Steve Blum...most over used voice actor in gaming EVER?

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JoeUser

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I'll admit that the man has talent but I'm getting so sick of hearing his voice in what seems like EVERY video I've played the past couple years. He also seems to do most anime and cartoons as well!

Really just takes me out of the game when i hear him as generic grunt #2 then go to play another game and now he's random gangster #6 then play another game and now he's some main character...ugh...there is such a thing as too much of a good thing...

If you don't know who he is Google him...you'll recognize him from at least the last 5 games you've played. Guaranteed.
 
There is not exactly a wide range of great voice actors out there. You are going to hear the same ones over and over again since there are so few to pick from. I'd rather hear Blum or North in tons of games than some B or C list celeb.
 
Derangel said:
There is not exactly a wide range of great voice actors out there. You are going to hear the same ones over and over again since there are so few to pick from. I'd rather hear Blum or North in tons of games than some B or C list celeb.
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Ya pretty much. If you want lots of voices in games, and want those voices to be good ones, you have to accept that you'll hear the same people a few times.

For one, there are only so many people who can do a good job voice acting. It isn't something that just any person can do. You don't just grab a mic and read what's on a page. If you want evidence of that, go listen to some Youtube "review" videos and hear just how amazingly bad some people can be. So there are only so many talented people out there.

Then there's the issue of cost. Some big name actors can voice act too (others duck at it, it is something of a different talent) but often want way too much money for it. They are used to being the stars and making tons which doesn't work in most games. So you need professional voice actors that are reasonably priced.

Finally there's the issue of availability. Again with stage and screen actors this can be a bigger issue. However professional voice actors are often easy to get because they have home studios. You literally can send them their lines, they record it all and send it back to you. You don't even have to bring them in to the studio. This isn't universally true, and many game studios would rather bring in the actors so they can work directly with the audio director, but you see it more than you'd think, a home vocal studio isn't that expensive to build.

I would much rather that games pay good voice actors than overspend on screen actors. I like vocals in my game and want them to be good, but I don't want them to blow the budget on some screen actors, I want it spent on graphics, engine, story, etc.
 
JoeUser said:
I'll admit that the man has talent but I'm getting so sick of hearing his voice in what seems like EVERY video I've played the past couple years. He also seems to do most anime and cartoons as well!

Really just takes me out of the game when i hear him as generic grunt #2 then go to play another game and now he's random gangster #6 then play another game and now he's some main character...ugh...there is such a thing as too much of a good thing...

If you don't know who he is Google him...you'll recognize him from at least the last 5 games you've played. Guaranteed.
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He's also does over 100 cartoon and anime voices. I'd rather him than the imperial guard though :/
 
I recognized him from anime, but he's pretty versitile. I wouldn't be surprised to see a game with Steven Blum and 2 or 3 female VA's.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
Steve Blum is a legend of voice acting.

I got to meet him last year. He is not only a great voice actor, but awesome in real life too. He got his big break when he did the English voice overs for the Japanese Anime's Initial-D and Cowboy Bebop. He has a huge range of voices, but his natural speaking voice is the one that he used as Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Beebop.

Latest stuff he has been in:
Halo 4 (various)
Guild Wars 2 (Rytlock)
SWTOR (pirate Andronikos)
Mass Effect 2 and 3

He's also the voice of Starscream in the Transformers Prime TV show.
 
Serpent said:
Eh... wouldn't he be the nicholas cage of gaming? Being in everything and all?
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No, no, no. Morgan Freeman is overused because he's so good at his job. Nicholas Cage is overused because he's so bad at his job. Steve Blum would be a Freeman, not a... Cage. Well, that went unexpectedly aptronymic.
 
Damn, I seriously thought I was the only person who notice Blum in EVERYTHING! My buddy literally plays every XBOX game ever made for the achievement points and he has no idea what I'm talking about when I bitch about hearing this guys voice in every game. He also voices Wolverine in a few games I think. He's good but crap it is annoying as hell to hear his voice now
 
I like Blum but he is a too prevalent. He does an excellent job as Wolverine (very close to Cathal Dobb's depiction in the classic 90s X-Men Animated Series) and Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, and is pretty good generally.
 
Really, the only thing I'd say against Blum is just how much his voice stands out compared to the other common game/anime VAs. Compared to the tones of Troy Baker, Kari Wahlgren, Jennifer Hale, or Nolan North, Blum's voice is like a punch in the face. =P
 
Steve Blum is great but my all time favorite is Scott McNeil. That being said though the only works I have listened to by them would be the Saturday morning cartoons I watched when I was kid and video games. I dont understand how anyone can watch dubbed Anime. 90% of the English voices don't match the characters at all...
 
Once in a while an anime dub will hit the mark, like Cowboy Bebop, where Blum happened to star in. Then there are other places where he didn't fit at all, like when he played Shishio in Rurouni Kenshin lol.
 
Cam Clarke is another that I hear in pretty much every cartoon or video game. I really did like him as Leonardo and Die Fledermaus, though. :)
 
Used to be when I would hear him I would sometimes think hey is that Tom from Toonami? But I really started noticing him in everything once he started being the voice of Wolverine. Now everytime I'm watching a show or playing a game with him in it (which is constatnly since he's in everything) I think of Wolverine.

The other guy I notice in a lot of stuff (well not so much video games but cartoons and anime) is Vic Mignogna. Doesn't stick out as much as Blum but I remember being confused at why Edward Elric was singing the non-rap English intro for Dragon Ball GT.
 
JoeUser said:
I'll admit that the man has talent but I'm getting so sick of hearing his voice in what seems like EVERY video I've played the past couple years. He also seems to do most anime and cartoons as well!

Really just takes me out of the game when i hear him as generic grunt #2 then go to play another game and now he's random gangster #6 then play another game and now he's some main character...ugh...there is such a thing as too much of a good thing...

If you don't know who he is Google him...you'll recognize him from at least the last 5 games you've played. Guaranteed.
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Well we could always go back to the old days of gaming when companies would get someone from Accounting or HR to do the voices. I rather play a game where Blum did every voice than go back to those days.
 
Koolthulu said:
Well we could always go back to the old days of gaming when companies would get someone from Accounting or HR to do the voices. I rather play a game where Blum did every voice than go back to those days.
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I recently loaded up Thief from the Steam sale, and upon hearing the voice overs in the first cut scene (and training) that was my first thought: "What intern/programmer/assistant did they get to read these lines?"

Side note, it's funny to go back and play Escape from Butcher Bay after playing Gears of War and hear Marcus Fenix (John DiMaggio) as the voice of half the prison guards.
 
To me it's Nolan North, too. While he's great, I can't help but think of him as Drake in everything.
 
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