Loop Hero

GWJ Conference Call Episode 753

Hellish Quart (PC), Loop Hero (PC/PC adjacent), Maquette (PC), Game Dev Story (Ps4/5), Your Emails, the weather, and more!

Click Here to Download!

Amanda, Rich, Aaron, and Glendon talk games, your emails, and more!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about, or whatever else is on your mind.

  • Subscribe with iTunes
  • Subscribe with RSS
  • Subscribe with Yahoo!
Download the official apps
  • Download the GWJ Conference Call app for Android
  • Download the GWJ Conference Call app for Android

Comments

00:01:40 Loop Hero
00:19:02 Hellish Quart
00:22:18 Maquette
00:30:00 Game Dev Story
00:35:00 Your Emails

I'm not someone who digs into lore or background stories in games. I often ignore written passages in books, etc as I have, in the past and, to an extent, even now, seen a games story as mostly providing colour and context for gameplay and combat. I enjoy Dark Soul's lore as it fits neatly with that outlook. I doesn't hamper my enjoyment of the exploration and combat but you sense it's presence. The world feels like it has it's own deeply layered archeology. Every item you find has had a past owner or owners and has a troubled or tragic history associated with it.

As regards Voice actors I also adored Jennifer Hale's femshep. Similar to Jennifer Hale, Nolan North deserves credit for advancing, in a major way, the role of voice acting in games. Troy Baker also deserves a lot of recognition. It's easy to characterise him as the guy who does all the gruff white males in gaming but even a cursory examination of his work shows that there is far more to his work than that. He can come across as a little pretentious and a tad too impressed with himself in real life but, going by what his friends and colleagues say about him, he seems to be extremely thoughtful and caring person underneath.

No list of voice acting alumni is complete without mentioning Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey (and the entire cast of The Last of Us Part 2.) Their performances are astonishing. They can do subtlety and nuance just as well as they convey raw, heart-rending emotion. Also no-one swears quite as well or as often as Ashley Johnson (and they both give kick-ass acceptance speeches.)

This video from the second half of TLOU Part 2 is a self contained series of scenes. There is NSFW language but no violence. There is also a conversation about Lev and his struggles as a trans person. If you ever think you might play TLOU Part 2 I would err on the side of not watch it.

Thanks for another great pod!

I loved hearing the panel talk about voice actors that they loved, but you left us hanging on the second part of the question: what games do you think would be improved by having voice acting? An easy answer is Kentucky Route Zero, but it also got me thinking what the old King's Quest and Quest for Glory games by Sierra would be like with decent voice acting ... maybe it would lift some of those groanworthy puns to a higher level.

On the topic of favourite voice actors, for sheer workmanship, I have to shout out the handful of voice actors who do 85% of the voices in Elder Scrolls games. There's OG Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter, Wes Johnson, Catherine Flye, Craig Sechler, Ralph Cosham (RIP), Linda Canyon, Gayle Jessup and a bunch more. Sometimes quantity is a quality all of its own. Most of them do audiobooks too.

One of the voice acting performances that stands out in my recent memory is Melina Juergens from Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. For being a newcomer, I thought she did a fantastic job of communicating the range of emotions she was asked to do. There is at least one behind-the-scenes video that goes into how she got the role.