Hello, old friend

I really don't know how to react. On the one hand, I really could not care less how famous the voice actors are, and I hope they didn't waste all of their money on trendy but useless things that look good in press releases. On the other hand, maybe this means management has prioritized good voice acting, has a good budget, and the script is actually good.

I'm so conflicted! One part of me wants to hate, the other part wants to love!

Edit: also, I think Marcus looks damn good, considering. Working within an existing game engine can be quite limiting...
 
Once someone makes a high-res texture for him he'll look good. He's recognizable but the lack of detail in the textures really hurts, as does a lot of the fairly simple models for the armor (the valves, vices, etc.). Still, it's a promising step in the right direction.

As for Perry, I think that he's done a good job and seems to use his voice pretty well but I'm not sure about him as a gangster, especially if they make him give a classic accent. We'll see, I wouldn't count him out and if he loves Fallout 3 as much as you guys say, he might really work hard at it and produce something good. I'm wait and see about the voice-acting in general but I'd expect it to be better than any of Bethesda's offerings (which is saying nothing).
 
Mad Max RW said:
I thought the talking heads were all hand-made out of sculptor's clay first.
Click to expand...

Most of them were. I'd say all of them, but I've heard (unsubstantiated) rumors that alternative methods were used in some cases.

Once sculpted, the clay models were then marked, laser-traced and scanned into a computer, skinned, detailed, and animated.

The real issue is that Bethesda's humanoid heads are all generic prototype meshes with morph-generated faces, rendered in real-time 3D. I presume they use custom meshes and textures for characters like Marcus, but there's probably no "clay head" stage; it's likely all done on a computer.

If Bethesda were to create pre-rendered talking heads, I'm quite sure they'd do at least as good a job as the Black Isle artists of yore, and probably far better.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Brother None on the clay models dealie. :lol:
 
I imagine that any Chandler-style lines coming from Perry would be totally cringe-worthy, but at the same time I can't help but smile at the Chandler jokes NMA-ers are making...

But yeah, apart from Perry, who I'll have to hear first, the rest of the cast sounds top-notch.
 
TychoXI said:
Yeah, you speak the truth. Even other details, like lip synching and facial expressions, were still better back then in FO!
Click to expand...

Modern games tend to use automatic lip synching routines, because it's a waste of time to do it by hand for every single line of dialogue in the game, especially in an RPG.
 
album_thumbnail.php
Click to expand...
Hah! Look who's getting a suntan!

The model isn't bad at all and it's a nice touch to have Marcus back, but this doesn't make FO:NV to be less a shooter and more a Fallout game.
 
LionXavier said:
The model isn't bad at all and it's a nice touch to have Marcus back, but this doesn't make FO:NV to be less a shooter and more a Fallout game.
Click to expand...

Quite right, and we'd do well to remember that.

On the other hand, what it does show is the extent to which Obsidian is going above and beyond to pump as much Fallout back into the franchise as they can, washing quite a bit of bad taste out of the Fallout 3 cocktail. They're doing more than I'd hoped for, really. Depending on the writing.

Too much Fallout 2-silliness is my greatest fear really.
 
I think Perry can do well as a "smooth talking, two faced gangster". He's not a tough guy - he'd be more of a smart manipulator.
 
Well, the game certainly is looking better. Can't wait to see the finished product.

And, is that snow?
 
verevoof said:
Well, the game certainly is looking better. Can't wait to see the finished product.

And, is that snow?
Click to expand...

Must be a town built at one of the ski resorts near Vegas.
 
Mad Max RW said:
I thought the talking heads were all hand-made out of sculptor's clay first.
Click to expand...
Well yeah but as None said still CGI in the end. And they still even today look more convincing then anything Bethesda came up with either in Bolivion (third world nation of RPGs ...) or Fallout 3.

I know its a bit like comparing apples and oranges as its not so much the "engine" which is doing the talking heads unlike Fallout 3 where everything is rendered with the in game engine. But it shows the different approach by the designers for F1/F2 and F3. And personaly to me the talking heads feel a lot more immersive then any of the F3 ones but thats oppinion ~ you know when you play the game and start a dialogue the view always gets "focused" on the talking person (which I find personaly find annoying cause of the crap faces) so in some way it does have a similar target like the talking heads but thats probably more a left over from the engine.

On the other side I mean I just ask my self what one could achieve today if he would be trying to work on talking heads but with current technology and hardware.
 
Brother None said:
Also as good as a lot of the voice casting is, there is one question seemingly left unanswered.

Who thought it was a good idea to cast Matthew Perry to voice anything?
Click to expand...

Those sitcom actors, those sitcom actors.

"George is gettin' irradiated!!"
"So what's the deal with Instamash? It's instant, and it's a mash?"

I still think it's a step up from having one overpaid, A-list film actor and a cast of those guys who have populated practically every voiced Bethesda title. It is a bone what Obsidian have thrown.

PainlessDocM said:
thenightgaunt said:
Wow, that image leaves me speachless. I literally have nothing to bitch about at this time.
Click to expand...

Wait until you encounter him in game.
Click to expand...

Same voice actor and written by a team that has direct access to his original writer? You're really that cynical? I mean, hey yeah, Harold's Fallout 3 appearance was pretty bad, but..
 
Continuum said:
Well, digital clay is a common standard these day.
Click to expand...

Well, I must admit I'm fairly ignorant of the exact tools and applications used by today's professional 3D modelers and artists. As I mentioned earlier, if Bethesda were developing pre-rendered talking heads, I think they'd probably do an excellent job of it. However, they (and Obsidian) are relying entirely on dynamically-rendered polygons.

As an aside, I think that's one of the key issues facing old-school fans. Fallout and Fallout 2 left much to the imagination, using generic little clay men to represent all of the game's characters on the map and text to convey most of the dialogue. Only the most important characters got a unique face and a voice actor.

Fallout 3 et al leave nothing to the imagination, and I think that's a huge problem. You have dozens of NPCs with obviously generic, randomly-generated faces, acted by the same ten voice actors, with the same body shape, who all walk, run and shoot the same way. Unlike the little clay men of yesteryear, it's much harder to use your imagination — even though the clay men also looked, walked, ran and shot the same way, they were clearly placeholders.

Who among us here doesn't have their own personal mental image of Ian's appearance and voice? Cassidy's? Jagged Jimmy J's? John Bishop's?

Underestimating the power of imagination (corny as that sounds) is a failing of both today's computer gaming industry and modern gamers themselves. I sometimes feel I'm living through The Neverending Story, in which people quit using their imaginations, and the Nothing slowly destroys Fantasia.
 
Marcus was an obvious choice for an old character comeback, but i expected him to look a lot older.
Also, his shoulder pads look sort of like the ones in his talking head from Fallout 2, but i don't like the rest of his armor. Too much scrap metal and orc aesthetic. I would prefer something more like a leather jacket, especially since that's what his in-game sprite was wearing in fallout 2.

Anyway that's just nitpicking. It's obvious Obsidian is trying to deliver a decent Fallout game, and the more info comes out, the more it looks like they're doing a pretty good job.
 
I would prefer something more like a leather jacket
Click to expand...

The nightkin combat clothes, yes. I would prefer them as well. But then again, it's so many years after Fallout 2, it's also possible that Marcus changed his clothes. I mean... nobody wears the same stuff for 40+ years, eh?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top