11 mo. ago • 100%

The surprisingly robust careers of Star Trek stars who became video game voice actors

arstechnica.com The surprisingly robust careers of Star Trek stars who became video game voice actors

Yes, that really is Quark's voice you're hearing.

32 comments

Chris Judge from Stargate did the same. That dude is in a lot of video games.

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- Indeed
  
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  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
  
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- @teft @ijeff that guy is so good at giving a character life. I'd love to see him an DND campaign
  
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Kate Mulgrew was a very distinctive voice. I heard it right away in Dragon Age Origin.

Patrick Stewart also has a great voice in Elder Scrolls Oblivion.

The first person from Trek I remember hearing in a game was Leonard Nimoy in Civilization.

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- Tim Russ also showed up in Dragon Age: Origins, like it was a mini Voyager reunion.
  
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- Civ IV is still my favorite game of the series. It was peak Civilization.
  
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- Leonard Ninoy was also the original voice of Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts.
  
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- Funny, cause Michael Dorn and Mirina Sirtis were in Mass Effect. I guess Bioware knows their crowd.
  
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- "Your Seamen have all died." What are you, my urologist?
  
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- Patrick Stewart voiced King Richard in Lands of Lore: the Throne of Chaos on PC way back in 1993. One of my all time favorites.
  
  Edit: and Michael Dorn was in a little known FMV adventure game called Mission Critical around the same time.
  
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- Michael dorn was also in the first Gabriel knight game from 1990.
  
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Star Trek actors are the most robust actors. They're everywhere. I watched all of Boston Legal without realizing it wasn't Star Trek. Our boy Frakes plays adult Finn in the adventure time episode Puoy, George plays Ricardio. You can't escape it. Star Trek encompasses all.

Edit: sort of unnecessary edit but when I use actors here it is gender neutral.

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- Gargoyles!
  
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  Demona wouldn't be the disturbingly seductive menace she is without Marina Sirtis' voice.
  
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Ensign Ro and old Jake are both in Half-Life 2, those voices are ingrained in my memory so I instantly recognized them when i watched the show.

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- I'll never forget the Powers That Be who passed on the Global Frequency pilot. Michelle Forbes was glorious as Miranda Zero.
  
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It's especially great when they do something that's completely off the walls crazy. Michael Dorn played a screaming dwarf in the Billy and Mandy episode "Here There Be Dwarves," who went mad after centuries of mushroom farming and exacted his revenge by invading the Keebler elves' hollow tree. Then R. Lee Ermey pops up to censor the carnage and the dwarves and elves compromise by making mushroom cookies, and Billy does karaoke. That show was so delightfully warped and random sometimes.

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- Dorn as an alarmingly competent Weasel was pretty nuts.
  
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  ...I didn't believe you. I had to look it up to confirm it.
  
  Damn. Never even noticed.
  
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I definitely remember recognizing Frakes, Dorn, and de Lancie while playing through the War of the Chosen expansion for XCOM2. Also René Auberjonois on a few of the Uncharted games as well.

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- Don’t forget Marina Sirtis and Denise Crosby in XCom 2! It was quite the TNG reunion.
  
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  Yes, it certainly was! For some reason I didn't recognize their voices. It wasn't until I looked up the voice cast list to check the three that I mentioned that I found they were on it too!
  
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John De Lancie (Q) has done a lot of voice work, and acting for sure. My child was besides themselves when they found out he voiced Discord in MLP

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- Loved him as the evil Protoss in SC2.
  
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- His introduction to Breaking Bad was the moment it went from a pretty good cable drama to some of the best television ever made.
  
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Sir Patrick Stewart as the Encarta (or was it Britannica?) encyclopedia "help" narration was hilarious in how unnecessary it was.

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George Takei killed it in his role in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. (Literally and figuratively, he played a hitman-come-mob boss and a father figure to the game’s protagonist.) I wish he had more screen time in the role.

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There seem to be three distinct post-Trek futures:

genuine big shot actor

reasonably successful voice actor

B-movie "star", featured prominently on the poster and appearing for 5 minutes in the actual movie.
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- @cyd @ijeff you're missing the big one: Director. Frakes, Dawson, McNeil, Siddig... plenty of Trek actors have gone on to direct TV and film.
  
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Tim Russ and Robert Picardo are in Fallout 4.

Picardo does a fine job as the Institute scientist who is in charge of synth production; seemed very much like the EMH's role and he seemed to play it that way.

Russ, though... He's a Brotherhood of Steel guy on the Prydwyn and just seems like a more stern version of Tuvok. Not because the role called for it, but because he was just reading lines without any passion behind them. Or wasn't given proper direction (which given some things other VAs who worked on that have said is probably closer to the truth).

Patrick Stewart has also lent his voice to a Bethesda game as Uriel Septim in Oblivion.

Admin Shimmerman is in Starfield and I think it's great because his character there is a billionaire corpo dude which reminds me Quark.

Oh and I can't forget that William Shatner not only gave his voice to, he also literally wrote TekWars.

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Don't forget Cheers actors who became Star Trek actors.

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