Half-Life 2 Voice Actors Revealed

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)."

Comments

Release dates

[Pentagram]

"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.

Re:Release dates

[nukem1999]

I think the "Will be" is just in reference to the fact that the game's not out yet, not that they haven't recorded their audio. They've released several demos which include voice audio of G-man, Barney, and Kleiner, so they kind of "have returned".

But, needless to say, the whole release date thing does blow chunks.

Re:Release dates

[nukem1999]

note: By "demos", I mean "videos", nothing actually playable. Don't mean to mislead anyone.

Re:Release dates

[delus10n0]

Gabe has actually said that August 2004 is now their targeted release date.

I can wait 2 months.. really, I can!

Re:Release dates

[cmpalmer]

Unlike the damned videogame magazines that have enclosed CD's with "HALF-LIFE 2!!!!!" on them in 2" letters, then, in small print, "new gameplay videos".

Darn....

[BRock97]

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".

Re:Darn....

[Rethcir]

While ignoring the truth certainly isn't a good way to go through life, I certainly hope you aren't seriously implying that your memory of Phil Hartman is not shaped by the great work he did while he was alive, but merely by the circumstances of his tragic death. (Ditto Ted Williams.) I really don't even see why you had to bring that fact up at all.

Re:Darn....

[TheRealMindChild]

Maybe it is due to the fact that he is DEAD. He CANT be the voice of ANYTHING anymore.

Robert Guillaume

[hal2814]

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.

Re:Robert Guillaume

[The Barking Dog]

I think it's just a case of someone picking his favorite role, like someone listing ZARDOZ as one of Sean Connery's credits, or CABIN BOY as one of Tim Burton's production credits.

Re:Robert Guillaume

[thelexx]

Hell, he's probably better known from Soap for that matter.

Re:Robert Guillaume

[hal2814]

"better known as Benson" I was actually thinking of Soap, but I did enjoy his spinoff titled Benson also.

Re:Robert Guillaume

[Anonymous Coward]

god, Sports Night kicked ass.

old

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome to e3.

Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[Recoil_42]

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.

Re:Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[delus10n0]

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.

Re:Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[Snowmit]

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.

Re:Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard there's an easter egg where he says, "werd" once.

Re:Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[Zorilla]

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.

Re:Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[Babbster]

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.

Re:Considering that Freeman doesn't speak?

[one4nine4two]

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 have to have quite a few people record all the different names.

I look forward to when voice synthesis starts to actually sound decent. Mmm, dynamically generated dialogue. NPCs that say the same thing every time you talk to them are definitely not good for the immersion factor.

Michelle Forbes

[justanyone]

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

Re:Michelle Forbes

[ripsnorta]

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!!!

Re:Michelle Forbes

[Chemisor]

> 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 professional problems with her, which is understandable in the pseudo-military conformist and priggish atmosphere of Starfleet.

> putting the role of women into stereotyped containers
> (think: low cut short-skirts on Troi in season 1)

I always thought Troi's costumes fit her role perfectly. Her character is excessively emotional and insecure, and it is not too farfetched that she would try to augment her own dumpy looks with revealing outfits, like many women do thinking lust will make up for their other defects.

Benson!

[justanyone]

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

Re:Benson!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right!

Benson rang a clearbell

Re:Benson!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most people would know him from Benson.

I think most people know him from "Soap", where the Bensen character first started.

Re:Benson!

[MendicantMonkey]

I think "Benson" became more popular than "Soap", but I'm glad someone mentioned it. Also, don't forget "The Kid"* movies which all featured Gary Coleman and Robert Guillaume.

Parent is wildly off-topic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent comment constitutes a threadjack.

This story isn't about the politics of Star Trek.

that's nothing

[pizza_milkshake]

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!

Re:that's nothing

[Zorilla]

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.

Cast by talent, not name

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they chose these people for their talent at voice acting, and not for their names (though it doesn't sound like the latter reason, thankfully).

Lots of animation lately has been using big name actors for the voice acting, and jesus-christ-it-sucks. There are very few hollywood screen actors that can actually act, let alone give a voice to a character. There is a huge industry of people out there that make their lives using only their voices, and they have a certain knack for it that just gets lost on these people who decide to bring in the latest Teen-Pop-Superstars for it.

Re:Cast by talent, not name

[Pluvius]

There are very few hollywood screen actors that can actually act, let alone give a voice to a character.

You do realize that it's quite possible for a bad voice actor to be a good stage/screen actor and vice versa, right? There's a lot more to screen acting than vocal inflection.

Rob

Re:Cast by talent, not name

[AvantLegion]

You do realize that it's quite possible for a bad voice actor to be a good stage/screen actor and vice versa, right? There's a lot more to screen acting than vocal inflection.

They can't all be Shatner.

It was a joke, a lame one at that it would seem...

[BRock97]

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......

What I want to know is...

[Zorilla]

...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.

Hooray!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gordon Freeman remains voiceless!

I was worried that HL2 would pull a GTA: Vice City on me. IMO, the original, voiceless anti-hero of GTA was perfect - he was a blank slate that the player could fashion into whatever he or she wanted, within certain boundaries of course. Tommy Vercetti was in comparison a petty thug whether you wanted him to be or not, and that spoiled Vice City for me.

Re:It was a joke, a lame one at that it would seem

[Babbster]

I found it amusing, though I would note that usually Troy would mention credits in the same format as he was talking about. Like, "You might remember me from such video games as '32nd Guest' and 'Occupant Neutral.'" Of course, IANACW. :)

Valve goes to Hollywood ^2s to recruit actors

[Numeric]

Wow Valve has really outdown themselves again *applause*.

Re:It was a joke, a lame one at that it would seem

[Maserati]

I miss Phil.

And Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks.