I’ve talked about the growing blur between computer game and movies already, and it’s quite clear how close they are becoming, and it’s something that the acting talent seems to agree with, well their accountants do anyway. I follow gaming news quite closely as I am quite a big fan and it was quite clear from the moment I watched the opening scenes of GTA: San Andreas that there was major acting talent involved.
The opening scenes feature Samuel L. Jackson (Acting legend) and Chris Penn (a hugely underused natural talent) as corrupt Police Officers.
Checking out an article in Eurogamer I found that there are a couple of other big names involved in the action, James Woods (Another great actor) and Peter Fonda! William Fichtner and David Cross are also mentioned alongside such musical types as Ice T, Axl Rose, George Clinton, Chuck D and Shaun Ryder. Not to mention the slew of other actors, rappers and voice artists of whom I have little knowledge, but I’m sure many of you will. Check out the full listing at IMDB.
That’s some major talent list there, and it makes me think what sort of movie project would be able to bring all these names together, and compare that with San Andreas and suddenly you realise how big this game has become. Not only that game, but how games are pushing that blurred line towards movies.
Another story at Eurogamer places some of the Matrix screen talent into the forthcoming Matrix Online game. The list goes something like this:
Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus), Monica Bellucci (Persephone), Mary Alice, Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian), Harold Perrineau Jr. (Link), Harry Lennix (Locke), Nona Gaye (Zee), Sing Ngai (Seraph), and Tanveer Atwal (Sati).
I think it’s fair to say this is going to be quite cinematic as well, and also quite groundbreaking in the world of online gaming. A quote direct from WB shows us what they think of the split between movies and games:
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment senior vice president Jason Hall commented: “Since The Matrix Online is the legitimate continuation of The Matrix storyline, we felt that it was imperative to preserve character continuity between this game and the films as much as possible.”
Surely its easy work for the actors?! Can’t be no more that 2-days voicework and maybe a couple of days drawing work, with maybe some recalls to touch up. It makes good sense for the games makers also to use real actors, can only boost sales. Then again, does a grand theft auto game really need much help in the sales department? I will agree Chris Penn is a great actor, who should get more work than he does. If it wasnt for Tarrantino, he wouldnt have had much at all!
I’m currently playing GTA:SA and I have to say that Peter Fonda does really good voice acting. He probably has the best character in the game. I actually thought it was Dennis Hopper until I read the Credit :)