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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Half-Life 2 Voice Actors Revealed 42

Posted by simoniker from the from-beyond-the-grave dept.
Thanks to 1UP for its story discussing the full voice-acting cast list for hideously long-awaited FPS Half-Life 2. It's noted: "Only two of the original game's actors will be returning; Mike Shapiro as both the ominous G-Man and security guard Barney Calhoun, and Harry S. Robins as Dr. Isaac Kleiner. Naturally, returning protagonist Gordon Freeman will remain voiceless", before it's revealed: "The voice for Dr. Eli Vance will be supplied by Robert Guillaume, otherwise known as the unforgettable Detective Catfish in the Fish Police TV series. Vance's assistant, Dr. Judith Mossman, will be voiced by Michelle Forbes, known for her roles on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Homicide, and Guiding Light. Oscar winner Lou Gossett, Jr. will voice each and every one of the Vortigaunt alien slaves (his second alien role, after the cult sci-fi classic Enemy Mine)."
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Half-Life 2 Voice Actors Revealed More

Half-Life 2 Voice Actors Revealed

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  • Release dates (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pentagram ( 40862 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @02:15PM (#9531265) Homepage
    "Will be" returning? Shouldn't all this have been finished some time ago? I thought Valve claimed they were c. 2 weeks away from shipping the game last autumn.

  • Darn.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by BRock97 ( 17460 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @02:20PM (#9531335) Homepage
    I had heard they were going to hire Troy McClure to play Freeman. You might remember him from such films as "The Greatest Story Ever Hula-ed" and "They Came to Burgle Carnegie Hall".

    • Considering that Freeman doesn't speak? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:11PM (#9531909) Homepage Journal
      Vavle feels it is more immersive when your character does not have speech, so Gordon Freeman has not, does not, and will never speak in any Half-Life game.
      • They've also stated before that you should never "see" your character. Gordon Freeman = you, literally. That's the experience they want to convey.

        The whole box/cover art we all know (of the guy with glasses and a goatee) is sort of a generic vision of what the character would look like.
      • That's a nice idea and all, but they break the immersion factor that they gain every time the character's call me "Gordon". My name's *not* Gordon!

        I like the Deus Ex solution to this poblem where they gave you a gender-neutral code name so that you could pretend that your real name was whatever you wanted but the voice actors could still call you something in dialogue. An especially nice touch was that characters you were a personal friend of would call you by your secret 'real' name in private emails.
        • Links 2004 for Xbox has a good approach to the issue. If your name matches one that they have prerecorded (the more common English names, including my own), you can have the announcers use your name in their commentary (they also have a bucket of nicknames like "Slice," "Ace," etc.). The bad side is that at times the names are obviously out of place in terms of tone when compared to the rest of what the announcers are saying. But it's still a nice step above just using "he," "she," etc.

          • I remember some football game used to do that for create-a-players, except they said your first name for some insane reason. "Elway throws a long pass, caught by Bob, Bob avoids a tackle from Mike and runs it in for the touchdown." Yeah, that sounds normal. I hope they've added a library of last names for the newer sports games.

            And it would be a hell of a lot easier to do it in sports games, since you only hear maybe three different people talking ever, the announcers. For a game like Half-Life, you'd hav

      • Uhem. It was a joke. Troy McClure from the Simpsons is always associated with really stinker titles. The punch line is that, while they have some impressive talent doing secondary voices, they would hire a no talent hack to be the lead. It wasn't a take on Valve's story telling. It wasn't a slam on the late, great Phil Hartman. It was light humor. I guess if I have to explain it, though, it isn't that funny......
      • In the first Half-Life, I believe the trick was to made Freeman look progressively weirder with each new piece of box art, magazine promos, etc. His glasses must be super pointy by now.

  • Robert Guillaume (Score:5, Informative)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @02:31PM (#9531447)
    I think that Guillaume is just a little bit better known as Benson than Detective Catfish. they could have at least mentioned his role in Sports Night. Or maybe that new commecial where all the maids and butlers from different TV shows are on vacation.

  • Michelle Forbes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:27PM (#9532059) Homepage Journal
    Michelle Forbes was ensign Ro Laren on STTNG (Star Trek NextGen). She was Bejoran and had a funky earring: two ring piercings at the top and bottom of the ear with a small chain between them that dangled a bit.

    Ro was known for being ... independently minded, was (as all movie stars are) quite attractive.

    Some would argue that her character, and those fellow Bejorans in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series, were supposed to be the 'Arabs' of the Federation. It is a popular conception that the cold war colored Star Trek's political landscape. The Federation (humans) were the United States, The Russians were the Klingons. The Romulans were the Chinese. The Vulcans were not assignable easily; one could say they were the Swiss, but it's hard to say.

    Regardless, Ro played a character that had personal and professional problems that started with her upbringing on an occupied world, and meant that she was not subservient to human / Federation dictates, just being there for the ride.

    Interesting to note she's still working; of course she was talented. But the ST:TNG scripts sometimes limited the actors/actresses by putting the role of women into stereotyped containers (think: low cut short-skirts on Troi in season 1). They tried to presume equality (doctors are female), but sometimes it didn't mesh with Keeping Teenage Boys Watching. Ro was sort of a 'bad girl' that was good at heart but didn't want to be, by my reading.

    -- Kevin J. Rice
    • I always understood the Vulcans represented the Japanese. It was stated in (one of) the series that the Vulcans and Romulans shared a common ancestry. However, they mastered their emotions while the Romulans did not.

      Man, it's scary that I remember that!!!

    • > Ro was known for being ... independently minded,

      Quite an understatement there :) Confident, flippant, tough as nails, and able to look the captain in the eye and tell him to mind his own business. If you find a better woman in this world, let me know.

      > was (as all movie stars are) quite attractive.

      You really are the master of understatement...

      > Ro played a character that had personal and professional problems

      She didn't have personal or professional problems on TNG; others had personal and pr

  • Benson! (Score:3, Informative)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @03:39PM (#9532172) Homepage Journal
    Robert Guillaume was Benson, the african-american chief of staff to the Governor in the TV show of the same name.

    I can't believe people are quoting 'Fish Police' as his most famous appearance. I think most people would know him from Benson.

    On the other hand, many of the people here were in Fish Police. I looked it up. Everybody was in that show! I can't believe it failed, given the cast. Too bad.

    -- Kevin J. Rice
  • i heard next year they'll release the names of the artists that skinned the models. Then the year after that, they'll release the guys who designed the models. Then the year after that they'll make a very official-sounding pre-pre-releasement announcement. The actual release should within 3 or 4 years of that!
    • Then video card manufacturers will release video cards that claim to be designed to render the models...oh wait.

      I actually saw a Radeon 9800 with the "Designed for Half-Life 2" sticker on it on the returned items shelf. One has to speculate.
  • ...how complete the vocabulary of the overhead computer is. One of my friends actually went through and found "ass" and "adios" in the PAK files for HL1. One can only hope for more bizarre words if the overhead computer voice makes a return.
  • Wow Valve has really outdown themselves again *applause*.

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