From the Ear’s Perspective: When Celebrities Attack
Music and video game writer, Adam Dolge, takes a deep look into the relationship between video games and music. Whether it’s bands covering music from video game soundtracks, the musicians who compose songs for games, or the line between what sounds good and what hurts to hear, he’ll stroll with you through video game history, pulling out the best and worst of music in games.
I have a hard time remembering the last movie I saw that didn’t feature Samuel L. Jackson. That may be an overstatement, as I’m pretty sure he didn’t play a homosexual politician in Milk or the host of the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” in Slumdog Millionaire – he must have turned down those roles. Truth is, the man is everywhere and seems to have a hand in everything. Not that it’s a bad thing. He did make the term “motherf$#%er” ridiculously popular, and easily portrays Hollywood’s biggest bad-ass, apart from Chuck Norris. It should come as no surprise that when Namco Bandai developed Afro Samurai, the game based on the popular Anime series, they wanted to keep Jackson as the voice of the main character. Released on January 27 for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, the game has received mixed reviews. The soundtrack is modern, featuring mostly hip hop music that coincides with the style of the original anime.
The majority of celebrity voice-overs come from games, like Afro Samurai, based on movies, anime, or TV shows. Perhaps the best known celebrity voice-over comes from the football legend himself, John Madden.
“The receiver has to catch the ball to make a complete pass.”
“Now there’s a player who loves football.”
“Touchdowns and field goals win football games.”
Thanks for the tips, John. I didn’t know you needed to score points to win a football game. Thanks for the heads-up. While he makes for an easy laugh, Madden’s voice-overs to his popular football game franchise make the games feel like the NFL, not just a video game based on football. He may be the master of the obvious, but he sure knows how to keep us entertained. And who can forget Gary McCord and David Feherty in the Tiger Woods PGA Tour games. I’ve hooked many balls into the water only to hear Feherty say, in his Irish accent, “Oh, no, that’s not good.” I know, Feherty, I know.
The art of voice over, celebrity or not, is extremely important in modern gaming. A good voice-over immerses the audience into a world outside their own, and adds a layer of realism that wasn’t available 20, even 10 years ago. How would we view the classic Super Mario Brothers if the voice of Mario was played by Robert De Niro? “Look at me, I’m a plumber.” Can you imagine hearing the voice of Kathy Griffin at the end of each castle say, “I’m sorry but the princess is in another castle.” Perhaps the only thing worse would be Robin Williams as the entire cast in The Legend of Zelda.
Some games would feel incomplete without the original voice-overs. I’ve probably spent a few thousand dollars in quarters playing The Simpsons: The Arcade Game. Lucky for us Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwrigth, and Yeardley Smith have continued to provide their talents to games based on the popular Fox cartoon sitcom.
It seems the rest of the gaming community is as excited as I am about the forthcoming release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, set to release later this year on just about every platform. The game is said to essentially take the place of a third movie. Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd not only wrote the script, but they also lent their talents for voice-overs. Regardless of the quality of the game, Ramis and Aykroyd working together on the new Ghostbusters game is proof of the power and popularity of video games. We’ve seen several games based on Ghostbusters in years past fall short of the movies, but since Dr. Egon Spengler and Dr. Raymond Stantz had heavy hands in the game, we all have high hopes for this year’s blockbuster game.
If Samuel L. Jackson is everywhere, you’ll likely find Jack Black not far behind. The two seem to work hard, and coming from someone who is not a rich celebrity, I appreciate the fact they actually work, and don’t live on one or two successes. If you are a fan of Black, like I am, you’ll want to lookout for Brutal Legend, an action game set to release late this year. You guessed it, the game stars Black as Eddie Riggs, a roadie turned action hero. If you’ve seen any of its advertising, you probably already knew the game stars Black. Right now that appears to be the biggest draw to the game, which ultimately is unfortunate. I won’t pretend I don’t like recognizable voices in my games, but if that’s all it has to offer, what’s it worth? My guess is we’ve yet to reach the peak of celebrity voice-overs in games. Once we get there, lets hope developers get over the craze and continue to focus on making a good game, whether or not that includes celebrities.
I definetley agree with this post. The Madden part especially, I think for 09 they changed the main announcer to someone who actually does do announcing and so on for real football which really made a difference.
Also, for cinematic games good voice overs from actors tend to make the game much more believable.