Voice acting in video games makes for popular feature fodder – check out these two articles on vocal talent behind video games if you don’t believe me.
First up is “Characters you never knew had the same voiceover” from GamesRadar. Charlie Barrat lays out 21 examples of voice actors doubling up dubbing duties. Most of them I knew about – Princess Peach & Cortana, Marcus Fenix & Bender, etc. – but a few of them really surprised me. Like Princess Daphne and Smurfette being voiced by the lady that plays evil stepsister Anastasia in in Disney’s Cinderella. Who’d’ve thunk?
Charlie’s piece points out a similar feature run by Gameplayer, which lists the voices behind a ton of video game characters. “70 Great Game Characters Unmasked” makes for heavy reading at six pages of lists a pop, but I’m pretty sure it covers every video game voice I’ve ever heard in my life. Not counting games that let you play with the original Japanese audio.
My all-time favorite voice-over actor, though, has got to be Cam Clarke. Trite, I know – but he was both Leonardo the Ninja Turtle and He-Man Kaneda in the original Akira dub, very huge heroes of my childhood. When I hear his voice, it fills me with love even when he’s playing Solid Snake’s evil twin brother.
ETA: Whoops, wrong He-Man. John Erwin was the He-Man from my childhood. Cheers to James for pointing that out, and please don't ask me why I was watching Akira when I was six.
Characters you never knew had the same voice actor