 3...after the first 10 minutes or so he loses his accent and becomes an annoying American....
There's no shame in getting sound-alikes in though!