In games from the late 1970's and early 80's, most games had little to no voices, merely sound effects. For instance, in Pac-Man (1980), there were only small beeps for when you ate either a ghost, a fruit, or a pellet. It wasn't until the 1990's that voice acting started to become prevalent, such as with the Superman game in 1999. As games became more and more advanced, voice options for characters increased as well.
Today, many games have at least a few set lines for main characters, as well as a small repository for minor characters (RPG's naturally have more voicing lines than a FPS, keep in mind). For example, Fallout 3 (2008) had a very extensive library for character dialogue, allowing the player to interact with the other characters in varying ways, allowing for opening of new dialogue options, quests, and relations.
As budgets for games have expanded, more popular game series started to hire more famous actors, borrowing from the movie industry. Such actors as Liam Neeson not only were present in Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Taken (2008), but also in Fallout 3 as the main character's father. Other voice actors have done similarly, acting in movies, television, and games. This increasing number of voice actors has helped games achieve a wider range of character personalities, helping establish a larger community of units in a game.
As the number of voices and characters in games continues to grow, character options have done the same. Compared to the 1980's, there are more options to both perform and hear when it comes to building up a character, whether it be in a role playing, racing, or puzzle game. As the voice repository continues to grow, it seems that it's certain there will be games in the future that have a unique voice for every character, even when those number in the hundreds.
Source:
Mazer. (2013, September 14). "Top ten video game voice actors." Retrieved from http://www.screwattack.com/news/top-10-video-game-voice-actors
I remember feeling kind of impressed when I heard voice acting in GameBoy Advance games. For some reason, hearing voice acting in handheld games is still weird to me. I guess I don't expect handhelds to be as high-tech as home consoles.
ReplyDeleteThe increasing prevalence of voice acting in games is, in my opinion, caused mostly by the increasing need for story. Games with story require dialogue, and while having text-filled games was the only choice for some years, I think that voice acting was one of those "get it as soon as the tech allows it" situations. Having a game's characters speak their dialogue aloud has almost become a necessity in modern games (with triple-A titles, anyway; that's less true with indie ones). Personally, I can't wait until Bethesda can actually get enough actors and actresses to avoid multiple in-game appearances by the same voice.
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