Listen to Two Different Grayson Burrows Voiceovers (January 30, 2023)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
LOAF and the team are busy working on Privateer-themed projects over on the CIC Discord server, and that inspired me to share a quick comparison that some players might have overlooked. Everyone loves the Privateer intro. It's memorable, action-packed and showcases the cutting edge of 1993 multimedia prowess. "Who are you that flies so good!? Are you insane?!" And you can probably imagine Brownhair's quips as he cruises around the asteroid belt in his Tarsus, but did you know there are two different voiceover tracks? The original 3.5" disks had an intro with spoken dialogue recorded by local talent. When the game's speech was fully recorded for the CD edition, a new voice actor was brought in to read everything, including the intro. You can compare the two side-by-side below! The disk version is first and CD second:




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Original update published on January 30, 2023
 
I think it's an improvement. I thought the voice actors for Privateer also overlapped with the voice actors for Strike Commander. For example, I recall Gwen of the Wildcats sounding very similar to the female pirates of Privateer. I thought Burrows' (CD) voice was also one of the Wildcats - Tex? I can't remember all the names...
 
That's right. Unfortunately the games didn't always/often credit work-for-hire folks at that time, so there's not a readily available cast listing. But they were all drawn from the (small at the time) Austin professional voice acting community... folks who would've been doing primarily local commercials, cable access stuff, public broadcasting, etc.
 
What credits do we have?

There are no credits for voice acting for the disk or the SAP. The CD version has voice credits but does not list roles.

We do have credits for a number of other Origin games that use largely the same group of actors though, sometimes with roles known… we could make a list of all of those and all the Privateer roles… and solve it like a fun mystery. I will get started on the spreadsheet but I have a tin ear and will need someone to try and identify the folks! (Sounds like a good Discord project for tonight.)
 
I've started to put together a knowledge base for these Privateer credits. Here's a Google Sheets link that anyone can comment on: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15fKAeVs9f2gDZ2jMws5GA90FcqaXvO57HmHpbdzpe1k/edit?usp=sharing

What I know so far: Privateer CD credits 17 actors and has 66 total roles. Many of these are certainly doubled up and we could probably figure out which with a little time to listen to tem all (for instance, the 6+ mission-specific Retros are probably all the same two actors).

The SAP credits no one and has 17 total roles. My guess is that many of these are shared but there's no documentation; someone with a better ear than I have would need to compare them all. Of these 17 roles only four (two merchants and two bases) carry over to the CD... which suggests that 13 of them may well go to an unknown number actors who DON'T appear on the CD credits. Good luck unwrangling that!

I'm just starting to look through the other credits of the known actors and will likely be popping that data in through tomorrow. Lots of folks who worked on other Origin games so there's a lot to compare this too (even some who went on to feature in Austin-developed live action stuff like Crusader).
 
Unfortunately the games didn't always/often credit work-for-hire folks at that time, so there's not a readily available cast listing.
So it seems. I found a list - no idea how accurate - of voice credits for Strike Commander on IMDb, but nothing for Privateer.
 
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