Do Actors Have A Place In Games?
Posted on 12th Oct 2009 at 11:36 by Mark Mackay with 31 comments
It would be true to say that there have been many a great game with actors in it. Actors (or celebrities, to be exact) don’t necessarily make games bad. It just seems to me that there are so many terrible games with actors in that you've really got to question why developers bother.
Let’s start off with Red Alert 3, a game which Joe liked, but I thought was an overworked load of pants. And then lets take Gemma Atkinson, for example. Now, most people that live in the UK will be familiar with Hollyoaks. It’s a teen-type soap opera of epically fail acting.
I’m not the sort of person that goes to see a movie and walks out afterwards saying things like, ‘wow like, yah, I really feel that Depp did a fine job to develop the sub plot of his character, hinting towards the troubled childhood that he must have experienced', but the acting in Hollyoaks is a joke.
Why then would you want to get some chick from such a program in your real time strategy computer game? Yes, I appreciate that it brings some boobs to the table, but I still didn’t enjoy the game and no amount of boobs would make me think the gameplay was good. Even though Tim Curry has been entertaining me in films such as Peter Pan and The Worst Witch since I was but knee high to a Mammoth Tank, I still couldn’t give the faintest of craps that he's in the cutscenes surrounded by hotties that cant act.
I want a good game, not bad soft porn. If I wanted to gawp at chicks there's no end of places on the interwebs that cater for than need specifically.
Next up? Oblivion. It flat-out sucked. Probably the biggest disappointment in my gaming career. Now that the modding community has salvaged it from the depths of utter trash, it’s due another run through. Still though, Patrick Stewart in the opening scene? I just couldn’t give a crap. Having an actor and narrator (he was awesome on Planet Earth), even one that I like at the beginning doesn't compensate for the fact that I can level my character all the way to max and then find a wolf that's a challenge to take down because there’s some ridiculous mob-scaling system.
Then on the other side of coin, let’s take a look at Brutal Legend. Tim Schafer worked closely with Jack Black for the game. Many feel that Jack Black has become increasingly more obnoxious since his springboard to superstardom from Tenacious D. In many respects I would have to agree with them. But what Jack Black does is rock (as in the music genre and not the adjective) and he does it very well. Brutal Legend is a game set in the world of metal (the genre, not the material) and it’s a comedy. For this reason, Jack Black was man for the job, no questions asked. The combination of the Schafer and Black has resulted in an awesome, original game because two people have collaborated on a project doing what they do best.
Do actors have a place in games? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
Let’s start off with Red Alert 3, a game which Joe liked, but I thought was an overworked load of pants. And then lets take Gemma Atkinson, for example. Now, most people that live in the UK will be familiar with Hollyoaks. It’s a teen-type soap opera of epically fail acting.
I’m not the sort of person that goes to see a movie and walks out afterwards saying things like, ‘wow like, yah, I really feel that Depp did a fine job to develop the sub plot of his character, hinting towards the troubled childhood that he must have experienced', but the acting in Hollyoaks is a joke.
Why then would you want to get some chick from such a program in your real time strategy computer game? Yes, I appreciate that it brings some boobs to the table, but I still didn’t enjoy the game and no amount of boobs would make me think the gameplay was good. Even though Tim Curry has been entertaining me in films such as Peter Pan and The Worst Witch since I was but knee high to a Mammoth Tank, I still couldn’t give the faintest of craps that he's in the cutscenes surrounded by hotties that cant act.
I want a good game, not bad soft porn. If I wanted to gawp at chicks there's no end of places on the interwebs that cater for than need specifically.
Next up? Oblivion. It flat-out sucked. Probably the biggest disappointment in my gaming career. Now that the modding community has salvaged it from the depths of utter trash, it’s due another run through. Still though, Patrick Stewart in the opening scene? I just couldn’t give a crap. Having an actor and narrator (he was awesome on Planet Earth), even one that I like at the beginning doesn't compensate for the fact that I can level my character all the way to max and then find a wolf that's a challenge to take down because there’s some ridiculous mob-scaling system.
Then on the other side of coin, let’s take a look at Brutal Legend. Tim Schafer worked closely with Jack Black for the game. Many feel that Jack Black has become increasingly more obnoxious since his springboard to superstardom from Tenacious D. In many respects I would have to agree with them. But what Jack Black does is rock (as in the music genre and not the adjective) and he does it very well. Brutal Legend is a game set in the world of metal (the genre, not the material) and it’s a comedy. For this reason, Jack Black was man for the job, no questions asked. The combination of the Schafer and Black has resulted in an awesome, original game because two people have collaborated on a project doing what they do best.
Do actors have a place in games? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
31 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyFor 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 :p
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 :P
I do indeed mean celebreties. Well spotted.
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.
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!
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 agree that actors aren't necessary in games, but other than that, guy you are crazy.
Oblivion won game of the year awards...
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
Nope...that's like a perpetuum mobile, just not possible :D
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.
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.
Having an actor or celebrity starring as a character in a game, I can take it or leave it.
+1
That's totally the case for me too. I wish I'd never went anywhere near Oblivion so that it didn't taint my impressions of Fall Out 3
Yes, it was in fact Earth that Steward narrated, Planet Earth was done by Attenborough.
+1
Clive Owen in Privateer 2
Two games I enjoyed quite a lot, but which had pretty average actors in starring roles. I honestly don't see any correlation between the quality of the game and the inclusion of actors/celebrities.
PS Danni Behr did the ship computer voice in Privateer 2 - that might have swayed me a bit, I guess :p
And its called what???
Clive Owen in privateer2...didn't know him back then, for me he just was generic-space-pilot-No.1 :D
Still the acting wasn't bad
All hail Minsc and Boo.
Infact, one of the reasons they're picked ( but sadly not the biggest ) Is because they've become professional speakers.
"Stop!" *pause....* "Don't open that door!" * Longer pause....whirrr, bzzzt, click* "But Chris is...." *Pause...bzzzzt, whirrr, etc... you get the idea...*