GRATS! Speaking About Voice

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A lot of my articles and comics that I work on deal with that elusive topic of immersion. That is the concept of just how much a video game draws you in and makes you feel a part of whatever world the developers worked so hard to create. Some games have good immersion. Some games do not.

One measurement of a game’s level of immersion is to look at the quality of the voice acting. As technology has increased the quality of the graphics, so have the fans’ expectations for voice overs.

Voice overs for games are a fairly recent thing. It wasn’t that long ago when we were perfectly happy just having our dialogue text appear on-screen. The Legend of Zelda series is a good example of this. We happily followed Link along on his many adventures, but by the time Twilight Princess came out, there was a bit of debate over the lack of voice overs in the game. The game still sold really well, but expectations for voice work had changed by then.

Even now more so than ever, big game developers are pressured to bring in top notch voice actors to record dialogue for their games. Many of them are going so far as to pay for well known Hollywood actors to voice characters and, excuse the pun, speaking out about who’s voicing their game. Bioware’s Mass Effect 2 was practically a casting call from B and C list celebrities. They dropped more names than Randy Jackson at a party! Cryptic Studios also made an attempt to draw Star Trek fans in by making a last minute cash plug and bring Zachary Quinto and the great Leonard Nimoy to add their voices to the game.
Even the professional voice actors themselves are becoming celebrities in their own right. No longer just the “voice” behind a character, voice actors are being called out to fan conventions and swarmed by fans knowing their work and begging for them to demonstrate their vocal abilities. The last Blizzcon hosted a panel where some of the voice actors for Starcraft 2 were featured. Even Chris Metzen himself showcased some of the characters he has voiced over the years. (Thrall anyone?)

One such voice artist is my fellow Canadian, Scott McNeil. Recently interviewed on EP Daily (LINK – jump ahead to 10:49 for the voice acting feature or 12:01 to go directly to Scott’s segment), we got to see a small portion of Scott’s long history of work that includes voicing, Wolverine, Transformers, Care Bears, and even Dragon Ball Z. He is a fan favourite at every convention. My personal favourite (and I’m sure many others too) was his voice work for the Goblins in Warhammer Online (Ah ye stupid gits!). In fact, if ever there was a perfect voice for Goblins in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, Scott would be it!

Bioware seeks to raise the expectations even further by fully voicing Star Wars: The Old Republic in every aspect of the game. Hiring hundreds of voice actors, Bioware hopes to once again set a new standard by which voice overs in games are measured. Although they managed to get the great Lance Henriksen to voice their Holonet features, they haven’t stated yet whether more celebrities will be called in to add their voices. Given the amount of voice production they did for Mass Effect 2 and their goal to make SWTOR as immersive as possible, I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought in some big names. Who knows, maybe Luke Skywalker himself will add his personal vocal touch?

I have no doubt that Bioware will once again blow our expectations out of the water and voice actors all over the world can cry out in joy. You’ll have lots of work for many years to come.

On that note, I leave you all with my favourite voice over sample of all time from several years back. Mr. Movie Voice himself doing the trailer for a Jerry Seinfeld movie, Comedian: