GWJ Conference Call Episode 713

Animal Crossing, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Disco Elysium, Bundle for Racial Equality and Justice, Online improv and online RPGs, COD Modern Warfare, Codenames/Jackbox Games via Zoom, Voice Over Acting, Black Lives Matter Donation Drive, and More!

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Amanda and Rich are joined by special guests Sarah Elmaleh and Graham Rowat to talk about voice over in video games, life, and more!

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Comments

00:01:20 Animal Crossing: New Horizons
00:05:26 Disco Elysium
00:10:28 Codenames/Jackbox Games
00:17:19 Online Gaming During Quarantine
00:25:45 Online Improv/Roleplaying
00:30:10 Itch.io Bundle for Racial Equality and Justice
00:32:07 Voice Acting in Games
01:14:57 Black Lives Matter Donation Drive

Beckett wrote:

00:32:07 Voice Acting in Games

Or as I like to call it, the "That was YOU?!" segment.

I know some people might complain about too much acting talk going on in a gaming podcast, but they are wrong. This was an awesome episode with a great glimpse at a world we seldom have an opportunity to see.

I am only 15 minutes in but I already love Sarah Elmaleh. Get her back!

Yeah, that was great. It's a part of games that we actually rarely hear about.

Indie developers will do the podcast rounds when they've got a game coming out and the marketing department for AAA titles will generally get the game director out there around E3 time, but other than the odd Graham appearance on GWJ, I can't think of another time I've head from people who do the voice work in games.

Is the guy with the black eye mask supposed to look like Fred Armisen?

Oh man, I killed the hell out of Graham Rowat in Red Dead Redemption!

I'm late listening to this podcast but the voice acting piece was fascinating. Sarah Elmaleh was talking about extrapolating out her role in a game by adding a quirky personality. Ashley Johnson did much the same in The Last of Us. Ellie was initially a much more passive and humourless character but she insisted on the character having a more active role in combat and ad libed a lot of funny lines that made it into that game (as well as a metric ton of spicey language.) I much of the reason that game is as powerful and memorable as it is (for me at least) is because Ellie is so human and so relatable and because you are so attached to her at the end.

Ha, during the first segment whenever someone said “voiceover acting” I parsed that as “voice overacting” so was looking forward to discussions of the worst recordings in gaming history.

Initially I read the description the same way and thought someone must feel really strongly about overacting in video games.