Games

Kristen Bell was in Assassin's Creed II and that was 14 years ago... Fuck I feel old.

But still, it's been slowly happening for quite a while

LOL, you mean like Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077?

I'm not really a fan of real A-list actors' faces in games. Inspired by real faces? Sure. I know the term "immersion" is mocked a lot, but few things force me back to reality than seeing Hollywood megastar multimillionaires in my fantasy world.

That union vote came at just the right time then, huh.

Started a fresh playthrough on the 21st and man the time they put in shows. Really wish companies like CDPR would go the Larian route of funding big projects like this instead of going public. Shareholders ruined CP2077 launch. It should have been delayed a year or two from its original launch. Instead it was rushed and then after launch they had to fix the rushed product before making/finishing the game they wanted to make. If CP2077 released as it is now or even slightly less polished, it would be considered a top 5 game of all time.

Lessons are there to be learned by other studios. Hopefully they are paying attention. Gamers will wait for a great game.

All that being said, I'm excited to hand over $30 now that I've seen the game perform. Stoked to see Elba.

sign of the times

We've had actors in videogames for as long as there's been the ability to play samples at a high enough quality. Hell, the 90s FMJ era was full of them. Some good, some not so good.

Big, well known actors in video games have been a thing for a long time now? I remember games from the 90's that had actors like James Earl Jones, Tim Curry, Bill Paxton, Randy Quaid, and so many more growing up.

What's interesting is, it doesn't seem like it's expanded or shrunk. Most games don't hire big actors, but a handful of huge budget, AAA things do. There's also big range in how good these actors are in the game... JK Simmons, for example, was awesome as Cave Johnson in Portal; but his performance in Baldur's Gate 3 is, by far, the worst in the entire game IMO.

I'm playing Toonstruck at the moment. Christopher Lloyd was one of the early pioneers acting in computer games, and he gives everything! The game is so much fun!

Liam Neeson was in Fallout 3

I'd prefer them to converge from Baldur's Gate 3 direction. Cast more or less established voice actors and give them the hype and marketing space usually found among movie/tv stars. "films and games converge" yea, when we treat a 200hour computer game the way we treat a long tv series and acknowledge the actors' contribution on the same level.

Idk if I like this. Wouldn’t having big famous Hollywood actors and actresses screw over the industry for a lot of people? Which sucks because just because they’re actors, it doesn’t mean they can voice act - Megan Fox did a character in the new Mortal Kombat and she gave the most wooden performance in recent memory; Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 was kind of odd at times, but it was still okay.

I just don’t want these big names invading a space that’s already hard to compete in, and then taking all the jobs because of star power and not their actual talent.

Mark Hamill in Wing Commander III, released in 1994.

Popular actors in cyberpunk 2077 are the worst part of it IMO, I'd much rather have those characters sport a face I haven't seen a thousand times.

Seeing as the games industry makes more than movies I wouldn’t be surprised if more actors don’t exclusively go towards acting in games. It pays well I think and typically the work schedule is better I believe(someone confirm or deny this?). I’d love to see more actors on the games side and not as PR stunts.

I personally wouldn't put much stock in his opinion since he seems to know very little about video games.

Ehhh. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Case in point: everyone loves Patrick Stewart. He played a small yet memorable role in Oblivion. No issues. Everyone loves Keanu Reeves, but as soon as CDPR wheeled him out to hype up CP2077 in 2019, I rolled my eyes because it was an obvious attempt to capitalize on the meme-able goodwill that Keanu had from all of the posts about him riding the subway and his wife dying and how he's a genuinely nice person.

Idris Elba on the other hand, he's a great actor, but he has the marketability of a tuna sandwich.

Put famous actors in games when it makes sense to do so. Otherwise it comes off as hacky and you run the risk of severely dating your game in 10 years. Idris Elba is just in too many things these days to take him seriously.