I talk about the experience of getting the voiced characters of Fallout into the game, especially some of the people responsible for all of that hard work.
You’re telling me this channel is just a pivotal developer from fallout just talking about stuff and the making of?? Hot damn! Subbed, thank you for your work on my childhood
These videos are such a highlight. It's like going behind the scenes of "Star Wars" or some iconic album like "Pet Sounds" -- just deep-dive discussions of artistry and challenge and triumphs. Really wonderful stuff.
he made a great Doctor Who as well, preforming alongside his partner Lisa Bowerman over at Big Finish, who make audio dramas for nerds. I also remember him for his brief but great performance as Thomas Eckhardt in Twin Peaks. RIP indeed.
Omg THAT’S why the voice acting was SO GOOD?? You just knew all these wonderful actors?? It really made SUCH a difference to hear _real_ first class voice acting in a game. It truly set it apart from a lot of other videos games at the time. Even to this day. I was always excited to talk to a character and feel such a strong connection with the character because of the voice acting. It was unlike anything else at the time. It just added the extra layer of authenticity to the universe. To this day I have thought to myself, “How was the voice acting SO GOOD in Fallout 1 and 2?”. Now I know. Super thankful for your stories. Always look forward to them.
It’s still crazy to think that freaking Winnie the Poo was in your studio doing easily one of the top 10, maybe top 5 greatest video game villains of all time.
Poor Tony Jay and David Warner. Born with such perfect voices for playing badass, deep-voiced villains, so those are the roles they kept doing over and over. And since the video game role I immediately associate with David Warner is Jon Irenicus, it didn't stop at Fallout.
the voice acting is one of the standout parts of Fallout, some of the best in video games ever brings the game to another level of atmosphere, and the game drippps atmosphere with that Mark Morgan soundtrack
Yeah I went to look at Morpheus video when Tim talked about it to remind myself and god damn the atmosphere of Fallout is still just insane, I can't get over how immersive and atmospheric the game still is
I was sharing the office with Fred Hatch and Nick Kesting when the VO recording was going on. Fred told us about the day Tony Shalhoub was recording. It was something like he'd been sick, got pulled over by the police while driving over, and didn't want to do an accent similar to his character from the TV show Wings. But then he was shown the character and did the accent. Somewhat different from his Wings character, but close enough.
To the industries detriment, great writing & acting are two things that almost feel like they have been neglected by developers even as games get MUCH bigger, more complicated & more expensive to make, and a a big reason why people go back to older games instead. Your obvious appreciation for what these things bring to the table makes me even more confident in purchasing projects you are involved in going forward.
I actually just wrote a comment with a little about what really good, plausible, human voice acted lines need. I wonder how much of that is actually routinely done. Problem is that publishers put games to tight timelines. They want AAA quality, new tech, a lot of graphical wow, but as publishers, they want releases more than they want passion project art that will stand the test of time. Games haven't been seen as art for as long as movies have. The audience demands for quality art (writing, thought, humanity) aren't even consistent. A lot just want cawdoody.
Triple A studios today subscribe to the philosophy that "bigger is better" and "more is good". Providing supposedly infinite "things to do" in their video games, far too many "radiant" quests and the like, has taken precedence over engaging story and characterization and is actually harming the replayability of most games. Good writing and branching storylines used to bring people back to the games over and over again, so they could see what they missed or create a completely different character, which creates a completely different experience, etc. The approach was more like developer and player co-writing a good novel rather than just reading one. (First person to mention illusion of choice in video games is a rotten egg. lol) Now, there's nothing to do in those kinds of games but play it through once or experiment with stuff like combat builds.
@@VitriolicVermillion "A lot just want cawdoody." And get it in spades. "Triple A quality" ain't what it used to be. Players are pushing back against that trend, though, and some publishers have noticed, though certainly not all. A few good games have come out recently associated with publishers you wouldn't expect to be backing a good, quality game at this point. They're still doing the "premium content" thing, but it actually is cosmetic in at least one game I've played recently. (Would that they would drop that mentality entirely.) So, there's hope, but too many publishers seem to think players just want to put their brains in park and escape reality forever, grind-by-design MMOs being the prime example of preying on the psychologically vulnerable. Publishers concern themselves only with ROI and fail to realize their ROI would be tenfold what it is if they would lighten up on the studios actually creating and producing the games.
@@lrinfi I should clarify that, while it's not what I want, cawdoody isn't even bad, just that the formula holds games to be produced according to that one specific formula, or at least aspects of it, such as"each game must iterated on the graphics tech," "if any guns, must have every gun that exists," "pvp balance," "recharging health," "not political but absolutely is political," etc
@@VitriolicVermillion Ah, the formula-ic. Yeah, you really don't want to get me started on that. lol I just hope for a day that may never come; a day when "triple A" studios buck the worst of the worst industry trends coming their way and stand up for the artistic integrity of their studios in the face of overwhelming odds. They'd probably go out of business if they did that now, but - hey - a girl can dream. :)
I thought I heard Batman TAS' Two Face while talking to Cabbot!! The entire voice over cast of Fallout is one my all time favorites. Hearing Crash Bandicoot's Dr. Neo Cortex coming out of Rhombus made me jump off my seat. Great video(s), Tim. Ive just discovered this channel and Im loving it. Thanks for all the stories!
Completely out of left field, but I'd love a little tour of your memorabilia sometime Tim. Thanks for the videos! It's awesome to think how many of my favorite games you've had a hand in, love the Fallout stories.
I’m loving those stories, you’re a great storyteller. Not only are these videos entertaining but they provide so much insight as well. Thanks for all the videos, Tim
Hey Tim, did you see MrBTongue's video "TUN: Choice and Consequence"? It's 10 years old, but really good. It talks about how Reactivity became codified, but in doing so ended up superficially imitating it. He uses Fallout as the pre-codified example
Alright you just blew my mind with Richard Dean Anderson being Killian Darkwater, How didn't I noticed that! I'm a huge SG1 Fan! Love these Videos Tim, thank you for bringing us all this cool information
Wow! Thanks for all your video's Tim. I'm really grateful you are willing to lift to curtain about game development and your career. You're a master storyteller.
So glad you've spoken about this! I tried to look into the voice acting in Fallout years ago but there was so little info out about it which was nuts considering the amazing talent hired. So excited to finally get some info!
It’s crazy how that war never changes opening that you wrote really fast down to the wire ended up being one of the most iconic opening narratives I’ve ever heard in a video game. It still gives me chills hearing Ron Perlman recite that legendary monologue.
Me and my friends literally grew up watching McGyver, some time around our teens, we all got into Fallout. But despite Killian Darkwater looking just like Richard Dean Anderson, it never really clicked (maybe because the TV show was voiced over in our mother tongue and so I didn't even know what he really sounds like). I remember a friend coming to us one day and blowing all of our minds with this little factoid. So cool.
I'll say, I certainly recognized cree summer's voice for tandi, very overall electrifying voice, it is perfect for Tandis Character, kind of sounded like Sally from fallout 3s mothership zeta DLC
Hi Tim, it's me, Touch 😄Thanks again for your wisdom and the transmission of your expertise/experience. Hope one day you'll talk about editors, their differents roles, how they works (not specially Interplay or Xbox or an other), and specially about the relations between studios and editors. The evolution of them (this last thirthy) years could be interesting too. In the same kind of theme, hope you'll talk about what is the difference between editors, shareholders, investors, groups, giant groups, in term of implication, impact on a development, finances, etc. It interested me a lot, and I think I'm not the only one to be curious for this subjects. Thanks again, you are a model for the industry.
Man I've been loving your videos!! One thing I was hoping you'd cover in the future is the Talking Heads used in the first fallout game!(like were they named after the band or not lol). I'm not sure how much interaction you had with that side of the game but I hope you have some cool stories about them! All the best 👍
Hmmmm, so you said that voice is recorded towards the end of development and yet you oversaw one yesterday? This could mean that we're getting the project you are working on fairly soon.
Yep, my thought as well! And if they're recording VA, that means the project is nearing completion (potentially just a few months away). I hope they got Leonard Boyarsky to consult on the project as well, and that they're both happy with how the game turned out 🤞
@@plaidchuck what are you talking about? The game is in development. Yes they had lots of problems and had to reboot it but a company is not buying a license to not do anything with it.
The voice acting in FO1 is leagues above most other games from the time, there’s so many great performances but my favorite has gotta be Charlie Adler as Harold, he totally nails both the humor and sorrow that character always carries with him.
I think my favourite voice actor would have to be the late Tony Jay, aka "The Lieutenant." Or Megabyte from Reboot. Although I think my favourite voice acting role he did would have to be the voice of the Elder God in the "Legacy of Kain" series.
It's a shame that getting all of his great performance essentially results in a soft game over. Unless you have high sneak you're essentially screwed after you're captured by him
Hi Tim, thank you for making these videos I’ve been binge watching through them all! Once you’ve done with fallout could you talk about your work with The outer worlds? I’ve just started playing it and loving it!
my online status has been nicole (followers)'s initial greeting line for the longest. fallout has some of the best voice acting and dialogues of any rpg ive played to this day. thanks tim and the fo team :D
Fallout has great voice actors, no doubt. I really liked the voice that Tony Jay gave to Lieutenant (Lou), the first time I heard it I was fascinated. A great reflection Tim, thanks for sharing it with us!
Once again, I have scoured the internet for all the Fallout behind the scenes stuff for 20 years. Way before Bethesda bought it and waiting for 3. I could listen to you talk about all the Voice Actor stories for hours. I bet there are really interesting tid bits you didnt think of while making this video. Fallout is my favorite franchise and I apologize that me and some others just crave that content when you've been a part of making so many other good games *cough* Arcanum *cough*. I could see that being annoying but thanks for putting out all of this stuff. Listening to your stories makes me feel like I was in the room when it was being made and I never thought I would get this level of detail and minutia. Thank you so much for taking the time to do these videos and put all this history out there for us when nobody else in your position on legendary games, dont seem to want to. Did you get to meet any of the other voice actors, did you request certain people or did Charles just bring you a list of people he could get? I had not seen the previous video yet about you writing the "War, war never changes" Pearlmen script. Congrats, that is now legendary and quoted constantly be people : )
I was surprised you guys had RDA, Keith David, Ron Perlman etc, so many good actors and voice actors on the game that was supposed to be B project. I love it!
Tim, if you're reading this I have an off-topic question for you: you mentioned many times that you took notes of everything. So I'm just interested, are/were these handwritten notes, word docs on computer or what exactly? I think it would also be an interesting video idea... like when did you start writing notes/a journal, how did you come up with the idea, how often do you write etcetc...
I remember there was a picture of a PC based on valves ,either in the manual or in the game. It was hinted that the player was someone operating this PC. And that the vault dweller was controlled with this PC?
I didn't know this was going to be the kind of story it was, but it turned out to be so very relevant to the present moment in culture, art, and technology, and it was great. You're so right about what real actors can do that AI (well, neural network pretrained generative blah blah, not intelligence, certainly not AGI) currently doesn't, and probably never will. There's this whole complicated interaction where, from the start, you have a quest or story writer who hopefully knows how an overall plot or subplot should flow, what's interesting about it, what sorts of conflicts or tensions or difficulties might be involved. Either that writer needs to do lore research or technical research or whatever else makes a part of the story fit plausibility and established canon, OR that writer has to have a back and forth with the designated expert in that subject matter (and even then, all of it is subject to change). Then either the aforementioned writer needs to write the specific dialogue for that quest or substory, or the designated expert on what kinds of information the (average) player needs in order to know what to do must do that, or consult with that expert, or with literally any other person who did NOT write the quest and thus doesn't already have the answers. Then, with the dialogue written, a casting director needs to be able to imagine what a person voicing the role should sound like, based on said director's familiarity with the story and character motivations and knowing what the characters know or don't know or what past experiences condition their responses, etc. Either a lot of work for one writer here, or still more than people might imagine for several writers, consultants, and editors. Then the actor gets hold of it. They are experienced at taking lines, trying to understand the context as fully as possible, time permitting, and bringing the character to life. When they read dialogue, they probably don't say anything even if the lines are weak, because they are probably used to it. In their field, the writers aren't writing books. The writers haven't necessarily been responsible for making sure the lines are something a human might actually say, or whether the lines are consistent in attitude for the character. Actors, especially experienced ones, know they are the last line of defense against robotic speech like what voice synths produce. And that's what happens when real human creatives are taken out of the loop.
I feel like having Cabbott give you the wrong directions to The Glow kind of adds to the scene, never would have guessed it wasn't intentional if you hadn't said it.
Man, I'd love to talk to Jim Cummings. Or Stephen Russell. Something about those two just strikes me as "They seem like they'd be so cool to talk to." Lucky you, man.
Loved this recounting! ❤ Also OMG, imagine mangled watermarks of image sites online ending up in posters belonging to environment artwork of a game because the poster was generated by AI. I'd bet money that'll eventually happen.
You know a few weeks ago I was looking up some batman the animated series things, and Both David Warner and bull, Richard Moll worked on that show as Rau Al Ghul, and two face respectively, did you purely by chance somehow manage to snag the VA director of Batman the animated series for fallout 1? hence how he knew all these guys, as their was like a revolving door of greatness with that series, as hey who doesnt want to play a villain on batman? and god can you imagine if you had the thought to ask hey can you get Kevin Conroy in here to play an evil vigilante terrorizing Shady Sands for not feeding his bats? like if he is still around you gotta interview him as he's gotta have some crazy stories of his own lol and I can guess the guard but I wont, as theirs 4 choices I can think of and 3 have been in fallout at some point or another and that was at the point where they were filming that
I think that's a really insightful point about AI and really, to me, highlights a good purpose for it: filler. Need a last minute character dialogue that wasn't going to be voiced? AI. Use it as a stopgap for problems that arise instead of using it to "solve" everything.
Hey Tim! I don't know if this has been covered, but what was the original Fallout speech going to be, instead of the "War never changes"? Would be awesome to know, and why you thought the new one worked better!
Ron Pearlman is the soo far best narrator , his voice is soo pitched that his storytelling fits perfectly into Fallout game . Other character voices are also good no arguement about that , but the best one is the Ron Pearlman's voice acting lines :)
So far with AI voice over, the most I see it being useful long-term is when it's one person making a game or an otherwise small dev team making a game or for memes. I'm seeing it done for memes already in some YT shorts, using voice lines from retro games and they're pretty entertaining.
