Blogs Do Actors Have A Place In Games?

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/10/12/do-actors-have-a-place-in-games/

 

I think they do have a place in games; its just getting the right actor for the right game, and making sure that actor is enthusiastic about the project - being gamers themselves would help too.

 

I think you mean 'celebrities'. All games with characters have actors in some shape or form.

For example, Uncharted wouldn't have been the same without it's actors.

Some games to benefit sales wise from celebs though. World At War was marketed with Jack Bauer for a reason

 

+1

Tim Curry might fit for the "fun" game world of Red Alert.
Personally a "C&C" without Joseph Kucan (Kane) wouldn't be the same!

If you have to have cutscenes they may as well be acted. Though I guess this comes from times when animations were just too bad for cutscenes.

 

And don't forget David Hayter on Metal Gear Solid. Like him or not his voice is instantly recognizable as Snake

 

I do indeed mean celebreties. Well spotted.

 

Liam Neeson in Fall Out 3 adds the +1 from me.

In Fall Out 3 Liam's voice acting impacted the game play so much, he usually takes the father figure role. By that we could already relate with him, we liked his character before we even got into the game. He made the game seem more real, as we could easily bond with him as we already knew him.

On the other hand, RA3 hiring "actors" consisted of hiring models for an audience who'd pay to wakoff in the cut scenes, and the main actors for advertisement - publicity. When it was just goofing around in briefings. Marketable? sure, did it effect the game play? nope.

 

Leonard Nimoy in civiliszation4 really adds some character to the game. There is no better voice telling you the wonders of researching animal husbandry!

 

Well the casting is absolutely everything, I don't watch House since it went to Sky so I'm not bothered about the person that played Dr Cameron turning up in CnC 3 - and Michael Ironside was already well known from Splinter Cell so that was good that he extended to being on-camera, not just a voice.

Also sometimes it depends if you're spotting good favourite actors like Michael Rapaport and Ray Liotta from the GTA games. Frankly as long as they don't start demanding repeat fees that drive up game prices, I'm fine with them.

And Xir already pointed out that some of the greatest cutscene acting came from an EA employee for the past 14 years!

 

Nor were the actors alwas second rate:

Don't forget Wing Commander...the Mother of all cutscenegames with:
Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill
Malcolm McDowell

Privateer 2
John Hurt
Clive Owen
Jürgen "das Boot" Prochnow
Christopher Walken

 

I don't think patrick steward was in Planet Earth at some point? If you mean the Nature series it would be David Attenborough. But You probably mean some sci-fi series or video game i can't find on IMDB

 

I was nodding along in agreement until you said that oblivion sucked...

I agree that actors aren't necessary in games, but other than that, guy you are crazy.

Oblivion won game of the year awards...

 

hmmm i suppose one could argue that all actors are celebrities (althought that of course requires them being well known enough and 'popular') but not all celebrities are actors (although too many of them try for my liking).

i think PROPER actors have a place in games, i thought the voice of patrick stewart lent an amount of brevity to the king in oblivion (or was it an emporer? meh), and i was disappointed he had such a small role to play.

in an industry where the story is often fail of epic proportions, i can see a real benefit for using proper actors who bring real experience. but then the story/script has to be there for them to work with, and it need to be an asset to the the game not there instead of the game.

as a rare female on this site i could have told you there's far too many scantily clad women in games in general, never mind crappy hollyoakes totty.

so i suppose in summation, i think genuine acting talent can only be a positive thing in gaming, but... and this is the big but, the game has to be strong anyways or you're effectively putting a fairy on top of a christmas tree that was dead before it was chopped down and brought into the house.

 

lol yeah I can tell he's not a rpg guy.. or never really played oblivion =] you could make your character insanely powerful- that was without mods.. and patrick stewart made the opening pretty memorable too

 

I must agree Mark - Oblivion sucked, mainly due to the awful monster scaling and dire combat system. It sucked so much I can't play Fallout 3 without that voice in the back of my mind going "YOU ARE JUST PLAYING OBLIVION WITH GUNS". Which is a shame, because I like LAZORS PEW PEW PEW.

 

Nope...that's like a perpetuum mobile, just not possible

Thank you all for bringing this up, I've been trying to remember this game for about 6 years* and today I finally found all the cutscenes of privateer 2 in the net

Xir

*kept mixing it up with freelancer

 

Agreed!

I think that the actors should fill their parts in a game and just be there for eye-candy (see: RA3).

 

Earth, by Lionsgate. The same footage is used by Planet Earth, narrated as you mention by David Attenborough.

 

Actors yes, a vital place in games.. celebrities, not so much unless it's a celebrity based game. Rock star appearances add something to Rockband, Guitar hero, etc, where they appear as themselves. Celebrities appearing as a game character rather than themselves.. fine if they are working as an actor and I'm forgetting who the celebrity is playing the role. Not so fine if I'm seeing the celebrity instead of the character they are playing.

 

It's an interesting topic this,worthy of a full piece imho, that is if it hasn't been covered already by bit. As the environment graphics get better the believability of them is drifting towards the "uncanny" especially with the next gen tech . I recently played a game with fantastically realised environments, lighting and sound, you get a glimpse of how realistic games could one day become. But like with all current games the thing that ruins the immersion is the rendered human characters. They're becoming more and more lifelike and yet it's more and more ,game- breakingly obvious that they're not really like humans, with their fixed stares and odd robotic movement i.e we're nearly at the "uncanny valley " problem. We notice these obvious errors in humans -from eyes- to hair and smile, more than anything else in the game and feel disconnected from the characters we're supposed to like, even when the voice acting is fantastic.

So yes, where possible , real(quality)actors should be used, because it's clear that rendered environments are going to become photo realistic long before rendered characters do(if they ever do), due to the complexities involved. Many game artists probably think that their fantastic environments are becoming too good to populate with the plastic-like rendered characters.