Fallout 3 takes grand slam in G-Phoria

Besides Ron Pearlman (who is great), Malcom McDowell (who's talent was wasted in the game) and Liam Neisson (Who's performance in Fallout 3 was pretty stale), they didn't hire any real actors for their voice work.

I know Bethesda likes to pretend that the old Fallout games were just cobbled together with whatever the team had to use, but it's often never mentioned that Fallout 1 and even 2 had a cast of actual actors.

The guy who did the amazing performance as the drill sargeant: Peter Jason, a real actor. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0419273/

Hell just look down the list of voice actors for Fallout 1 and 2 and it reads like movie credits.

Michael Dorn
Keith David
Jason Marsden
Richard Dean Anderson
Brad Garrett
Tony Jay (!)
etc, etc, etc, just read down the list on imdb.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134648/fullcredits#cast

Not all of those are household names, but they're all working actors that actually know their craft.

Instead of blowing lots of cash on an advertising campaign, they paid real actors to do real voice work, and the end result speaks for itself.

Fallout 3? Not so much. For such a "big" studio, it's amazing they dont' seem to see the value in hiring real actors to do the acting.. The fact that a game like Fallout 3 could win any award at all for Best RPG, Best writing, or Best Voice Acting, really says more about how far the standards have fallen for the medium.
 
Beelzebud said:
Not all of those are household names, but they're all working actors that actually know their craft
Click to expand...

I would say some of them are pretty damned high-profile. Pretty sure that was used in the ad campaigns too.

But it was incredibly well-cast. Not just Tony Jay as Lou Tenant, or Charles Adler as Harold, but some forgotten castings were really well-done: Clancy Brown (who is awesome anyway) was brilliant as Rhombus, Shalboub was great as Aradesh, and Jim Cummings added a lot in his different roles.

But it's easy to misunderstand Fallout's voice-acting direction. Prior to Fallout, voice acting just wasn't taken very seriously in gaming. Voice acting, even limited, was rare before Fallout, and it was rarely good.

Interplay changed a lot of that, with both Fallout, Planescape and the BG games, under the direction of Chris Borders. Recently, Chris has done such titles as Gears of War 2, Mass Effect, Jade Empire. That's a talent beyond anything Bethesda has, but sadly they insist on using their own, inhouse studio. Makes 'em feel bigger, I guess. They should really hire a voice director, tho'.
 
I ask my self though would they have hired Ron Perlan for Fallout 3 if he would have been some no name person and not a relatively famous movie actor ?
 
Crni Vuk said:
I ask my self though would they have hired Ron Perlan for Fallout 3 if he would have been some no name person and not a relatively famous movie actor ?
Click to expand...
Probably because he also was the intro voice in Fallout 1 and 2.
 
Crni Vuk said:
I ask my self though would they have hired Ron Perlan for Fallout 3 if he would have been some no name person and not a relatively famous movie actor ?
Click to expand...

Of course. It's not like they avoid hiring professional voice actors, it's just that many of their high-profile hires aren't. The absolute low point is the hiring of Odette Yustman as Amata, which is just complete bullshit

But people like Craig Sechler, Audrey Wasilewski or Stephen Russell are legit voice actors.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
Best Voice Acting? If that was the best of the year, I don't know, that's says a lot about how poor the rest of the industry's offerings were, than it does about FO3's VO being any good. It was quite bad, and cringeworthy.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? It had Liam Neeson in it! How do you define 'good voice acting' aside from who has the most famous names?

The gaming industry has sunk into the Hollywood Blockbuster mentality.
 
I nominate Desert Bus for "Longest lasting Game"


Really, making a long game gets you an award these days?
 
Well, Perlman's role as the narrator is a bit more iconic, with the war that doesn't change and such.

Alternatively, which do you think sounds cooler to Beth's target audience:
1. "We hired Hellboy"
2. "We hired I R Baboon"
 
Will Fallout 2 be the last game ever that had Baboon and Weasel?
 
Ausir said:
Probably because he also was the intro voice in Fallout 1 and 2.
Click to expand...

They didn't hire Charlie Adler for Harold, though, even though he was in FO1 and 2.
Click to expand...
If you ask me ... Harold just never appeared in Fallout 3 ... no he didnt ... if I keep saying that long enough it might even bocome true ...
 
Crni Vuk said:
Ausir said:
Probably because he also was the intro voice in Fallout 1 and 2.
Click to expand...

They didn't hire Charlie Adler for Harold, though, even though he was in FO1 and 2.
Click to expand...
If you ask me ... Harold just never appeared in Fallout 3 ... no he didnt ... if I keep saying that long enough it might even bocome true ...
Click to expand...

Yeah I prefer to just not think about the way they handled Harold... Pathetic... It's like Jet being in pre-war buildings. They have no respect for the franchise, and it shows. What they did with Harold was pretty much a travesty to the character.
 
Butch DeLoria/Harkness/Billy Creel/Crazy Wolfgang/Sticky/Andy Stahl/Sergeant Bejamin Montgomery (Operation Anchorage)/Male Talon Company merceneries
Click to expand...

This is what really frustrated me about Fallout 3. I can tolerate a small number of voice actors being used in the game, but think through all the characters listed above (performed by Craig Sechler) - and remember how there was no effort to distinguish them vocally whatsoever.

I know, I know, the man only has one voice, but he's an actor. What self respecting actor uses the same voice for every character they play? I mean, the man who voices Team Fortress 2's Heavy also voices the Demoman. That's a pretty good example of one man producing two incredibly distinct and memorable voices.

I don't know. I just can't help but think spending Mr. Neeson's money on 20 theatre students would've yielded more inspiring results.
 
Lazlo said:
I mean, the man who voices Team Fortress 2's Heavy also voices the Demoman. That's a pretty good example of one man producing two incredibly distinct and memorable voices.
Click to expand...

True to that. Heavy is a big, Russian guy with an intelligence of a 5 year old kid, and Demoman is a black, Scottish drunk.
Well, Perlman's role as the narrator is a bit more iconic, with the war that doesn't change and such.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but Bethesda made him sound in FO3 like he was reading a fairy tale book to young children.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top