Can we please call an emergency moratorium on Nolan North appearing in any more video games? After appearing as the loveable scamp Nathan Drake in Naughty Dog’s highly revered Uncharted series, the prolific voice actor has been passed around every game studio like a nasty infectious disease. Nowadays, it’s a relief to not hear his dulcet ‘every-man’ tones pollute another gaming protagonist.
It’s not just his indistinct Connecticut accent that’s replicated, but the entire Nathan Drake persona is shared among every character he voices. He’s cocky, self-confident and sure of himself, but isn’t quite used to the thrill of shooting dudes, driving cars over dangerous terrains and hanging perilously over yawning icy caverns. While Marcus Fenix or the entire cast of Call of Duty, all trained soldiers who have seen more battles than I’ve seen episodes of Friends, might yell out a “F**k Yeah!” or a “Hoo-Hah!” at the sight of imploded skulls and giant fiery blasts, North’s characters are more likely to say “Holy Sh*t!” or “Crap! Crap! Crap!”
It’s probably not Mr. North’s fault, I’m sure he shows up to each and every job and asks “So how do you want your protagonist to sound? I can do grizzled war veteran, Italian Mafioso gangster, Venice Beach surfer dude… oh, and I can do a mean Christopher Walken impression!” And, as if by clockwork, the developer will say “Can you do the voice you do in Uncharted? We liked that one.”
Maybe it’s just that Nathan Drake was one of the best played and thoroughly three dimensional video game characters since Pac Man’s famous drug addled, gun-toting redemption speech in Pac-Land 2 on Atari Lynx, and developers think they can borrow a little of Uncharted’s magic by just hiring the same voice actor. Or maybe Nolan North has a really good agent.
It doesn’t really work though – for one, any stalwart Uncharted fan will only ever hear his voice as Nathan Drake. Fans associate actors with their favourite roles, and it’s hard to accept them as anyone else – kind of like that film Brothers, which is pretty much about Spiderman and Donnie Darko fighting over Padmé Amidala. And secondly, Nolan North is only half of what makes Nathan Drake so great – he’s just reading the lines and infusing them with his personality; without Amy Henning’s fantastic script to read from, he’s a little lost.
Whatever the reason, after playing the demo for Dark Void on Xbox Live, he’s finally hit critical mass for me. I can’t take it anymore, he’s everywhere! For lead characters, after finishing up Uncharted he was The Prince in the latest Prince of Persia game, Romeo in Halo 3: ODST, Desmond Miles in Assassin’s Creed, Salem in Army of Two: The 40th Day, William Grey in Dark Void and Jason Flemming in Shadow Complex. According to Wikipedia he was also the Male Hero in Fable II… I guess they used his farts and belches, for that authentic game protagonist feel?
He’s also very prolific among background characters and other roles – he appeared as a random soldier in Gears of War 2, Sgt Forge in Halo Wars, Dobkin in the Terminator Salvation game and Sideswipe in the Transformers 2 game. He will play Steven Heck in Sega’s upcoming Alpha Protcol, he was Clank’s robot friend Sigmund in Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, he portrayed a bunch of characters in MadWorld and was recently Crochet in The Saboteur.
Despite absolutely adoring his character in both Uncharted games, he’s starting to get on my nerves. I can’t seem to escape his voice, no matter where I run and no matter what console I play on. Big action games, little Xbox Live Arcade games and even Ratchet and Clank! Has he no shame?
A man’s gotta eat, and I admire his dedication to the craft, but video game developers – can’t we have some variety?
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January 11th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
This guy’s been around. O.O
January 11th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
This is just like Michael McConnohie – Crackdown, Red Faction, Mass Effect etc He has been around the gaming tree as well. Ooo, and Jennifer Hale – most worked woman, ever!
January 11th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
There does seem to be a few names involved in most projects when it comes to voice work, not just in video games but on the small screen too – look for the ubiquitous Tara Strong and Grey DeLisle on IMDB!
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:25 pm
lmao at Pacman 2’s famous speech!
I never really notice this North fellow to be honest, but then I’ve never played Uncharted.