It’s 32 years since a video game was first blessed with the power of speech.
1980’s Stratovox, a relatively poor hybrid of Space Invaders and Galaga, featured precisely three phrases from its human characters: “Help Me”, “Very Good” and “We’ll Be Back”.
They sounded like a Dalek, in a tin bucket, broadcasting on long-wave radio during an electrical storm.
These days, the acting in video games has come on leaps and bounds. The biggest-budget titles use the same motion-capture technology as Hollywood films like Lord Of The Rings and Avatar to scan human performances and replicate them on screen.
Big franchises like Uncharted, The Sims, Far Cry, Mario Kart and Call Of Duty make their way into hundreds of millions of homes. If the actors were working in any other medium, they would be household names…