http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Voice_actors#Fallout_3_voice_actors

This has always been a problem with Beth's games. Compare F3 to NV.

The thing I don't get about it is that Bethesda will tap someone like Jim Cummings, a freakin' vocal chameleon and only have him do one type of voice and personality. Then they'll put that one voice and personality in about 8 different spots per settlement.

I know it takes more memory in the game and more time in the sound studio, but surely it would be better to get the voice actors to do several types of performances and voices. It's insane how low rent Bethesda's productions come off in terms of voice acting despite the budget these games have and the profits they rake in.

Mind you, I'm not saying their voice acting is terrible on an individual level. I just think that when you look at the big picture you see some wonderful swashes of color here and there, and then a whole lot of repeated, dull patterns in the rest of it.

I think a better comparison would be Skyrim vs New Vegas.

Yeah, Bethesda doesn't pick bad voice actors, just not enough voice actors. Of course, I'm so torn about the voice acting in New Vegas. They got some great actors to play significant characters like companions or main quest characters... but pretty much every generic NPC is awful.

With the amount of time they spent with the protagonists alone, I'm hoping Bethesda really stepped up their game this time around. The protagonists alone have been spending the last two years recording, which is a lot different from how game studios usually postpone voice acting to the very end. Hell, the voice acting in Skyrim's E3 reveal wasn't even the final product.

I know that they weren't really showcasing the best lines for their characters in the reveal, but honestly, from what little they've shown us so far, the two years spent with the male voice actor sounds like the first 22 months were spent trying to coax any emotion out of him, and the last two them just throwing their arms up and saying "Do what you want! I don't care anymore!" There's not a single line he's said so far that doesn't make me just think "Definitely playing as a woman the first few times because like hell I'm going to be listening to that for the next 100 hours."

Either that, or he tried to give a good performance, but whoever approved https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zCXiZfsUx4 was his voice director and wouldn't allow it.

Is that how a voice take actually went down? Sounds like its cut and pasted together.

Even if that was the case, it still wouldn't change the fact that the voice acting and direction for those readings were terrible.

Also- Paul Eilding. Great actor.

But then they made him sound like this.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/b/bc/Fo3_AbrahamWashington_GloriousDay.ogg/revision/latest?cb=20131104170745

For all the old made NPCs; when his actual voice is much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgvpiuojUQo

Eilding uses the same voice for the Vault Tec Rep during E3. Granted, his actual voice doesn't really match the rep, but I hope the same voice isn't used by all the NPCs again.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Myron is Boone?

But yeah, I'll give New Vegas some credit in having plenty of different voice actors of many unique character. I especially love Keith Szarabajka as Joshua Graham. Probably one of my favorite voice actors in general.

However, if there is one thing to look forward to in a Bethesda game, is that Wes Johnson is going to play a role somewhere. Although hopefully as a unique character and not like Oblivion where you would hear his voice everywhere from Imperials.

He's one of the better actors in F3. I didn't hear his voice all over the place.

I was saying this about Paul Eiding on another thread. His voice is too over used, as he played 19 different characters in Fallout 3. He just sounds the same for each character, which kinda ruins the illusion for me. So I was more than a little disappointed when that familiar voice was heard coming from the vault-tec representative in Fallout 4. I wonder how many characters he will voice this time.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Paul_Eiding

The same for each and every character.

I would really like to see more voice actors. It really was immersion breaking. Especially like the above post said about using the same voice over and over in the same small town. They should vary it as much as possible. I disagree about the PC mans voice though. I thought it was good. I don't necessarily agree with the direction at the beginning but after he got out of the vault I thought he did a good job. Before the vault not so much haha

Not only do I wish for more voice actors, I also wish for lines and voice acting that don't sound like a frickin kids cartoon. Almost every character in FO3 sounded like they were straight out of a comic book. Coupled with the horrible writing, most of it was cringeworthy.

Unfortunately, this is an area I doubt Beth will make much progress considering their last two games were the biggest offenders. I only hope the protagonist at least has some bearable voice acting.

Definitely curious about the VA's, since Voiced Protagonist is the focus, that aspect is even more important now.

The voice acting in NV was organized and hired by Bethesda ...so?Oh and the Fallout nv list has some double entires for the DLC.

I liked Fallout 3 but it wasn't perfect. The size of the settlements, the limitation of talking to the same guys over and over (even though they are different guys) and the quality of the textures in the game.

But all those problems are linked to the same problem that limted Fallout 3. MEMORY. Even Todd Howard said, when asked what is the most significant tech improvement from Fallout 3 to Fallout 4 said "Memory".

See here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2KApp699WdE#t=8206

HOPEFULLY what with better audio compression and more memory in the new consoles and PCs we will see better vocal representations of a diverse number of characters.

That seems a little strange. Do you have a source for that claim?

There are more voice actors in Skyrim than in New Vegas. Here are the numbers of voice actors in some recent roleplaying games:

Dragon Age: Origins - 148

Dragon Age 2 - 103

DA: Inquisition - 133

Mass Effect - 74

Mass Effect 2 - 99

Mass Effect 3 - 154

The Witcher - 87

The Witcher 2 - 40

Morrowind - 14

Oblivion - 13

Skyrim - 90

Fallout 3 - 37

Fallout: New Vegas - 70

That's a pretty interesting list. I'd say that as the size of the world scales up, so does the amount of needed voice actors, which explains Skyrim's superiority. It would be interesting to see how many New Vegas NPCs there are compared to skyrim, then dividing by number of voice actors. Also, Morrowind had more than Oblivion?????/

I think it'd also be interesting to see voice actor budget for games through the years.

It's easy to want more voice actors.. Probably not as easy to pay all those voice actors.

Yes. They need actors who can alter their voices to sound like someone else. The problem with Fallout 3 is the same person did many voices of various NPCs. Gee, your voice sounds like so and so's voice. If they can't afford having more voice actors, get people who can change their voice/accents. Courtney Taylor the voice of the female protag can change her voice/accent. Hopefully they'll make use of her talents in that.

Who did the voice for the male guards in Rivet City? Anyone know?

New Vegas had more voice actors than Skyrim did as well. I'm assuming that Skyrim had a bigger budget than Fallout 3 or New Vegas too.

I couldn't agree more with this, and they could probably save money by investing in a few really talented voice actors rather than having just more voice actors. Hearing the same voice on different characters just gets really annoying after awhile.