Interplay Interactive LIVES!!!

Fred Buer wrote:Interplay hold the rights to the Fallout MMO. Or rather, they're leasing it, on the grounds they have to pay Bethesda a percentage and have the game shipped by 2013.

-Fred

Just another sign of bad business. They sold the rights and then lease them back? Probably more expensive for them to do that than go after Wasteland rights which now would be cheap. Since Fallout was a "spiritual sequel," to Wasteland then that would have been good business.

I don't think the FALLOUT universe even makes sense as an MMORPG. Thousands of players online in a world that originally maybe had a thousand or two still breathing? It will take barren wastelands and make them populated wastelands!

I hope it works out, but I just don't have a lot of faith in the company. I'm shocked guys who had to make a card game business went back to work for the company that forced them to start a card game business! I sure hope they have better business people running things.

They generated the money needed to continue making games by doing that. But to be honest, I don't really care at this point, about the hows and whys.

I just want my chance to head out into the Wasteland with a leather jacket on, a sawn-off twelve gauge in one hand, and a 10mm SMG in the other. With my dog at my side and the wind in my back.

Because it's a 106 miles to Arroyo, we got a full fusion cell, half a pack of Radaway, it's midnight, and I'm wearing a 50-year old Vault 13 jumpsuit. Let's go!

-Fred

Fred Buer wrote:They generated the money needed to continue making games by doing that. But to be honest, I don't really care at this point, about the hows and whys.

I just want my chance to head out into the Wasteland with a leather jacket on, a sawn-off twelve gauge in one hand, and a 10mm SMG in the other. With my dog at my side and the wind in my back.

Because it's a 106 miles to Arroyo, we got a full fusion cell, half a pack of Radaway, it's midnight, and I'm wearing a 50-year old Vault 13 jumpsuit. Let's go!

-Fred

Don't get me wrong Fred, I do to. I'm hoping Bethesda doesn't screw it up.

As for Interplay, I'm not going to put any faith towards believing they can produce a product without going out of business again. That way I can at least be presently surprised if something decent comes out.

Fair enough I just can't contain my joy. Chris and Aaron coming out with something new soon, Interplay is back up and running, the Fallout MMO is in the works, and Earthworm Jim the tv-series is coming back!

Man oh man.

-Fred

Can I just say that Fred was spot on with what he said about Bethesda. But I think the biggest problem most people have is that they continuously LIE about their games and their features.. they use shifty descriptions of things that when you see them you instantly go "WTF? that wasn't worth all the hype" Mainly though I HATE their voice actors.. worst people in the biz IMO. (yes even Wonder Woman!)

They're stupid. They hire large-name screen actors and hope that'll draw an even bigger crowd, instead of hiring professional VOICE actors who actually KNOW their job. On a sidenote, Microsoft has had some of the best voiceactors ever working for them. Look at games like Freelancer and Crimson Skies. Both Microsoft games, but some of the best voiceacting ever.

More great voiceacting? Here's a few games - The Grand Theft Auto series, Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy), any game by Blizzard, the Command & Conquer series, any game by Valve, but I'd like to point out Portal in particular, the Thief series, Fallout 1 and 2.

Now for a few games with absolutely CRAPTASTIC voicecasting. Morrowind and Oblivion. Those are the first two that come to mind. I suppose I can also add Runaway 2: Dream of the Turtle or whatever it's name was to the list, but that only tells you what company Bethesda's voice actors are in. Jesus H. tap-dancin' Christ people! It's the apocalypse!

And for the record? No, I don't have high hopes for anything made by Bethesda anymore. But like I've said before... It's Fallout. It's the only reason I'm even willing to try anything that comes out of that wretched sell-out lying hypocrite bastard company at all.

Otherwise I'd be putting a big /ignore on the whole deal.

-Fred

While Bethesda has voice acting that isn't up to par with some other games (like many of the ones mentioned above) it isn't "Craptastic." It's just not good. It's not bad, but it's not good. If you want "Craptastic," then I suggest one compare Oblivion to say "Two Worlds." It makes the voice acting in Oblivion award worthy. That game easily has the worst dialogue and voice acting of any game in recent memory.

GTA is a mixed bag. Some of the voice acting is top notch. Which GTA game had James Woods in it? Sometimes they just hire the right guy. GTA IV had annoyingly bad voice acting from the main character. He was just annoyingly written and poorly acted.

It's kind of like the acting in UAKM, PD, and Overseer. It's a mixed bag. There is some bad acting in those games and some good acting. Overall I'd say the acting is mediocre in UAKM, better in PD, and even better in Overseer. It takes people time to get a hang of how to do it all.

Voice acting is for the most part better than acting in FMV. It isn't however really stellar. Some games like "The Dig," had great voice acting. The voice acting in BioShock was another example of good and bad all in the same package. Mass Effect the last Bioware game had some seriously killer voice acting... unless you count the voice actor for the female lead (if you chose to be a female). Her voice just wasn't quite right. Still it wasn't "bad," it just didn't fit for me.

From what I've seen in FO3, it's not bad. I'll let people know more in the next week or so. I'm getting my copy then.

They all need to model themselves on Grim Fandango. Every single sound byte from that game makes my ears orgasm.

I really can't think of a single voice that wasn't appropriate and stellar.

Nick Virago's has got to be my favourite though. Oh man. Bad Nick.

"I have a gun, Manuel. If I were you, I'd keep my jaaaaaaaw shut".

I could go on and on forever about everyone, so I'll just keep it at that

Oh yeah. I completely forgot Grim Fandango when I made that little list.

But you are right, absolutely everything is masterfully done in that game, and to boot, quotable.

By the way, did you know that the guy who did the voice of Glottis is playing Maury Parkman on Heroes? That would be Matt Parkman's evil villainous dad, for you guys watching it.

I could pull any quote from Grim Fandango and it would bring me happy memories. Only two other games have that effect on me - Chris Jones' voice as Tex Murphy and Robert Patrick as Boston Low bring similar emotions to bear.

The Dig was my second adventure game, after UaKM.

So yeah, the LucasArts adventure games too, go on that list. Just listen to Full Throttle, Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango especially, and of course, The Dig, to mention a few.

-Fred

Speaking of voice acting. The sleeper hit, The Last Express, had really good voice acting too. The accents were all nailed perfectly. That was a really good game... the only downside was waiting for something to happen. You could explore the train, but after playing it a few times, you can only watch people go about their business and daily routines for so long.

Other than that, still a phenominal game.