voiceovers
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Tara Strong on Guild Wars 2's 'British Harley Quinn'
Chances are that you've encountered a character played by Tara Strong, since the prolific voice actress sports a resume that reads like a gaming greatest hits list. It includes MMOs and sort-of MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Marvel Heroes, Infinite Crisis, and Guild Wars 2. Strong's GW2 work goes under the microscope in ArenaNet's latest video release. It's basically a three-minute behind-the-scenes/interview mashup featuring Living World villainess Scarlet Briar, whom Strong describes as a "British Harley [Quinn]." Click past the cut to have a look.
Super Hero Squad Online gets vocal with new all-star cast of talent
Voice-acting in MMOs seems to be all the rage these days, and Gazillion Entertainment, publisher of the free-to-play Super Hero Squad Online, seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. In a press release today, the company announced that each and every hero and villain in the game will be receiving a full vocal makeover, and many characters will be voiced by the same actors who provide voice work for the Super Hero Squad television series. Jay Minn, vice president of The Amazing Society -- the development studio behind the games -- is obviously quite pleased with the decision to give voice to the game's dozens of characters, stating that "the heroes and villains in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online have always had their own unique personalities and attitudes... We're excited and very proud to let our heroes and villains speak their minds!" The statement adds that the game currently includes over 3000 lines of spoken dialogue (with over 100 attributed to everyone's favorite Merc with a Mouth), so players can expect plenty of witty quips from their characters of choice. To get in the game and hear the new voiceovers for yourself, just click on through the link below to Super Hero Squad Online's official site. [Source: Gazillion Entertainment press release]
ArenaNet lead writer Bobby Stein interviewed on script-writing, voice-overs
Today, Tap Repeatedly has an exclusive interview with ArenaNet's lead writer Bobby Stein. The interview covers a variety of script-related details, such as the difference in approach between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, what led to the decision to implement full voice-overs, and some of the difficulties the studio faces in doing so. He also offers some juicy tidbits on just how voice-acting will affect the atmosphere of the game, one exciting example being: "Say you're travelling a road between two towns, when a guard approaches you in a frenzy. He emphatically tells you that the estate he's guarding is under attack, and that the family–including a small child–is in danger. You storm the property and cut through waves of pirates. Meanwhile, you hear the owners down below cowering in fear. But you've arrived a few moments too late. You overhear the kidnapping take place, and the pirates whisk the little girl to their hideout for ransom. If you're quick about it you can even watch them make the journey." It's an absolute gold mine for anyone anticipating GW2, and doubly so for any of you who are particularly interested in the writing end of game development. Click on over to Tap Repeatedly for the full interview.
Video shows off voicework in Black Prophecy
As every day passes, more and more people are joining the Black Prophecy beta testing. Slowly, the localizations are being smoothed out, and even more goodies are being added into this hotly anticipated sci-fi space dogfighter MMO. For those of you who haven't quite made it in as yet, as well as those who have but are curious about the nuts-and-bolts, Gamigo and Reakktor Media have released a video today that offers an interesting look at ongoing behind-the-scenes production. In this video, we take a trip to Periscope Studios and T-Recs Studios to watch just a little bit of how the voicework is done. Along with that, we're treated to a look at just how they get the voice to match the mouth animations of the NPCs without it looking completely silly or taking obnoxious amounts of time. Whether this upcoming free-to-play game is on your personal radar or you're more the type who is fascinated with the overall industry, it's a video worth spending a few minutes of your life to check out. We've embedded this new behind-the-scenes video after the break for your viewing pleasure.
Heavy Rain features 10 voiced languages, subtitles in 6 more [update]
Heavy Rain will be fully voice acted in 10 languages, with subtitles available for all spoken languages, plus six more languages. These details were disclosed during a presentation at GamesCom this afternoon, when Quantic Dream founder David Cage introduced Pascal Langdale (pictured right), the actor playing the English-speaking version of Heavy Rain's Ethan Mars, and discussed the extensive voice work necessary for the game's many branching scenes. Knowing a single Blu-ray disc can store language data in bulk, we were curious about how many language options would be available in the game. As it turns out, if Cage had brought in all of Mars' voices, the room would have gotten pretty tight. Check out the confirmed list of languages after the break. (We're still waiting for official confirmation on a couple -- the Quantic Dream team couldn't name them all off the top of their heads.) Update: Heavy Rain's associate producer and localization manager, Romain Castillos, has given us the official list of languages and subtitles. %Gallery-70367%
Ask Cryptic explains how Star Trek Online will handle canon
The latest Ask Cryptic focusing on Star Trek Online addresses a number of questions sci-fi fans have about where the IP is heading in the MMO space. Not surprisingly, many of the questions asked of Cryptic deal with how well they'll adhere to Star Trek canon. The Cryptic Studios devs were asked about how they would handle the iconic story and characters of Star Trek, namely with voiceovers and cut scenes. The devs state that Star Trek Online avoids issues of tampering with Trekkie canon by setting the game in 2409, a good 30 years after Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Voyager. So while some of the locales familiar to Star Trek fans will be present in the game, players shouldn't expect to bump into any (or many) familiar faces.
The Daily Grind: Spoken quest text
One of the things that people seem fairly split on lately is the "time" they say is involved with listening to the NPCs talking -- or more properly, reciting the quest text out loud. Some people really like this when coupled with the "multiple choice answer" option that's present in Age of Conan and EverQuest II. Some feel that it leads to greater immersion in the world to hear quests spoken -- and you can always "fast forward" by clicking through if you don't want to hear it. For other people, while this can be a fun and interesting element at first, repeating quests on subsequent alts makes it somewhat annoying. Where do you fall on this one? Do you like the idea of your NPCs actually being voiced and reading out the full quest text to you, or do you think a cursory sound byte (like how it is handled in World of Warcraft) is all that is needed? Do voiceovers tend to make you pay attention to quest "text" -- or do you just click past it all anyway?
