Voice Acting with Ray Chase

Hello, everyone.

This episode was recorded before the SAG AFTRA strike took effect.

Get Played stands with SAG AFTRA workers on strike, the WGA, and all workers taking action.

All right, everyone, as you know, this is a very exciting time.

We're at one of the big anniversaries of the video game Pong, so we are going to be re-releasing it fully voice-acted.

We've got

Pong Legacy, Pong legacy uh and we've got our uh our our voiceover artist here uh who's going to be doing uh both the roles of paddle and ball and uh and matt matt is it in the booth yeah that's me yeah have fun in there yeah and so like i just want to know like we'll be doing them one at a time if that's your question you're not going to be playing both paddle and ball in uh in these records so we'll segment those out um we'll do three takes of each uh pretty industry industry standard.

And yeah, yeah, and just, you know, have fun in there.

Great.

So we're just going to stop up, start up at the top of page one here.

So ball is coming in at a 30-degree angle.

So go ahead.

Bloop.

Great.

Great.

Can we get two more of those?

Bloop.

Bloop.

That was great.

That was nice.

Is that okay?

I mean, I'm sort of new.

Yeah.

No, this is this is great.

I guess I have a question about two, like, I know that we're like getting angles, it seems like,

but the relationship between the ball and the paddle, I just like, what's the story there?

Like, should I be playing that a certain way?

Because I want to make sure that I'm not, you know, that they seem like different characters too, you know?

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's a...

It's sort of a cat and mouse sort of situation, you know?

They're rivals, they hate each other, but they need each other.

Okay, okay, that's, okay, that's, I think that's informative enough.

Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, I'm good.

So let's do, let's do a couple more angles and then maybe we'll break it up and we'll have you do a couple ball lines.

Oh, wait, what was that?

Oh, I think I was performing paddle as if I was performing ball.

Wait, so what?

What?

So wait a minute.

The bloop you're doing is traversal?

I thought that was, yeah, no, I thought, I thought it was.

That was your ball read?

Well, that's why I'm just asking.

I'm new.

I mean, I wanted you to have fun in there, but don't fucking lose focus on your tasks.

I thought it was ball, but

I'm happy to do those again, or we could use those ones for ball, and I can give a paddle right now.

No, I think those kind of weirdly work for paddle.

It's just, yeah, those definitely work for paddle.

I'm going to be frank with you.

We had Joaquin Phoenix in here yesterday and we fired him.

And it was because of he came in dressed as ball.

Yeah, it was full.

He never broke character.

But

we don't want to repeat that today.

We're kind of

up against a deadline here.

So, if you can do, here's

another paddle.

Maybe we'll do, how about this to get you out of your head?

We'll do a run of a few different degrees all at once.

So, I'll shout out the number.

That's the angle that the ball is coming in at, and we'll get that recorded.

You ready?

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

The ball is coming in at 22 degrees,

17 degrees,

45 degrees,

90 degrees.

Okay, nope, nope.

Let's take that 90 again.

Boop.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

Great.

I mean, I...

I mean, he's a pro.

He's a genius.

And was it, just to clarify,

you were voicing the paddle there?

Wait, fuck.

Okay, no.

I was doing ball.

What is your paddle read?

In my memory of playing Pong, let me just clarify this real quick.

The paddle's not the thing making the noise.

Paddle's moving along on its own, right?

Wait, you you think that ball is making the noise?

When you follow a basketball with paddle.

Look, let's just lock this in right now.

We're doing paddle, okay, Matt?

Paddle?

Can you give me a ball?

Okay, yeah, no, yeah, I got you.

We're doing paddle.

Okay, and now, like, just take the ball completely out of the picture.

Let's just get some paddle.

Okay, well, then what am I reacting to?

Because if it's not, if it's not the ball, I don't know what I'm doing as paddle.

This is sitting there.

Gameplay is not started yet.

All right.

We're still waiting.

We're still waiting for the player one to press a button and

initiate gameplay.

So, you but you can still control the paddle, you can still move the paddle vertically.

So, just imagine you're just getting some vertical whooshes.

Yeah, let's hear this.

What's hard about this is I'm frustrated with you as an actor and blown away by your talent.

Coming this fall, Pong Legacy, starring Matt Apodaka in his performance as

Paddle.

We discuss the new Metal Gear Solid movie, aka the new Mission Impossible movie, and use our voices to talk about voices this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

Oh, that's me, Nick Weiger, along with our third host, Matt Apadaka.

Oh, hello, everyone.

Hello.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Premiere Video Game Podcast, where it's Final Fantasy Month all month long.

Is that right?

Really?

Didn't we establish that?

What are we talking?

Next week's.

Decidedly not.

I don't think we said in advance this is Final Fantasy Month.

I think we said we're covering Final Fantasy 16 for our We Play You Play, which is coming Monday, July 31st.

And we did do Final Fantasy related talk.

did a tier what are you talking so we got one week where we're just doing a square soft game and you're like i guess pivot is that what you're saying i don't know i think it works it's a final fantasy inspired squaresoft video game i think it counts

it's final fantasy month i i'm sort of thinking now heather's right and we just like didn't we didn't do the the normal uh push that we normally do when we have like a theme to get people to listen uh yeah now i'm pissed off no now i'm pissed off because we had

when we did this in May,

we had a

whole like, yeah, we had Zelda, we had like a name, we had like a link to the pod, the legend of Zelda, a link to the cat, a pod to the cast.

Yeah,

we had shirts.

We had shirts,

we had a list of that Final Fantasy shirts.

We're just calling this Final Fantasy Month.

That's like the period when the writers want to go home.

Like, we've got to come up with something better.

Well, hey, pencils down, bitch.

That's a great point, Matt.

it's 8 a.m let's

go

we're we're uh because of the split time zones i think we've talked about this but we are recording at 8 a.m me and matt's time and our guest time i believe and uh and head while heather is over in the early evening in uh

in amsterdam so yeah

i'm uh i'm uh i'm at the five

uh the five p.m mark here.

I've already done a 20-mile bike ride.

Wow.

I was biking up and down the Amstel with my wife, Mary.

I had a little cheese, a little bread, some olives.

It was

a real European afternoon for me.

Our guest

just put in the chat

Jelinal Fantasy Month.

And

it's very good.

But because it's good, that means our show sucks.

Oh, man.

Jelinal Fantasy Month.

That's great.

Can we just make a seller?

We'll make one t-shirt and sell it for $1,000.

That's very square soft of us.

Yeah.

You guys seen that?

They have a statue that I think is like Sephiroth or Cloud.

I don't remember what it was, but it's like an $8,000 toy.

And it's like, oh, come on, guys.

What are you doing?

They also sell like Final Fantasy engagement rings.

We should have done a segment on

the Square Enix jewelry store.

Yeah.

I actually just read something interesting about that statue.

They tore it down.

They're tearing down monuments all over and they tore the statue of Sephiroth down.

Oh boy.

Well, because he's because it's like celebrating the wrong side.

Exactly.

I say we need to keep our history.

That's what I think.

Jesus.

They did tear down the Roger Rabbit statue at Disneyland, and that did actually make me legitimately upset.

For one second, I was like, I see what they're talking about.

Wait, why?

Because they rebranded Toontown.

Yeah, they made it just like boring, I think.

Yeah, they put grass where he is.

Yeah.

They talk about it all on Podcast The Ride.

A great show.

Great show.

But shout out to the boys.

I think they should have...

Like, look, I understand that Hoover and Roger Rabbit is a singular work that is almost impossible to imagine the craft that went into it, right?

But I feel like instead of tearing down the Roger Rabbit statue, you should instead make a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Well,

you're right,

but it's too good of an idea for the studios to wrap their head around.

Yeah, I feel like they'd make it, because then they're going to try to make it into a franchise, and that's so antithetical to what the movie's all about.

Who killed Roger Rabbit, who,

you know, who fucked Roger Rabbit?

Roger Rabbit.

Right.

Just the natural

third entry.

One thing I think they could do is I think they could do more just like Roger Rabbit shorts, which I think that was like, you know, because those like inform like the world of Roger Rabbit and this could kind of stand alone, you know.

They were, they were these interesting sort of, because they did a couple of shorts and they were like strange combinations of live action backgrounds and animated foregrounds a lot of the time.

And so they still had that

that hyper realistic look to them yeah they should totally do that but the truth is that like if you were to do roger rabbit today it would be more like the space jam sequel than it would be yeah who framed roger rabbit it would be like they got close with chip and dale chip and dale movie was really good uh and had sort of a similar vibe to it uh but not really doesn't really capture that spark you need that charles fleischer stank on it you know well it's it's like

is he here?

Did he join the Zoom now?

No, that was like actually really bad.

I didn't do it with enough spit.

I didn't want to short circuit my microphone.

I think the, yes, Heather is right, that it would be just like the parade of cameos, that it would be kind of a more is more approach instead of being like, oh, they've really figured out the right ones to use and how to integrate them into it, but it's largely just still about the main plot.

It wouldn't be like Kingdom Hearts, let's say.

Matt, what a segue.

Because our guest today, a voiceover artist, whose many credits include Master of Masters from Kingdom Hearts,

as well as Sukuna from Jiu-Jitsu Kaisen and Bruno from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Ray Chase is here.

Hi, Ray.

Hello, everybody.

Very excited to be here.

Hi, Ray.

First time caller.

Yes, I'm also here for Final Fantasy Month.

I am Noctis in Final Fantasy and Edgar from Final Fantasy VI.

I played all the installments there.

And I did wonder, so of the three of us, of the three of you guys, did any of you guys play Final Fantasy XV?

Just Heather?

Who put it on?

Just Heather.

No, I didn't get around to it.

Just Heather.

I'm getting to it.

Did you play it?

We talked about this last time.

What?

I said when we did our tier list, I said...

But it's been a week.

You haven't tried it in the meantime?

What are we going to do?

Put down Dave the Diver to play an old Final Fantasy?

Old?

It's not old.

It's the last one.

It's ancient history at this point.

Our guest is in the game.

No, I know.

I really meant.

I really wanted to play Final Fantasy.

I intend to play Final Fantasy 15 when I'm done.

I'm going to certainly get to it.

Yeah.

I think I've mentioned this on the show before that my first shared birthday with Mary, she got me a

voice

greeting card from Ignis.

Adam Crosdell himself.

Yeah, Adam gave a

little,

he was like, hello, this is Ignis, and I'm wishing you a happy birthday.

And I was like,

Oh my God.

That is so classy of him.

Him in real life is exactly as Ignis.

He is such, he is the most charming dapper fellow himself.

So, did you play in sub or dub, Heather?

This is the question.

Heather, tell, Ray, tell us more about yourself.

Better ass.

Let's just, I mean, like,

so even this Adam Crosdell birthday surprise, you were like, look, who is this?

This is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

First time I'm hearing this.

I'm an exciting guest.

I don't know.

And it is so exciting to have you on the show.

And I, you know, like, I just, I, I, I'm just like, I, I'm, I, I,

here's the other thing is: I'm also, so I'm also the barbarian in Diablo 4, which you guys all played, but nobody played barbarian, I don't think, right?

I didn't play, I didn't play Diablo 4, but they did.

I rolled up, I actually did roll a barbarian in the beta, in the open beta.

Oh,

yeah, so you got a female barbarian, but uh, god damn it,

what are you doing here, eh?

Uh, Guile from Street Fighter VI.

Did anybody play Guile?

Yes, yes, yes, the answer there is yes, 100% is what I did.

Got some fucks.

I was hoping that you guys would know my work, but it's understandable that if my work is 86 years, oh, we absolutely know it.

No, okay, yeah, and also all of us have played Kingdom Hearts.

Like, you guys have all played Kingdom Hearts.

Yeah, we've all played Kingdom Hearts.

Persona 5.

Oh, yes.

The Subway announcer, and the penis chariot monster Mara in Persona.

Okay, so we actually do know your work.

You do know my work very well.

ED is more common than you think and simpler to treat than ever.

Through HIMS, you can connect online with a licensed provider to access personalized treatment options discreetly on your terms.

Through HIMS, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ED like hard mints and SexRX Plus Climax Control if prescribed.

HIMS offers access to ED treatment options ranging from hard mints to trusted generics that cost 95% less than the brand names if prescribed.

Now that's quite a savings.

You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself.

HIMS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatments that put your goals first.

This isn't a one-size-fits-all care that forgets you in the waiting room.

It's your health and goals put first, with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results.

Think of HIMS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more, all in one place.

To get simple access to personalized, affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more, visit him.com/slash get played.

That's him.com/slash get played for your free online visit.

HIMS.com/slash get played.

Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan.

Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality.

Prescription required.

See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information.

Do you struggle with procrastisaving?

You know, when you put off doing something that could save you a ton?

I used to be a huge procrastaver until I heard about Mint Mobile's best deal of the year that's ending soon, 50% off unlimited premium wireless for new customers.

Let me tell you how I procrastisaved.

I would reuse toilet paper.

Stop overspending with big wireless and cut your wireless bill to $15 a month when you switch.

All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation.

largest 5G network.

You can use your current phone and phone number on any Mint Mobile plan and bring along all your existing contacts.

Don't miss out on three months of unlimited premium wireless from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month.

But hurry because this deal ends September 22nd.

Look, cell phones are cell phones.

What are we talking about?

Your wireless carrier isn't...

It's all the finger man.

Am I allowed to say f during an ad?

Well, I just did.

And I told you I would reuse toilet paper to save money.

Think about how much you could be saving with Mint Mobile.

Quit stalling and start saving when you make the switch.

Shop plans at mintmobile.com/slash get played.

That's mintmobile.com/slash get played.

Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.

Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

We were talking

before we went on here, because you have just so many credits and we're trying to figure out what to set you up with.

But

from all the roles you've played,

specific to video games, do you have any where you're like, ah, that character was great or this game is something that I'm really proud of?

100%.

There's a couple of answers for that.

Noctis, obviously, is always going to be near the top.

It's just so rare that you get to play a character for three years running with the same people in the booth all the time and tell a complete story from start to finish.

That always means a lot.

But for your question specifically, something that I'm super freaking proud of the game is Roy from Super Smash Bros.

Ultimate.

Oh, hello.

I played Melee back in the day.

Roy and Dr.

Mario were my mains before the word mains existed.

It was just the characters you played.

And I got to be Roy in this game called Fire Emblem Heroes, which was a mobile game.

And uh, they just let me try out while I was doing other characters in the booth.

They were like, Why don't you give Roy a shot?

This legendary character that has never had an English voice.

And I gave it my best shot.

They ended up using it for the mobile game, and so I became the canon Roy.

And so, once it was time for Smash Brothers Ultimate, my God, I was pumped.

Best 15 minutes of my life.

That's awesome.

And then another, yeah, another one where the game means so goddamn much to me.

And Nick, this, I heard you every week as you were playing it.

But Sekiro Shadows Die Twice.

I was Genichiro and also the armored knight in that game.

The guy who says, Rover,

as he falls down the well.

That freaking game is my second favorite game of all time.

I played it

way after the game came out.

And it is, I know, heather and matt you haven't done it yet but like it is what nick is talking about it's a spiritual game it teaches you things that you didn't know about yourself i have never played a game like that in my life

I think I think Heather has played some Sekiro, but like, I don't know if you've done the full, you've taken the full plunge and gone all the way through it.

But yes,

that's crazy because that's such an iconic moment, what you're describing

from the game, specifically the Armored Knight, because that, first off, that is like one of the few puzzle boss fights in the game.

They're almost all, you know, but that one's specifically like, oh, okay, I got to figure out how to dispatch this guy.

But then it just kind of ties in with the, with everything in that game thematically, which is the world is so bleak and sad that you can't even like revel in victory because you realize you've just like executed a grieving father.

Yes.

And Genichiro himself is the one who teaches you how to play the game.

That's where when I first played it, I was like, I can't play this game.

I'm not good enough.

because I was using my old video game strategies of trying my best and like getting faster.

And that's not what the game is teaching you.

The game is just teaching you to listen, to just slow down and pay attention to what's going on on the screen, which honestly, in

29 years of gaming, I had never actually done.

Slowed down and looked at what was going on on the screen.

And man, it changed the way I've gamed from then on.

It sounds like you and I are the same kind of gamer then.

Like, cause

when it is that I have to slow down and pay attention, I'm like, what?

What?

No, fuck you.

So,

yeah, no, I get that.

I get that.

It is that.

It is that for sure.

Yeah.

We are.

It is.

I'm definitely a little bit of all three of you, I would say,

for sure.

Nick, I'm the one who plays all those strategy games and the weird indie titles.

And

Matt, I feel like we are,

I don't know your age, but I feel like we're very much grew up at the same place, same time sort of thing.

I'm 32 years old.

We joke about me being a child, but

I'm functioning a dog.

I'm 36, and I feel like we very much grew up in the same sort of cultural milieu

and played a lot of the same games back then, too.

Hell yeah.

I'm old.

I'm very old.

Okay, so you know that person's old because they're talking old.

We did this last time with Steven this year.

Oh, thank you.

Us doing voices in front of somebody who does it for their job.

I won't participate, but you can do it as much as you want.

No, man, you got to go for it.

If Steph Curry steps into the gym, you start jacking up threes.

Show him how he does his job.

When you said start jacking, I got really scared.

Yeah,

I feel like there's a particular humiliation that I'm feeling because I, you know,

We've had Ash Ketchum guest on this show before.

Ash has been great.

The actual Ash, not the voice actor who plays Ash,

who's a different, legitimate, actual human being.

So Ray is a recurring Pokemon anime role.

And so I feel like a shame.

Like I've been robbing the grocery store or something.

But

don't tell them.

Who?

Ray.

Pokemon.

Don't tell Pokemon that we.

The Pokemon Company?

Yeah, Yeah, dude.

I won't tell the Pokemon Company.

I think Ash also has come on the show a lot.

He gets a little bit vulgar, and I think he knows that the crossover between people who watch Pokemon journeys and people who listen to Get Played is not very high.

So I think you're going to save space.

I will say, I know you guys are not the best voice actors, but you have had some incredible Bubzy has been fantastic on the show.

You've had Joel from The Last of Us on the show so many times, and every time I'm just amazed at how good he sounds.

And of course, the erstwhile and newly rediscovered Resident Evil Merchant, his acting range is fantastic, and his story continues to inspire.

That's what I like to hear.

That's nice.

That's nice.

I'm sure he'd be happy to hear that.

Hopefully, he is never coming to the show again.

Ray, can we talk about anime for a little bit?

Because you have a lot of

anime dubbing.

We talked about some of your other roles, but also Sound Hashira from Demon Slayer is one of your characters.

And, you know, like such a, to me, that seems like a really fun role to play.

But I'm curious, like, what

is your experience with dubbing?

Because I know that can sometimes be like a heady,

exhausting sort of work.

For sure.

It's...

There's a lot of dubbing work out there, and I think that's why a lot of people who do video games end up having a ton of anime credits as well.

Whether the anime you're in is good or popular or well-known, it's completely up to fate.

Sure.

But

doing anime is extremely technical.

You really do, you have the picture in front of you, you have the script, and you have the lip flaps.

And for dubbing, unlike the Japanese subs,

when you're watching subtitle, you're not necessarily watching the mouth.

You're watching the face.

You're reading the subtitles a lot.

And so they kind of get away with not matching the animation all the time.

But for us, we have to be absolutely lip flat perfect.

Otherwise, you've got the old whose line is it anyway?

Subtitle jokes.

But

doing it is

you have these three beeps, and then you have to do the line, and you do as many lines as you possibly can in a row.

I like to, if there's a monologue, I like to take it straight up two minutes, preview once, and then have the, for me, it's a very auditory experience

that you listen to the

you listen to the Japanese and you keep the keep the timing in your head and then just keep that timing in your head while you're saying your line and going like, okay, I've reached the point where I should stop talking.

Because you can't, you're reading the script while the animation is playing.

You can't necessarily look back and forth at the animation the whole time.

It's very complex.

Can we take a step back?

Because this is all fascinating stuff.

But I should have asked this early, but I'm curious, and I think this is the question a lot of people have for people in your profession because it is kind of a dream job for a lot of people like how did you break into voice acting initially

sure um it's funny i feel like i was part of the last generation that like fell into it like i i definitely found like i definitely found it but it wasn't a uh you know in the 90s you weren't you were aware that there were voice actors and it was professional but it isn't like it is today where it's like i did i did a uh

a discord interview last saturday with uh a server that has 65,000 members on it

of aspiring voice actors.

It is like absolutely a coveted job today,

hugely.

And for me, it was, you know, I went to theater school, studied acting, acting, studied film and stuff, and had a face that was just covered in vicious acne from age 22 to 29.

And definitely found my way with voice acting that was like, okay, this is something.

It doesn't matter what I look like.

And I was really good at coming up with a lot of different voices.

I will say that my normal speaking voice, I rarely book as.

Only the Master Masters from Kingdom Hearts is the only one where I'm saying, May your heart be your guiding key.

And I'm talking my real voice.

But most of them, I'm doing something else.

I'm down here.

I'm down here.

All right.

I'm like here.

This kind of like cool teen.

And always playing around with my voice really, really helps.

So

being

just ready for anything, I guess, was how I managed to break in.

I did a lot of different work, a lot of commercial work, a lot of audiobook work.

There was a time that Amazon bought Audible and just wanted to have the most audiobooks.

Didn't, I mean, quality mattered, but they didn't really care.

They wanted to be, they wanted to say, we have 100,000 books on our title.

Come at us, Blackstone Audio.

And

they just kind of like, there was an opportunity at a recording studio called Be Audio in Oregon, and they just let me go.

They let me just go, hey,

do as much as you, as you want.

And so I did 200 audiobooks in a three-year period.

200 myself in a room, did whatever I could.

Yeah, do whatever I could to get these, get books out, get paid, and quit my job, my day job as a bartender.

That was kind of my getting the foot in the door to quit the day job to then get more and more opportunities,

more fun opportunities.

That's amazing.

Wow.

A whole audio book feels like such

an intense amount of labor.

It's a labor and it is, I think people,

I read this in some voice acting guide of like, if do you want to get into audiobooks?

Here's what the job is.

Go into a bookstore, pick a random book from the shelves, read it all the way through out loud without, and anytime you make a mistake, go back and do it again.

It is the randomness of the books that really kills you.

These are not, sometimes I got to do a cool ass book.

I get to read Jason Schreier's audiobooks.

Those are great.

Yeah, yeah.

I do his Blood, Sweat, and Pixels.

But it's the randomness.

I had to do a book about

infinity that was very math focused, about Fibonacci's sequences.

So I was just reading numbers.

Nobody's listening to a Fibonacci math textbook, but it's another audible title.

So they got to put it on their website.

It can really, really be a slog.

Can I just say it was really cool that part that you did earlier where you said a bunch of different voices all at once.

But

it was really neat.

Yeah, that was cool.

You know, I just want to say that was pretty cool.

No problem.

Did you guys check out, I sent over my funny reel

over to Matt so you could see some of the voices that I've done.

It's really fun.

I did, there was a time during the TikToks when all the voice actors were doing, here's all of my roles in a minute, me doing them.

And I made it into a fun rap thing.

Okay, well, maybe I'll,

when I'm editing the show, I'll put it right here.

And then nice, you're pointing exactly at it, yeah.

I'm pointing exactly at it, exactly.

For the listener at home, I'm pointing, and this is exactly where it's going.

Yo, what's up, TikTok?

My name is Ray Chase, and I'm a voice actor.

I'm Prince of Luces and King of Fishing.

The boss gave us an important mission.

Aside from him, I truly don't care.

I love poisoner on the way.

You killed my brother.

I am your brother.

Both of my brothers just died.

Max flamboyant.

Why do birds fly?

Royce, your boy.

Al's your pal.

Guys love sweets.

Fernands and elites.

Roswell and Maithens.

Professor Cerise.

Also, Corazon from the show, One Piece.

Next on Mascot, CMLB.

Denathrius says, Scream for me.

Gone, gone, the form of man.

Arise, the demon!

Expergan!

Oo Yama, Ichome, O Yama, Ichome!

Behold the way of Tumoi!

Oo Yama, Ichome, O Yama, Ichome!

May your heart be your guiding key, okay?

The root of terror starts with fear.

Anthem almost lasted an entire year.

Rising tornado!

Quite properly!

I play Reese, just in Formats 3.

I am crime, I am punishment.

The troll always gets the girl.

You're a bunch of ass kids!

Stay around, Ichibon.

Where are all my Karamotsu girls?

It's a suspicious.

I'm trying to protect you.

This is gonna be fine.

I'm the owl.

Shinji, get in the robots.

Revelry has only begun.

Also, looking at Jelinal Fantasy Month, it just sounds, I don't know, it sounds problematic to me.

I came up with it in the motor.

I'm not sure.

Wait.

Because it makes me think of Lynals from Zelda.

I thought you were saying Lynel is very bad.

I thought you were saying July, like Jelinal, but are you saying vaginal fantasy month?

It's just, it's that

line

that just sounds very sexual.

I don't know.

Sounds like a Jerry Lewis exclamation.

July null.

What's that reference you're wondering out there?

Reminder, I'm old.

Why do I know what that is?

Jerry Lewis is a legend.

It's sad sometimes that, you know, I worked on tons of voices as a kid, and there's just not a lot of cool for Jimmy Stewart these days.

It's sad.

They just want sexy.

Get your Justin Bieber impressions ready, voice actors.

That's who they're going to be parodying in the future.

Ray, we could talk about this stuff all day,

but I do have one more question on topic, and then we'll get to some video games.

But we're recording this at a very awkward time.

This is literally,

this is the last day of the SAG AFTRA negotiations.

As of this episode's

release, we may very well be at,

the actors' union may very well have joined the writers' union on strike.

I'm curious, and it's okay if you don't have an answer, but is there anything specific from a labor standpoint that you've encountered as a working voice actor that you think needs to be done?

This is a fantastic question.

Very timely.

And I also wonder how it shakes out, too.

I was really caught up in the previous strike, the interactive strike,

about six or seven years back at this point, SAG's longest strike in their history.

And I was very

aware of it because the Final Fantasy XV director, voice director, and casting director Keith Farley was the head of the negotiating committee.

So I was always working with him.

I was at his house.

I was doing

call-outs to other actors to

get people more involved.

I was always volunteering at SAG AFTRA.

And even one of the ways that I got started was even doing the freaking AFTRA radio plays back in the day.

I was on

a couple of committees way back when, because I thought it would get me acting roles.

And oddly, it did.

It did get me started in voice acting.

But I've always been highly, highly involved in the union and

excited to volunteer my time.

And that strike was long and very, very difficult because we were asking for something that an industry just was not okay with giving an inch for.

Having

some sort of bonus payment structure for video games was something that was unheard of in their industry.

It's not something that they give to their employees, and so why give it to actors?

So it was a long teaching thing.

This one is interesting because it is negotiating with studios who are very familiar with residuals and have not been paying them for a very long time because streaming was able to sort of wiggle their way through negotiations and being like, oh, we're just streaming.

We're not a big deal.

We're not movies.

We don't have to pay residuals and that sort of stuff.

And I think

this is where the jig is up.

We know that streaming is a behemoth and a monster.

And

this is absolutely the time to stand up for it.

I'm not excited to strike, but I'm excited to take action.

Oh, well, hey, what's that?

That and AI voices, which is another crazy thing.

Can you talk about that specifically?

Because this is a thing that I've talked to some actors, you know, I've been on the WGA picket line, as Heather has been, and a lot of SAG After actors have showed up in solidarity, and I've talked to some of them about their specific AI concerns.

I've heard that this is already a thing that's happening.

Like,

SAG After actors have signed contracts, and their voices are being used to train AI, which is then being used to create content.

And

so specifically, it's like...

But the idea of using

an artificial simulacrum of your own voice without your permission or without you being fairly compensated.

That's a real existential threat to actors.

100%.

Think about it every single day.

And I think there's some solace to be had.

I think, Nick, you made a lot of good points in last week's episode with somehow AI was being talked about.

Oh, you're talking about the spirits within, where

the actors,

that humans really like seeing other humans in a role, whether it's an actor,

whether it's

a modified version of them or not.

There is something interesting about, oh, it is, even though it's Polar Express, it is Tom Hanks in Polar Express.

And I know Tom Hanks, I'm familiar with his work, and I enjoy that.

That's a question whether...

People, is that really something that humans enjoy?

I feel in my heart that it is, but Heather might be right too.

And it's like,

maybe that isn't something that people ever needed.

They just wanted the story.

So I think like we're kind of in between both camps of these things and seeing how things shake out.

I think

there's a couple of things that I don't hear people talk about.

One is that

media and movies, especially, video games have a sliding scale a little bit with payments, but you don't pay more to see different movies.

Movies, for some reason, unlike fruits or nice dinner out,

is always going to be the same price, whether you're seeing Spider-Man, No Way Home, or Oppenheimer.

You're going to pay the same amount of money.

And I wonder if that is something that might change, where you have something like akin to organic movies later on down the line where you pay a little bit extra, but it's because you know it's going to be better because it's made by actual humans.

So it'll be more interesting and surprising.

And

you know it's going to the right place.

I buy organic apples because I know that they're raised conscientiously.

I think that might be another, a third path that I don't think a lot of people are talking about.

I have literally had this conversation this week with a producer because I was like, I think that AI is going to, so it's very much like McDonald's is available for everyone, right?

But if you want to go get like,

same with Starbucks, you know, go to Starbucks anywhere.

But if you want a craft pour over coffee made by an actual person, not that there aren't actual people working at Starbucks, but if you want an artisanal experience, then you have to pay extra and you have this

premium experience.

Otherwise, you can sit down in this future dystopia, turn on AI-generated content, and it's just

stuff

happening that you can watch.

And then if you want, like, oh, it's like a, it's like a play, but filmed, then you're going to have these human actor writer experiences.

And that is hell.

What I've just described as hell.

Please, God, don't let us get there.

Art shouldn't.

So

the other problem is that these executives are thinking about stuff as content as opposed to art.

And they're absolutely divorced from why we make stuff.

They only see it as why we consume stuff.

And they are

funding one side of it and angry that they have to fund one side of it because they only want to reap the benefits of the other side, which is the consumption side.

Like, it's, it's crazy how clear that divorce is, like, and how, and how on the nose it is in all of these like anonymous interviews that you get with these executives who are like, well, yeah, I mean, the truth is, what we want is an endless content pipeline, and AI is going to help facilitate that.

And you're like, Jesus Christ, dude, what happens to you when you go to an art museum?

Do you only like go to the gift shop?

They should increase their content at the gift museum.

We can fit in 20 paintings per frame.

Like, is this the mindset of a human being who doesn't go to see Van Gogh's sunflowers, but loves looking at the prints at like the poster shop outside of a college?

No, I think this is the kind of person who wants to own Van Gogh's sunflowers.

It's like they like, it's like, it's like the status of it or the, like you were saying, you know, the end result, the, the, the financial gain that you get from creating content is all they can conceive of.

Yeah.

This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

following somebody around in the city and having a good time.

And then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

That's a true story.

And my cell phone didn't have wireless access.

So this next ad is specifically something that I could have used.

in the past.

Because if I'd had Wi-Fi, I could have called somebody.

But instead, I had no cell phone service.

trapped on a roof in Tokyo.

If you've ever been lost abroad or badly needed an internet connection with no Wi-Fi spot in sight, you'll understand what a difference a local SIM card can make.

An e-SIM provides an internet connection wherever you travel and saves you money on roaming fees.

That's where Saley comes in.

Saley is a new e-SIM service app brought to you by the creators of Nord VPN.

Here you can choose from several affordable eSIM plans in over 190 countries and eight regions.

With a Saley eSIM, you'll always have a connection when needed.

Download Saley once and you won't have to install a new e-SIM for each country.

You can avoid scammers selling fake SIM cards outside of train stations and airports.

No more wandering around looking for a public Wi-Fi spot.

With a Saley, you're always connected.

They provide 24-7 support, and you get a full refund if your device isn't e-SIM compatible.

Download the Saley app in your app store.

Use code GetPlaid at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase or go to saley.com slash get played.

That's S-A-I-L-Y dot com slash get played.

I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

But look,

let's pivot to something that's more fun to talk about.

Ray, I think that was really well argued, by the way.

I think those are really great distillation of some of the issues that are going on right now.

But my question now for you is one we ask often on the podcast: what are you playing?

What are you playing?

What am I playing?

Do I get to answer for things?

Yeah, of course.

I really feel, I listen to a ton of podcasts, and there's that meme of

the person sitting outside a poster of a bunch of, there's a poster of friends talking, the guys sitting around looking at it, saying, Me and my friends.

And that's exactly how I feel a lot of times.

So it's wild to actually talk, and you guys are here.

What am I playing?

I am playing Diablo 4 of this deluge of incredible video games.

This might be one of the best years ever for video games.

Starfield Around the Corner 2.

I don't understand.

Dave the Diver,

one of the best ever.

Hell yeah.

But I had to choose one because I didn't have a ton of time to choose between these guys.

And Diablo 4 was the one I ended up because you really can play it in bite-sized quantities and it's fantastic.

And I'm around Act 5.

Really, really fun game.

First Diablo I've ever played and enjoying the hell out of it

of listening

to me.

I've played a ton of games that I'm in, and I usually can

usually you're like, oh, okay, I remember this part coming up, and I know that this thing is coming up, and it makes a lot of, it's exciting to see how it's actually portrayed on screen.

Diablo was such a wild recording thing because we did it over four, three or four years and it was always out of order and always one line at a time.

We would do some sessions, you'd come in for two lines lines and then come back.

And so I had no idea what was going on in the story.

And your character speaks so infrequently that it always surprises me when he comes on and I'm like, oh, shit, that is me.

And it's so different from my normal voice when it's, I'm out of fury.

I don't have any fury.

I can't do that.

Out of nowhere.

I really,

that's the first time that I've gone out.

So that's fun.

I do enjoy it.

And Blizzard sounds, they sound so good.

They spend so much time.

We go slow.

Those two-line sessions can sometimes take an hour because they really, really

adhere to quality for them.

So

I've been really enjoying Diablo 4 and, of course, playing Slay the Spire, which I do every day anyway.

So

you are playing a male barbarian in Diablo 4.

How have you kind of specced out your character?

What skills are you rolling with?

Wow.

It's the question that everybody wants to be asked, but nobody wants to listen to.

Thank you.

Also, while you're at at it, talk about your fantasy football.

Barbarian is hard, I think, coming out.

I think it really does take a while to figure out what works for your build.

And I finally leaned into my favorite, which is you can, you get an enchantment that gets, or an aspect where you,

your, your,

your

basic attacks go faster and faster.

And so I have a two-handed club that goes 80% faster than normal.

And

it's just, I am just all in on basics.

And then I have an ultimate.

So I have a basic where I bash and they go and they stun, bash, and then they bleed.

And so I'm just going, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, the whole time.

It is pure barbarian fantasy.

And then you have an ultimate where you summon all the big barbarians who come, and that happens once a minute.

So it's just, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh,

over and over again.

And it's really, really fun.

And I haven't gotten bored of it yet.

So that's my, that's my build.

That's right.

Yeah, it's, it's like, I, I, one thing I think they really did well with this latest iteration as someone who's played all the Diablo games a lot is like they've made it so that the

you know, I'm sure there are efficient ways to min-max it, but, but, the, the, you know, they're, but like, the ways to play the character really leans into what's fun about the character.

So, like, you know, like what you were just saying about being a barbarian, like, like like it's a pretty optimal way to play it is just like to be like the big bruising brute, which is what you want to embody.

And the same sort of thing I played the whole campaign is a necromancer.

And it's just like, yeah, surround yourself with minions and send out a lot of curses.

And that's what's fun about the fantasy of being that character.

Yeah.

I'm doing a great job with it.

Yeah,

it's rad.

Well,

let's talk to someone else.

Matt over there, I see.

What the hell?

I'm curious.

What are you playing?

What are you playing, Matt?

What the hell is that?

I was just looking around the Hollywood Squares of our Zoom call and saw that Matt was in the corner.

Okay.

Matt, you're up.

All right.

I don't know why I didn't like it.

Well, because I did it very awkwardly.

That's funny why.

And it sucks.

Me, huh?

I'm playing, well, as you know, I'm playing a lot of Final Fantasy 16.

I'm still doing that, obviously,

but I've sort of, I haven't necessarily slowed down, but

I've gone at a more normal pace, I guess, with that now.

But I'm almost done with Final Fantasy 3.

I'm on the final dungeon of Final Fantasy 3.

And it is so fucking fun and so great.

The Pixel Remaster,

you know, initially when it was launched, it was like a bit of a debacle.

It was only on Steam.

Each game was $12 each for these old, old games.

Yeah.

And the font sucked.

And the font sucked, and people were sort of like, it looks weird, kind of.

Playing them,

and I said before,

they had to fix the font.

The font in your brain, in your memory, is good,

but your

old eyes now can't handle the old font.

They just can't.

Like, it legitimately hurts my eyes to look at.

You're saying that just to clarify, you're saying that the change they made to the font was necessary just to make it playable in a modern set.

I think so, yes.

like, from from the, not from the, like, from the original.

Right.

It's not, it's not even like, it's not necessarily like, I think it looks nicer.

It's legitimately, like, it's easier to read.

Like, it's just, it is easier to read.

But it's, it's a lot of fun.

I, I, I, I'm just blasting through it.

I intend to go straight into four.

By the time this drops,

I will have finished it and I will have started Final Fantasy IV.

That's basically where I'm at.

And I gotta say, I know Nick's gonna talk about it.

Yeah.

our friend Wags here,

he's getting everybody to play Dave the Diver.

He's leading a one-man camp, one-man campaign to get people to play this thing, gifted it to me on Steam.

And I started playing it.

I love Dave.

Hell yeah.

I love Dave the Diver.

It's

playing it a little more, I don't think Heather's gonna like it very much, but I think it could

because it is like it has like a fun, like, there is a,

what would you, how would, I mean, Nick's going to talk about it, but like the combat aspect of it, like the catching the fish part of it and like stuff, that has its own sort of feel.

And that I think is going to feel good to Heather.

The restaurant management stuff is not going to, Heather's not going to like that part.

It gets, it gets very semi.

Once you reach the point where you're hiring staff, I'm like, okay, Heather's going to check out.

Yeah.

But like the actual, yeah, the

roguelite runs of it, like diving into the water and catching fish I think is just a blast because it's great you're you're

your like weapon the like the harpoon gun thing that you have is that what it is?

It's like a yeah, you have a harpoon gun, but then you can you get a whole arsenal of weapons.

Yeah, you can upgrade.

The elasticity of the

of the harpoon feels great.

It feels fantastic.

It feels so good.

I'm playing it on Steam Deck, by the way, and it's it's awesome on Steam Deck.

It's a perfect Steam Deck game.

Yeah, it's really, really fantastic.

Yeah, the thing that impresses me, I'll just talk about it real quick.

The thing that impresses me about the Dave the Diver is just every element is additive.

Like, there's just so much stuff in there.

There's none of it that kind of feels like a slog.

There's nothing that feels like, oh, now I got to do this mini-game or whatever.

It's like everything that's in there is like adds to the fun of it.

It's also in that sense, it's got so many, like just brief cutscenes, like super brief cutscenes that cover the same action.

They got a sense of like, okay, well, you're going to have points where you

upgrade your fish or you build a new weapon.

That's going to happen repeatedly.

So, we're not going to show this cutscene every time.

And you know what?

We're going to have like a half dozen we're going to rotate between to keep it fresh.

And that's like a really smart decision.

So, you don't get tired of those sorts of things.

On that note, you know, Dave the Diver himself, the protagonist, the player character, is so, like, he's so great.

He's such a guy, like, he's so lovable, and you empathize with him, and you're excited

to play this dude.

Uh, but he's also one of his, one of the other NPCs, or one of the NPCs, is Duff the Weapons guy, yes, who's just like such a cartoonish otaku who's doing it all for like he's he's got like a a waifu uh that he's doing it all for for Leah's Chan um and so like everything he every time one of his cutscenes it's like he's got like a little like model figurine that he's basically like praying to to to give get to channel the strength to uh upgrade your harpoon or whatever um it's it's really fun and it's it's really well animated and I don't know just just the whole thing tonally I think is just just it just nails every aspect.

Can I play something from the soundtrack real quick, Matt?

I put this in the track.

Yeah.

But I think just again, for anyone who is thinking about playing this game, because I was talking again with uh with our buddy John Gabris of just how many hours he's put into this thing because it's just got such insane chill vibes.

And I think this track, which plays uh, when you jump into the ocean, aka the blue hole, is uh is like is so evocative of just like the energy of this game, this experience.

Oh, yeah.

Just sit here for a little bit.

This is all right.

You can swim in this blue hole all day.

Alright.

I don't know, man.

I just like the everything about this game is clicking for me.

It's so good.

Heather, what are you playing?

Well, this week has been the Boom Chicago Comedy Festival, so I haven't had a lot of time to play a ton of video games, but what I have had is some opportunities to meet listeners who have come out to the festival

from all over Holland and as far as Norway.

I wanted to give...

Norway.

Yeah, I wanted to give a couple shout-outs.

Specifically,

a listener named Alwyn gave me a copy of a video game called Kabuki Quantum Fighter for the NES.

Oh, I remember this game.

Which I have never played.

I looked it up on Wikipedia and it's described thusly.

Players adopt the persona of 25-year-old Colonel Scott O'Connor, a military agent who has transferred his brain into raw binary code in order to combat a rogue program in the main defense computer.

When O'Connor enters the system, his body forms the self-image of his ancestor, who was a kabuki actor.

And I was like, hey, that's that's pretty matrix adjacent that you would go into the matrix and have residual self-image.

But

anyway, looking forward to giving that a shot.

The thing is, just real quick, the thing I remember about this game is you attack with your hair.

You have this long shock of hair.

Oh, shit, that's cool.

That you kind of use as a whip.

Yeah, it's cool.

That's really cool.

We had

a lovely couple from Rotterdam who spoke with my wife for a long time.

They came out to multiple shows.

And it's got me thinking that I want to do a get-played get-together, a get-played together,

perhaps at an arcade here in Amsterdam sometime in the next couple of months.

And as soon as I have some details about what that would look like,

I'll announce it both here on the pod and also on social media.

But I just want to say thank you to the listeners who've been to the shows.

And thank you for the gifts.

And

fuck yeah.

This is, you guys are are the best,

and I mean you, you listening right now,

you

great.

How about

what I can?

I just wanted to talk about one more thing before we move on, which is a movie that at least the three of us have seen, Ruster Forest.

And

we won't get into spoiler country at all here for anyone listening because it just came out.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, one of the greatest films of the last 20 years.

Hot take.

We just, we, we have all seen at this point, as of this recording, Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning, part one.

Uh, and I think we all were just sort of like, this is the most, you know what, I think we all, meaning everyone who's ever played the game and has seen this movie, had the same reaction, which is, this is the most Kojima-ass shit I've ever seen in my life.

Yes.

It's, it's, it's insane how, like, it, it makes you just look at it and be like, did, did the director, Christopher Macquarie, play Metal Gear Solid 2 and like be like, this could be a movie?

It's kind of,

I don't want to say anything beyond that, but that, that, the, the aspect of like the kind of the main narrative plus some of the character designs that are within it and some of the set pieces is just so Metal Gear.

Yeah, it's it like it was enough that I I turned to my wife and said, This is just like Metal Gear.

And she went, oh, I don't know that one.

And I was like, oh, it's a Kojima game.

And she went, yeah, I can see that.

But her, her experience of Kojima stuff is like filtered through the coffee filter of my experience.

Yeah.

Right.

So usually I'm like, that's like Kojima.

And I'll be pointing at a mailbox.

And she'll be like, oh, because of Death Stranding?

And I'll be like, yeah.

But

yeah, it's.

It's a real Kojima movie.

I can't wait.

I want to know what he says when he sees it.

Like, is he going to be like, is he gonna post a photo that's like saw dead reckoning and then also post a picture of metal gears solid like is he gonna

is he going to recognize what we recognize in the movie and what kind of a feeling would that give you i think he's gonna see it and be like

yeah i know it was a good idea

I came up with it.

Because in his book, he was like, nobody listens to me.

I have all these great ideas and everyone thinks they're bad.

And And then I do them and everyone says they're fucking great ideas.

He knows.

He knows he's got the vision.

Why don't they give him a movie?

It is insane.

It's too much power for one man.

He shouldn't be able to be here.

He absolutely should direct a film.

I think it'd be interesting.

Yeah, Chris McCory and Tom Cruise, what a team.

I won't say much about it.

I do think,

because Nick, I think you've said that Fallout is like your favorite movie, not just like your favorite movie of the franchise.

Mission Impossible Fallout.

Yeah.

Like, I think that one reached a high so high that it's like almost impossible to top, but this movie is still good in that same way.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't think it's like better than Fallout, but it's like, it's good in a similar way, I think.

There's a, and

if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about, but I'll describe it vaguely.

Rebecca Ferguson's character has a scene

where she's

in the desert and her wardrobe there just looks like she'd be in like Metal Gear Solid 4 named like the agony.

It's like so stylized and so kind of impractical, but it's also just awesome.

She looks like, I would go a step further than that.

She looks like a female clone of snake that they'd call Lady Snake.

And she's fucking awesome in that sequence, too.

She really, she's really crap.

She fucking rocks.

It's a great cast.

Ray,

you interjected a second ago and you said that you'd read Kojima's book.

What did you think?

Oh, I thought it was really interesting.

I mean, it is just a collection of essays and a lot of really, really cool recommendations.

I felt like I've seen a great number of the movies that he did, went to the film school, did all the film school movies things.

But some of these books,

I even took in college, i took japanese fiction uh classes um and i read a lot of uh classic works that are now uh portrayed in uh boongo strain dogs the works of ryonosuke okutagawa and stuff and such uh

and uh

uh i i have i have not heard of these books these are more like pulpy, fun, action-y stuff about, you know, the one about the

guy stranded on a desert island and then more deserter people come in and want to get off.

It just sounds really cool and no penetration here in the United States where I'm like, I've never heard of these things and I do want to read them.

Sound really, really fun.

Yeah, I love learning about that stuff because

like

you were just talking about, so often it'll be,

oh, this, this move, this anime or this, this series, this movie was inspired by this like tale, this folklore story that I just have no point of reference for.

Cause it's, you know, it's, it's, it's not commonly known in the West.

Uh, that's awesome.

Before we move on to the beat of what we're going to discuss today,

Ray, you said earlier before we began that you had some thoughts on one of our tier lists.

Yes, Tears of the Kingdom, Final Fantasy.

So I have played, so my Final Fantasy story is I grew up playing a lot of the wrong games as a kid.

I was always going to the used game stores.

I didn't know what to play, so I was going by box art.

I was going by title.

I was just going, I don't know, this looks fun.

Random games like Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy that nobody cares.

Bait and Kaidos, Eternal Wings of the Lost Ocean, my favorite freaking GameCube RPG.

But

Final Fantasy for me, I played Final Fantasy Legend 1, 2, and 3 and Final Fantasy Adventure.

All non-canonical Final Fantasy games, I found out.

So when I got the role of Noctis, I was like, all right, I'm going to play all of these games in order because I know I'm going to talk about these games for the rest of my life.

Wow.

And

I played them all, even 10-2, even the entire Lightning trilogy,

all the way through.

I have not played 16 yet because I haven't had time, unfortunately, but I will.

So I'm a bit of an authority on the Final Fantasy series.

And so I listened to your Tears of the Kingdom.

And Matt, can you screen share what I sent over?

After listening to the episode, I had a lot of thoughts on

the tier list, and I wanted to make some amendments.

This is like an 80-page document.

It's a lot of graphs and stuff.

So like, don't

we'll get through it.

Wow, yeah,

this is a lot to digest right now.

It says, just kidding, you got played.

The tier list was fucking impeccable.

And you know what?

We know.

It's absolutely true.

I've never found a better tier list.

You guys got everything exactly right.

I also am in the camp.

Final Fantasy VIII is Tour de Forest, one of the most perfect Final Fantasy games ever made.

And I

really, really enjoyed the list and

the points that you guys made.

Zero notes.

Zero notes all the way through.

You guys did great.

Wow.

That's the kind of feedback we like to get.

But there was something else in the document.

I saw this.

Oh, we got a nice JPEG of Steiner there from Final Fantasy 9.

And it looks like it's just like all Steiner.

I was trying to.

I wasn't sure how we were going to do this.

I thought I was going to be able to upload something to Zoom to send to you guys.

So I wanted it to be like a one gigabyte PDF, and so I filled it with a bunch of

pages.

It's actually every page.

It's just the exact same image.

But it's all

you got to post this image.

Different

faces, though.

He slightly moves.

Given, like, sometimes

he's a little off to the left, a little off to the left.

I was thinking that.

Making him bigger would also

increase the file size in a little bit.

I was

trying to make the joke work,

but doing doing screen share is great.

Definitely go all the way to the bottom, though, Matt.

I think I make a good point right at the end.

This also, this document, you know, like when you scroll

a document, you get like the little tab on the side that shows you how long.

And based on the size of that tab, you get an idea of how large the document is.

And this tab is like a pixel large.

It's the smallest tab I've ever seen on the side of a screen.

It took me a second to click on it.

Like it's the size of a blood cell.

Yeah, I got it all the way up to 609 kilobytes.

Couldn't fit anymore in it.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

There it is.

There it is.

Buxy on the final page.

There was also like an image several pages up that was like.

You guys are finding all my secrets.

It's a bunch of images of the moon.

I tried to find like the biggest, uh, the biggest file because Google Docs doesn't let you upload movies or anything.

I was trying to like upload a dummy file so it could, so you guys could get a one gigabyte thing, but it didn't work.

How long did this take you to make?

And why is it

working on it since last week?

Yeah, about eight days straight, doing a lot of research.

609 kilobytes worth it.

I love it.

Absolutely worth it.

Great, amazing tier list.

Literally zero notes.

The best, the best ever.

The fact that 15 was SS tier is my favorite.

It is a goddamn good game.

I will say also, because this is,

I think I'm talking to an audience of a lot of, you know,

I think your audience is interesting.

It's a lot of hardcore gamers, but I think it's a lot of hardcore gamers with a lot of heart.

And I think it's people who play a lot of different types of games.

It's not necessarily a let's talk about games and talk about how good we are at them.

It's let's play freaking

Animal Crossing and let's play, let's talk about Street Fighter, and let's talk about every game in between.

And

I think that 15 gets a lot of flack for like not being a hardcore game and like, oh, there's mistakes with the gameplay.

And like, there were so many missed opportunities because people are imagining in their heads what Final Fantasy vs.

13 was but I will I think that 15 and the fans that I meet every single week at at conventions are people with a lot of heart that game is is about relationships it is about forging bonds and it really does it in its design.

The AI of the party members makes you feel like they are actual living friends and it's not just a random assortment of like, here's a bunch of people coming together in a party and we're throwing them together and making them act out a bunch of anime tropes.

These guys feel real.

They start tropey and then the more it goes on, it's like they play against it and

they become super, super realistic.

So I absolutely love that game.

And I love that you loved it, Heather.

That was a wonderful surprise to hear.

I truly love it.

It's, I mean, like, love, love it.

I'll play it.

I'll play it after I'm done with 16.

It is, I will also say, one of the shortest of the 3D Final Fantasies.

If you just do main campaign, which a lot of people don't because the side quests are so much fun and being with the party is, but if you just do main campaign, it's like 25 hours.

Maybe a little bit longer with the Royal Edition, but like it's pretty lean as far as the main story goes.

But I think part of what makes it great is also the

expanded world of the game.

The DLCs that give you the insights in each individual character.

The The movie Kingsglaive is like, oh, wow, this is like, if that had all been packaged into a single game that you were handed at Best Buy, then you'd be like, motherfuck, this game is, this is a thick boy.

And

I also,

I think it's the only Final Fantasy, and I, and I haven't completed 16, but it is the only Final Fantasy that has made me tear up.

Yeah.

Wow.

Same here.

It is the other than Red Dead 2.

I cried at the end.

But 15, even though I knew it was coming, even though I cried while recording these lines because they're so beautiful.

Yeah.

But

I was,

Heather, you'll know there's the campfire scene, obviously.

That's a

tearing thing.

The campfire scene is among the best.

Like, it is.

Among the best scenes in gaming.

Like, I cried.

I cried.

I'm recording.

Can I clip these and listen to them later?

I absolutely

want to.

I cried during

Left Behind for The Last of Us.

And I've been kind of open about that on the show.

But I can't think of any other games ever that have made me tear up other than Left Behind and

Final Fantasy XV.

And it's the campfire scene where I was like, son of a bitch.

Like,

this is like a sledgehammer that I totally wasn't expecting.

Like, I, I was like, oh, you know, this font, like, it's such a good fucking scene.

And it's raw and it's not tropey either.

I feel like sometimes with RPGs, they're like, no, this is bad.

It's just, it's just a, uh, it's just speaking from your heart.

And, uh, and you're right, the Japanese voice actors did a great job of doing that.

Um, they really did a great job of uh of putting those performances together.

Um, the, the other thing is that the Royal Edition, uh, I feel is what you're talking about, Heather, where it is, it came out a year or maybe two years after the game came out, but it is the full package.

Yeah, it's the full package.

And it comes with the Kingsglaive and it comes with everything.

You get to see the Brotherhood anime and all the DLC.

And it really is a complete tour de force.

Fantastic game.

Oh, and the other point I want to make was the campfire scene,

while I played it, it did not make me cry, but there's the scene because I knew it was coming, but I did not know about the scene on the throne after that

with Noctis and Luna.

And they play the Final Fantasy main theme from the series.

I had no idea that was happening.

The trick they do at the very end with the logo, absolutely bawling when that happened.

I'm getting a little out still talking about it.

It was,

I've never cried a video game like that.

That was so surprising to me.

The catharsis in that game is on point.

Sold.

Yes, check it out.

And then I'll come back.

Hell yeah.

I love that.

And talk about it.

Please play in the dub so I can do all the fun voices and press you guys.

I will absolutely play in the dub.

Very, very excited to check it out.

I think we kind of broken format a little bit.

We kind of been all over the place here.

Although this has been a great discussion, but we were going to talk about voice acting today, which I think we've already gotten to, Matt.

But I think we can maybe just touch on a few more things

and answer all the questions.

And one thing that

you had talked about in your email, Ray, is JRPG voice acting and how there's kind of a wild variance in terms of sometimes some of the some performances that are like, you know, really just the, just some of the best that video game voice acting has to offer and other ones that are kind of that are just like kind of a distraction

because of how, you know, uneven or all over the place or just sometimes just amateur-ish they are.

I mean, what do you think?

I'm curious, like,

I guess you could just kind of talk generally about JRPG voice acting, why there is such a high variance there.

Disparity, yeah.

I think there's a ton and ton of different reasons.

So many to do with time, and time I mean by like

the times, the epoch in which we're recording.

Sure.

And then there's a lot to do with budget and a lot to do with passion.

And I think a lot of those things are what really makes or breaks a JRPG for voice acting, or a lot of video game voice acting for that matter.

But there was a time, like you were

ragging quite well on the

Final Fantasy X dub is all over the place.

And I think that was just, that was the first time they had done it.

And I think what they did not do, which we were able to do in Final Fantasy 15, I'm sure they did it in 12 too, was

be able to go back and redo a scene,

have the time to do a scene,

put it in the game, and go back and then iron it out.

By the nature of JRPGs, unlike pre-lay animation or other things, you have to record your party characters in isolation, which can always make everybody sound all over the place.

And

once you integrate it, you're like, oh, wait a minute, this scene didn't work.

We need to re-record it.

And we were able to do that in Final Fantasy XV.

And I really feel like there's no sour notes in that game at all because we were able to actually take the time and iron out some scenes that ended up being rough on first pass.

And that comes so much down to the budget that the studio is willing to spend on it.

I think a lot of

lesser JRPGs will just absolutely rush through and just say, well, we got it, put it in the game, it's good enough to do it.

And then once it's actually in the game, maybe these performances didn't gel off of each other.

Maybe it didn't work out.

That's the budget thing.

And then the last thing is the passion thing.

I will say there's also, we're now finally reaching an inflection point where the people who are acting in voice

in games,

because yeah, there's two generations happening: there's the directors and then there's the actors.

And I feel like we're finally reaching an inflection point in the games where the actors who are working on it grew up with video games, are super passionate, put all their thought into researching the role, playing the rest of the game series,

getting to know what's up.

Like, I will refuse to do a line in a game if I don't know what's going on,

because I know how much it will just absolutely take you out of the experience if you're playing it.

If there's one line where it's like, oh, he emphasized the wrong word, they weren't talking about

that dragon over there.

It's that dragon over there.

Oh, that was the correct read.

Only someone who knows exactly what's going on in the scene will keep you in the scene that way.

And I think we're reaching a point where finally we've got the actors who are super passionate and then the directors,

the usually older generation who

are caring more and more about it and aware that video games really matter.

Especially when I was first coming up 10 years ago, you had a lot of directors who was just

play the line, do it.

Did you get it?

Keep moving on.

And we're finally getting the point where we have enough passionate directors and passionate actors who are like, no, we didn't get it.

Let's make sure that we know what we're talking about.

And

on the studio side,

have the

budget to be able to redo a line if it doesn't work in the game.

Just to go back to what you said about Final Fantasy X, because I remember reading about that.

First off, I think a lot of people, it's been kind of memory hold that that was the first Final Fantasy game with voice acting.

Ever.

Like it's like, it's like that was huge.

And that in and of itself was so momentous.

And that was the early era of full speech, at least in console games.

It's such an intense workflow to go, here's a spreadsheet of all of the lines, here's the exact Japanese

timing, and what we have, and I think what they didn't have back then, based on playing it and hearing the mistakes, like, oh, sometimes they speed up a line too much, is what your in and out points are on the J.

So you've got like a two-second line, the English can be two and a half seconds or one and a half seconds, a half-second variance either way.

For Final Fantasy XV, we had a 0.1 second variance, which is pretty damn tight.

And I feel like they did not have as much of that variance or weren't quite aware of what that variance was

for the lines because some of them do feel a little bit too rushed or too extended based on the J.

Yeah, and I think

that's a really great insight.

And I think also the laughing scene, I remember reading in particular that the voice actors just really really didn't know what was going on there they didn't really have context for what they were doing and that's partly why in the dub it just sounds like so alien it's because they're like i don't know you want us to laugh all right sure we can try you know yeah i'm a defend i'm a defender of the laughing scene being i like it too uh yeah he is supposed to be awkward uh titus is or titus is the kind of guy who does not uh not laugh normally but i get it out of context uh it sounds absolutely ridiculous and i'm sure not having context is a huge deal for 15 and i'm sure 516 because the dub from what I've heard is fantastic, is having the writer there to answer the questions.

You know, Square has to fly somebody out in order to be on the correct time zone with LA.

And I guess if they record in England over there, yeah, you really have to fly someone out full time to translate, localize, and sit in on all the voice over sessions, which is a big expense.

And the fact that Square actually does it and has their loremaster there so you can't ask questions is what sets them apart for sure.

Wait, the lore master is there?

For 15, he was.

Yeah.

This guy Inoue sat in on every single session.

It was able to change lines around, make sure that everything was up to par.

And you could

ask him anything.

It was fantastic.

We had, unlike a lot of video games, a lot of times you're just in the dark.

It's just, here's the lines, do the lines, move on.

This one, we actually got character notes and character sheets and like, here's what the entire game is going to be about.

Here's the entire story.

We recorded everything in order, which is wild.

So, all of that information really, really helps.

Campfire Scene was one of the last scenes I ever recorded.

So, it really

brings it home how much passion goes into that.

And that's what really sets JRPG dubs apart for sure.

A lot of them, and I'd say what why budget might be a thing, a lot of studios can sort of undercut each other in this sphere and say, like,

you know,

some other studio.

I don't want to name names.

I'm realizing, oh, yeah, people am I listening to this, but other studios who aren't Square Annex might go to another studio and go, like, who can do it the cheapest?

And cheapest usually means the fastest.

And usually you're just running through the lines as much as possible.

And that's, I think, what also might happen with a lot of these with lesser dubs that aren't so good.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

You know, one other thing I thought we could touch on real quick, and I can go first so everyone can have a chance to think about it.

But just if anyone, if we have any thoughts on some of our favorite voice performances in any games or voice performances that have stuck with us,

I'll start because I have two examples.

One is from a recent game that we've talked about extensively on the podcast.

But

Lenvol Brown and Disco Elysium,

just being the, you know, the narrator and then embodying all the different personalities or the different emotions that exist, you know, like going through all those, I think it's just such a varied performance.

He's got just like such a rich instrument and it is, it's an it seems like an incredibly taxing performance.

Just like the volume of dialogue that he had to record, narration that he had to record.

And it all just like absolutely like sings and enhances the experience.

In fact, it's like, to me, that is, it's hand in hand with the writing of that game, which is so strong.

And so that's one that absolutely just like like lingers with me and that I think is you know one of my favorite performances ever and one of the one of the better performances in

game voice voice acting history.

But another one that sticks with me that I don't think I've talked about really on the podcast is the first time I heard speech in a video game.

This was a PC game that came out in the very early 90s, maybe late 80s.

And I had this game and we, you know,

this sounds like ancient history, I feel like, to people who

maybe maybe didn't grow up with this, but like there was a point where PCs did not have like any sort of built-in sound.

They had a PC speaker, which was one channel, and it was just like a bleep-bloop sound.

That if you were playing a game with just your PC speaker, honestly, it sounded so bad that a lot of times I just played these games on mute, and this was one of them.

But you could buy, you know, like you have a video card these days, you could buy a sound card and you can, yeah, you could, you could put that into your computer.

And we convinced my dad, me and my brother to get a sound blaster and as such the the game might magic 3 which we've been playing with a PC speaker turned into this game that had like better audio than the consoles of the time as well as speech and so this happens in the intro and when this happened this this blew my little boy brain

I am Shelterman, guardian of terror.

Twice now you have defeated my test, thinking yourself worthy of invading my world.

Walk carefully then through this third challenge, and take heed your final decision is truly what you desire.

For the course of destiny cannot be turned once set in motion.

Until our next meeting, Morton.

It's actually a pretty good read, too.

Because like a lot of the

early PC voice acting was just like, ah, we gotta, we'll ask one of the programmers to read.

You know, like there was a lot of like just like straight up amateurs being recruited to do voices.

But like, yeah, no, i i just the i am shelton i am sheltom i mean it's just like it's so

it's so stuck in my mind what was your reaction when you first heard it did you know it was coming no because well okay so when you watch it when you play with the pc speaker it would just get to that part and it would just go like

or like like beep boop beep you know i mean like it was like literally like just like some sort of garbled non non-verbal sound and i had no idea that he was actually talking there so yes from that that was part of what made me just like my head just explode.

So much of the early

experiences of hearing a voice come out of a video game, you're like,

What?

How, oh, oh my gosh, how is this possible?

Yeah, holy shit.

I just put one in the chat, Matt, that was, I think, the earliest I remember a video game speaking.

Uh, and it is uh, this sound clip from Altered Beast.

Oh, hell yeah,

live from your glaze,

Rise from your grave.

Such a great line.

Rise from your grave.

So, yeah,

that meant a lot to me as a kid.

I was like, oh, man, there's a human being inside this video game now.

I'm going to say

it's not quite

what the assignment is, Ray, but Charles Martinette.

You took it.

That was my answer.

Well,

God damn.

I mean,

he, he has been

a figure of gaming for like three decades now.

And there are very few sounds that you can associate with a game that are just raw joy.

Like, you know, when you hear that voice, that you're going to have a good time, or at least that the game is going to be polished, or it'll be super mario sension

and

like so like hearing that voice in mario kart hearing that voice in mario 64 those are incredible experiences back in the in the day and now you know like when he's throwing that cap around and and wahooing across the desert you're like

you can't really beat it he's he's he's fantastic not my mario

you took my answer uh Technically, what he does in those games is so impressive to do these efforts because it's, you know, very rarely

doing a cinematic voice other than thank you for playing my game.

He's doing just mostly efforts, and they are so alive and so energetic.

You can get, it's really easy to get tired when you're doing it over and over and over again.

Woohoo!

Ha!

Over and over again, and doing different variations.

And in the studio, it can be super, super taxing.

And the fact that that he is

always giving his all when Mario's butt is on fire, it feels like it's on fire, and it's so high-energy and not grading, which is an easy thing to pass.

You don't actually fear for his butt.

You actually, you're like, oh, his butt's on fire, but he's going to be okay.

The

what he does technically in those games,

his line reads are again iconic,

is seared into my memory.

Mario Party 3 played that game a million, million hours.

And

the fact that he does all four of the boys is insane.

Coming up with these characters and having them sound all so different.

He was my choice.

That's such a great boy.

He's also got that.

He's got one of the best injured sounds.

Like, not an injury that's like, oh,

you're worried about him, but like when he runs into a wall and it's, ooh, like, it's like, just like this.

yeah like just like a a plain

like

it's like okay that registers this pain but i'm not upset like it's great i'm not upset at it yeah that's really funny like well then also like just going back to that oh wow wow wow wow like like that yeah if you're in actual physical pain that's not what you're gonna do you know what i mean so like it is like you sort of just know that's like your cue to be like oh it's like funny but like don't do that like you don't want to keep, you don't want to make a habit of doing that.

Uh, the, the, the folks that I'm thinking of, the voices that I'm thinking of right now

are just all also

coupled with a physical performance, also, which is like I'm thinking about too.

Like, uh, Ray, I don't know if you've said, I know that you have done uh, you know, on your IMDB, you have some live action credits, too.

Have you had a chance to do

both in like a video game, like where you have to wear like the ping-pong balls and stuff and like give a physical performance yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Uh no, as far as surviving, I was uh leading a game that was canceled, unfortunately.

Um, but as far as surviving content, you can you can see my amazing movement in such games as uh Days Gone or uh or Horizon, the Second Horizon, but no, but not, but all just the movement part, uh, as far as surviving uh Ray Chase uh ping-pong ball content.

Obviously, those are different uh different acting muscles, but like the experience of doing

like the physical performance of that, is that like such like a, is that weirder to do than just like standing in a booth and doing like the voice?

Oh, well, I think, well, yeah, I think also for my generation of voice actors, it's all of us came from theater.

So it is 100% aligned.

We all have that training.

We're all super, super excited.

There's not a ton of that work out there as far as in comparison to voiceover.

So those roles are small indeed,

but it's every voice actor's dream to get to ask for comic books for Ellie.

Yeah, because obviously we talk about Joel a lot and like Troy Baker's performance in that game.

And in many games, he's the guy that does that, right?

Like, or

Christopher Judge in the new God of War games is such an incredible performance.

But also

in God of War Ragnarok, I don't know that he's done a lot of voice acting, but Richard Schiff from the West Wing is Odin.

He's so fucking good in it.

It is so funny.

He's just great.

It's like, it's such a good performance.

But I also, yeah, you mentioned Horizon.

I think Ashley Birch

is such an incredible performer in those games.

And in a lot of stuff.

Yeah.

Well, and she comes from YouTube and, hey, Ash, what you play and stuff.

And so having that comfortability to be like,

when you are doing a voice you are not just you're not just channeling it into your voice you're also acting as much as you can uh physically that's where that's where the alignment comes from that's why uh the good acting feels so aligned because it comes from somewhere you're not just doing a sound effect um that's uh i think that's why those performances translate so well

wait matt did you say who your favorite performance was oh well i got to give it up from our our boy um haley jill osman as uh sora in the kingdom hearts series of course he's grown so much in that series.

He's gotten so much better as time's gone on.

I'm really, really.

There's a lot of actually really, I was looking at the cast because I remember being a kid and, like, you know, when games came with booklets, I would just pour over those Kingdom Hearts booklets and just read like who the voice cast was and stuff.

And I remember being like, Lance Bass is Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts 1.

Lance Bass from InSync is Sephiroth.

And that's always, no disrespect, been a baffling choice to me.

It's very, very strange.

He's not a voice actor.

He is a singer in a boy band.

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

And I feel like, based on how I've seen him in interviews and stuff recently, if you asked him why he did that, he'd be like, I have no idea.

He would be like, yeah, that was weird.

I don't know.

I don't know what that was.

Or he wouldn't.

Yeah.

It was kind of a celebrity stunt casting, yeah, right?

Like they do the way it kind of the other side of it was like, oh, wait, no, voice acting is a thing.

Like, ah, we can maybe drive people to these games by getting big splashy games.

Yeah.

But yeah, it is, that is a strange thing.

It's really funny.

Because I remember seeing too, obviously Mark Hamill is such a great voice actor, but somebody asked him about his experience doing the dub of one of the Yakuza games.

And he was like, what?

He's like, I did.

I did.

What?

He's just done probably so much stuff.

Like, he's like, you know, like, he's Mark Hamill.

They're probably just asking him to do a bunch of stuff all the time i wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't remember half of the things he's done yeah i've worked on those games too and they are very they are very code naming oh sure um and uh and tough to keep track of because those are ones that do not have much character art to to go for that one's just a spreadsheet that you're just doing your best job interesting I'll also say another one of my favorites and most impressive is not to break the lore of Get Played podcasts, but Paul Mercier in Resident Evil 4 doing his dual roles.

I won't say what dual roles, obviously.

I don't want to break break the lore, but unbelievable that he does both of those.

And again, such an iconic performance, too.

What?

Who does he do?

Yeah, who's

the Paul Mercier?

He plays Leon and another iconic character.

Oh, cool.

I love Leon.

Yeah, Leon is great.

And he does somebody else.

It's like a, I don't know, like a...

I guess you could call it a shopkeeper.

Oh, okay.

Sort of thing, like a stand-in for a shopkeeper.

I didn't realize he does both.

That fucking rocks.

Yeah, that's an easy.

That's my new favorite answer.

That's really great.

Yeah.

Because two great performances, too.

Like super funny, like really, really great.

All right,

let's do a segment.

Hell yeah.

Ray has a segment for us for a change, and I think it's going to be really fun.

Yes, this is, so for a little bit of background, when you're working on a video game,

you usually don't

get the name of the title of the video game.

There's always some sort of confidential code name, usually appended with the word project at the beginning of it.

And while you're working on a game, that's usually how your agents and everybody talks about it is you're coming in for Project X2.

You're coming in for Project Mithril, which was World of Final Fantasy,

things like that.

And so I have a game for you guys.

And here it goes.

Can Nick, Heather, and Matt guess the working title project name of each video game?

Will this dumb segment idea cause the industry to lose faith in Ray and fire him from all his jobs?

Find out in Project Run Ray.

Hey,

can we replace one of us with Ray?

Do you think like permanently, like,

can we just have Ray

on the show?

Oh, wait, so Nick wants to stay on the show.

I think, well, actually, maybe better is that we do the show.

We do the show as normal, but then Ray dubs us.

I'll dub it.

I'll do the Japanese version.

Or yeah, if you have any more characters who want to come in, I'd be happy to.

Hell yeah.

This is, so this, I've judiciously selected some project names based on games that I have worked on.

Oh, it's right.

We didn't talk about some of these things.

So I think it might surprise you that I was some of these roles.

And

so I guess the way it'll work is I will say the title of the project.

And

whenever you guys guess what it is, buzz in with

your name, as always.

And whoever gets it right first gets it.

I'm going to say the name of the game, start describing it, and buzz in whenever you've got it.

Great.

And I'll keep scoring.

I've also chosen games that are.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Some of these are, and again, some of these project titles are absolutely nonsense.

Like you can never figure out

what Project Arkansas is.

But some of these are the ones that I've chosen hopefully are a little bit of a hint to what they are.

Starting with number one, Project Black.

Project Black is an open-world action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix, released for the PlayStation and Xbox One in 2016.

The game features an open-world environment and action-based battle system incorporating quick switching weapons, elemental magic, and other features such as vehicle travel.

That's Final Fantasy 15.

Correct.

Wow.

Project Black Project Black.

Every time we came in, it was for Project Black is asking for your availability to come in

for years and years.

Wow.

Number two.

And also, you'll notice that all of these are released around the same time.

These are things that I worked on around the 2016 to 2019 era.

It chose nothing too current.

Project Delta.

Project Delta is an online multiplayer action role-playing game released worldwide for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on February 22nd, 2019.

Set on a fictional planet named Coda, players assumed the role of freelancers, heroic adventurers who wear powerful exosuits to defend humanity from the threats beyond their city's walls.

It received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized it for its grind and shallow gameplay.

Matt.

Matt.

Is it Anthem?

It is Anthem.

Okay, great.

Wow.

Good pull.

I was the main character in Anthem.

Were you really?

I forgot about Anthem.

Yeah, that was my big thing.

I was like, coming off of Final Fantasy XV, I'm going to be in Anthem.

I'm going to be the main character.

This is going to be the greatest game ever.

And I'm set for life, baby.

And unfortunately, we live in this reality.

Yeah, well, that was like,

was that Bungie who was making Anthem?

I'm trying to remember.

Bioware.

Bioware, I apologize.

Bioware was their, but it was like their destiny killer, right?

Like, it was like, we're going to come.

And people were hyped about Anthem.

And then it was like, oh i was so excited next

project database

project database is an action role-playing video game developed by eidos montreal and published by square enix in august 2016.

it is the fourth game in the series and the gameplay combines first-person shooters, stealth, and role-playing elements, featuring exploration and combat in environments connected to the main hub of Prague, and quests which grant experience and allow customization of the main character's abilities with praxis kits.

Conversations between characters have a variety of responses, with options in conversations and at crucial story points affecting how events play out.

Set two years after the sequel in 2029, the world is divided between normal humans and those with advanced controversial artificial organs dubbed augmentations.

After a violent event known as the Aug Incident, augmented people have been segregated.

This prompts heated debate in an era of mechanized apartheid.

Main protagonist Adam Jensen, equipped with advanced new augmentations after the sequel, is a double agent for the hacker group Juggernaut Collective to expose the Illuminati.

Oh, man.

This is, I remember this series.

I know this is a series.

I just can't remember the title of it.

Interesting.

This is

Deus Ex Mankind Divided.

Oh, right, right, right.

Have you guys not played Human Revolution or Mankind Divided?

No.

That doesn't matter the original background.

You don't know Adam Jensen at all.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

He's the protagon of those two games.

Thought he'd be more iconic.

Alas, the point goes to me.

Maybe I can win this one.

Great point.

Matt, you got that?

Great.

By the way, all these projects sound like something that the colonel would be explaining to Snake in a Metal Gear game.

Snake, it's called Project Database.

The CIA began it in 1969.

I've got one, two, three, four more.

Okay, great.

Project Lotus.

Project Lotus is a 2019 action-adventure game.

It won several year-end awards and sold over 5 million copies by July 2020.

The game features a shinobi known as Wolf, who attempts to take revenge on a samurai clan that imprisoned him.

This is a Sekiro, Shadows Deathwish.

Yeah, you got it.

All right, well, I'll tie it up with one LU.

Appreciate that one.

Of course.

I'm proud of it, too.

I will say one of the interesting things about From Software that they do that nobody else does as far as recording, which which is really, really interesting,

is they

record everybody really, really close to the mic and you get very, very, very tender performances from them.

Even though your character might be 30 feet away,

the level of projection, they don't care about it.

They just want it to be super intimate.

And I think that really

sets their voice acting apart.

Obviously, they yell when they need to yell, but if a boss is talking to you, it's like he's right in your ear.

And also, like, that's fascinating because it does, so those games, I think, make you feel isolated and alone.

And that's part of like the dread of playing one of those games.

Like, I'm all by myself.

And maybe that's part of the logic for it.

That's a really interesting background.

Next, hands-on buzzers.

Project Fortnite.

Project Fortnite is an online video game developed by Epic Game.

Heather, yes.

Fortnite?

Correct.

Nice job.

No project name.

It was just called Project Wow.

They're like, oh, we want you to know what this is.

Hiding in plain sight.

But it came out.

Actually, let me see if I can find it.

Because it was funny.

Because, you know, when they were working on that game, they didn't know it was going to be Fortnite.

Yeah, sure.

This was, when was the first audition sent out?

Was this 2017?

I don't know.

I'll find it later.

But it was interesting going through my old emails and going, like, oh, yeah, they didn't know this was going to be Fortnite.

This was just a random epic game.

Okay.

Snake.

Project Fortnite trains the next generation of super soldiers through an online game when they're virtually connected.

Virtually connected?

This sounds like the sort of game that I'd be a skin in.

Two more.

Project BT.

Project BT is a first-person shooter video game released worldwide on October 28th, 2016.

Set in a science fiction universe, the single-player campaign follows the story of Jack Cooper, a rifleman from the Frontier Militia, who bonds with his mentors Titan BT7272.

Oh, Matt, Matt.

Matt.

Titanfall 2.

Correct.

Nice.

Nice.

That was that recently?

Yeah, Titanfall

Ribs.

It's really good.

Oh, you guys haven't played it or just Matt?

I played like about only Matthew.

That was the first game I was playing on my Steam Deck, and it's fucking great.

It is so.

I have it wish listed.

I'm going to get around to it.

I got to make time for it.

Everyone says the campaign is so great.

It's just insane.

Each level is just a set piece and so memorable.

It's so well done.

All right, last one.

What's the score?

It is tied to

Heather and Matt.

One, Nick and Ray.

Ah, damn.

We've got a chance to tie it up, Matt.

Let's hope.

Last one: Project Chiral.

Project Chiral is a 2019 action game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Shogun.

Death Stranding.

God damn it.

Death Stranding is correct.

Wow.

Heather's our winner.

Congratulations, Heather.

I almost said it on Kyral.

Almost said it right there on Kyral.

I was like, there can't be anything else.

It's got to be Death Stranding.

You know what?

I thought it's funny because the previous one was Project BT, which is a Death Stranding specific.

So I was like, oh, is that where we're going?

I waited

just in case because I was like, let me hear some of that.

As Game Master, that was me trying to trick you.

Well done.

That's why I deserve it.

Exactly.

Congratulations, Heather.

You win.

I am the best.

Canonically, I'm the best.

That's true.

That's a winning.

It's settled.

Hey, that's this week's Get Play.

And our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez.

Dead Air, Alex G on Twitter and Instagram.

Also, check out our paywall show, Get Animate.

Heather, we're taking a break from the melancholy of Harui Suzumiya.

Yeah, before we dive into season two of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, we are going to watch Jujutsu Kaisen Zero, the animated theatrical release featuring the Jujutsu Kaisen cast at large in a prequel that is canonically.

I mean,

it's a real thing.

It's a real story that actually happens in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen.

So check us out on patreon.com slash get played if you want to listen to that and more episodes about our favorite other thing in the world, anime.

Our guest today, the great Ray Chase.

Ray, what an absolute delight.

Thank you for lending us your time and your talents and for telling us so much about,

you know, voicing the games that so many people love to play.

This was a horse.

It's been an honor.

I've loved it too, and

I really appreciate you guys having me on.

As far as plugs, I've got one thing to plug, which I forgot to even talk about because it's old, but I'm still really proud of it.

I made a podcast starring all of my friends during COVID.

It's all the voice actor people you know.

It's called My Brotherhood: Sky Brother Force, and

it is a fake anime show.

It's nine episodes long, fully produced

with an anime theme song, intro and outro.

It is batshit insane, and I highly recommend podcast listeners.

I know that

listening to

myself, listening to people talk is great.

And having a serial podcast isn't the most fun, but you've got to listen to Sky Brother Force.

It's really, really, really fun.

That's badass.

Where can people check it out?

Oh, anywhere that podcast is sold.

Awesome.

Love that.

Hell yeah.

And

I know that maybe Nick and Heather don't want to do this because you've been such a great guest, but I'll sort of fall on the grenade for this one.

Ray,

I take no pleasure in this.

What?

What's up?

You got played, and I'm very sorry.

Oh, he's crying.

Oh, my God.

I made him cry.

Oh, no, we all got raped.

Oh, shit.

Yes.