Brian Reynolds on SMAC voiceovers

[St Leo]

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137371&cid=11502605

Brian:
I'm glad somebody liked and and remembers these. They were the most fun thing of the whole project to create. Whereas so many of the games I've worked on have had me "playing historian", Alpha Centauri was a perhaps unique chance to "play philosopher".

We found a voice talent agency, I think it was in New York, that specialized in international talent, and intensively screened for accents. We tried to find the most genuine accents possible (Santiago was played by a Puerto Rican, Lal by an Indian, we had a real Russian, and the closest to James Earl Jones' voice we could find for Morgan).

A great memory of the project is the day we brought in a voice actor to play the drill sergeant and he led us in a rousing round of "Deirdre's Got a Network Node" (which is the version you hear in the game).

The voice-acting is really one of the most memorable parts of the game. Kudos to the team from me.

[Senethro]

Do you think Brian appreciates that there are creepy fans like us stalking him about the internets?

Good find

[St Leo]

Hey, I am not stalking him about the internets. He's the one who invaded the back porch of my hang-out.^-^

[Dis]

the drill seargant guy was cool.

I miss voice overs and wonder movies. What was civ3 thinking?

[Mart]

"Deirdre's Got a Network Node" actually makes some people drop their jaws in amazement and ask afterwards "What was that?"

[Dis]

a little humour in a game never hurt anyone . Like the South Park reference.

[Lord Nword]

Originally posted by mart7x5
"Deirdre's Got a Network Node" actually makes some people drop their jaws in amazement and ask afterwards "What was that?"

*Is guilty of not paying attention to speech in the game*.... (some of it's too hard for me to understand, since i'm hearing impaired...)

So where can I find this?

[Dis]

one of the special project movies. I forget which one.

There's a few humorous ones in there. As I mentioned the south park Cartman one. And the other one mentioning the size of the cyborg's special enhancement.

Then you have the "freaky" SP videos. I never turn the videos off. I usually space through them. But if it's one I hadn't seen in a while, or one I particularly enjoy, then I'll watch it again.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Dissident
one of the special project movies. I forget which one.

No it's when you build a... network node!

[Dis]

Originally posted by Maniac


No it's when you build a... network node!

my lack of SMAC knowledge is an embarrassment. There is only one solution to that. Yep, play more SMAC.

[ManOWar2]

I'll have smacx next week-end.

So this week I'll study like hell to take some advance.
Because when I'll install the game on my pc, I will play 6 to 12 hours by day.

What is actually not good for my homeworks and papers to write.

lol

[WotanAnubis]

Originally posted by Dissident
And the other one mentioning the size of the cyborg's special enhancement.

I'm not sure if that one counts as a really odd-ball one. I mean, a marching song about Deirdre turning things on and Morgan duplicating South Park are not things you'd really expect in a "real life" Alpha Centauri.
But some bored, Spartan soldier scrawling a naughty limerick on a wall is something I could actually imagine happening.

[Lord_Icewind]

I really liked the voices thingy when I started to play SMAC in the UK while studing there...when I came back to Spain, I bought it and SMAX without a thought. The thing is, it was all in spanish...altough the voices are not bad (actually some are quite good) I still prefer the english ver.

[#endgame]

It's fac8.mp3 in the voices dir, by the way:

I don't know but I've been told,
Deirdre's got a Network Node.
Likes to press the on-off switch,
Dig that crazy Gaian witch!

-- Spartan Barracks March

[girlfight_club]

Originally posted by WotanAnubis

I'm not sure if that one counts as a really odd-ball one. I mean, a marching song about Deirdre turning things on and Morgan duplicating South Park are not things you'd really expect in a "real life" Alpha Centauri.
But some bored, Spartan soldier scrawling a naughty limerick on a wall is something I could actually imagine happening.

I dunno, sexually demeaning the enemy, or the enemy commander, is pretty typical for marching songs. It's a morale thing.

Cf. "Yankee Doodle Dandy". This was a British taunt, until they lost. Then it became an American taunt back at them, i.e. "Yeah, this bunch of whoremongers whooped your butts, too."

GFC