Actor Allusion/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Actor Allusions in Video Games.

  • One Unfortunate Implications Actor Allusion is possible in the game All-Pro Football 2K8. It is possible to assign O.J. Simpson to a team called "The Assassins," where the game randomly has him do a throat-slash taunt and a large stadium robot make stabbing motions when he scores a touchdown. Oops.
  • One of the many, many throwaway gag lines in The Dig occurs when you ask one character about another, who has managed to disappear on you. "Have you seen this boy?" In pitch-perfect T-1000 inflection. Robert Patrick voiced the main character, Boston Low.
  • A bizarre example using sound effects occurred in overlooked Game Freak gem Drill Dozer. The game used many sound effects from the remakes of the original Pokémon Red and Blue games, which were made by the same company. For example, the sound effect for repairing the eponymous machine mid-level is the same as when one uses a Potion on a Pokémon in FireRed and LeafGreen. After beating the game, one could enter a code to make an aesthetic change to the game, such as the outfit of the protagonist Jill on the "Garage" menu, one of these outfits being that of the female protagonist from FireRed and LeafGreen.
  • Super Robot Wars has a lot of fun with this. When Gilliam Yeager in Original Generation runs into Masaki Andou, Masaki asks him if they've met before. Gilliam looks terrified for a moment before brushing it off with "Nope." Masaki had fought Gilliam in the Alternate Continuity that Gilliam came from, the game Hero Senki, which Gilliam was the endboss for. Also, there's references in several of the games to the appearance and/or voices of the various characters... some of which are voiced by the same voice actors ("You know, you look and sound a lot like..."), have the same character designer, or are voiced by two seiyuu who have voiced other famous roles. For example, in the Alpha series, Mobile Suit Gundam hero Amuro Ray flirts openly with Misato from Neon Genesis Evangelion: Two of their previous roles were Mamoru Chiba/Prince Endymion and Sailor Moon.
  • In The King of Fighters 2002, K9999 & Kusanagi have a special intro where K9999 yells "KUSANAGIIIIII!" and Kusanagi responds "That's Mr. Kusanagi to you!". K9999's VA voiced Tetsuo Shima in Akira, and Kusanagi's VA voiced Kaneda.
    • K9999 was practically an Expy of Tetsuo anyway. So much so, in fact, that he's not going to be used in the series again.
  • In Myst III, Brad Dourif plays Saavedro and toward the end, he gets to scream "No! NO! NO, NO, NO, NOOO, NOOO, NOOOOOO!" over and over, just like he did in his first major film role as Billy Bibbit.
  • Lego Indiana Jones includes Han Solo as an unlockable character. Both were played by Harrison Ford in their respective movies.
  • In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, best friends Snake and Otacon cheer 'Falcon PUNCH!' and 'Falcon KICK!' while fanboying mutually over Captain Falcon. The joke is that Captain Falcon was voiced by Otacon's Japanese voice actor in the non-canon anime. Snake also comments that Sonic the Hedgehog just gives him a bad feeling, which is a reference to Big Boss having the same Japanese VA as Eggman (in the English version it comes of as either a non-sequitor, a Take That to Sonic or a reference to hedgehogs eating snakes in real life).
  • The MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake featured character portraits based on the likenesses of popular actors and celebrities.[1] Big Boss in particular was modeled after Sean Connery. This is what inspired Hideo Kojima to, when planning Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (a game about Big Boss' younger days), make the story a shameless classic-James Bond homage.
  • Yuri Lowenthal voices both Yousuke Hanamura in Persona 4 and Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto. Seeing as the latter is about ninjas, it's quite amusing to see Yousuke use kunais in battle. He also gets to call out the villain on his BS, which is much like what Suzaku Kururugi did in Code Geass. ( In fact, the villain is also voiced by the same guy who voiced Lelouch.)
    • And then there's his Persona, who is a ninja.
    • More distressingly, he voices Simon in the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann dub. Leeron (who interacts with Simon fairly often) is voiced by Orochimaru.
    • In both Code Geass and Ace Combat Zero, Yuri Lowenthal's character (Suzaku and Pixy, respectively) kills Johnny Yong Bosch's character (Lelouch and PJ, respectively) at the very end.
  • From an outtake from Wing Commander III: "Isn't that the guy from Star Wars?" Readers can make their own connection, knowing that Hamill starred in WC3.
  • In God of War II, Perseus is voiced by Harry Hamlin, who had previously portrayed Perseus in the original Clash of the Titans. Kratos kills him.
  • In Brutal Legend, Ozzy Osbourne plays the head of a family of bats, who threatens to bite your head off.
  • In Baldur's Gate 2, clicking on Firkraag the dragon will result in him saying "oh, bother." The joke is that Firkraag is voiced by Jim Cummings, who also did Winnie the Pooh.
  • In BlazBlue, one of Ragna's alternate outfits has the same colors going on as Gintoki from Gintama. They're both voiced by Tomokazu Sugita.
  • In Tales of Graces, the main character Asbel Lhant not only looks like Suzaku from Code Geass, but also retains his gravity defying spinning kicks. They are both voiced by Takahiro Sakurai.
    • Further implemented by giving a Suzaku costume to Asbel as DLC. Another example is that Takahiro also voiced Haseo from .hack//GU. Malik was voiced by Ovan's voice actor as well. Hence, they both not only get DLC (and I mean, each other! Haseo and Ovan get Asbel and Malik's costumes as well in .hack//LINK), but there is a victory quote where they say lines similar to what Ovan and Haseo would have said.
    • The Tales series in general seems to love this trope. In the Play Station 3 version of Tales of Vesperia, Karol, who is voiced by Kumiko Watanabe, has a Keroro costume, and even talks like him after putting it on. Taking this further, Patty, who is voiced by Chiwa Saito, slips into her Natsumi Hinata voice after battle if they're both in the party--in one case, she calls Karol a "stupid frog", then wonders where that came from.
  • King's Quest VI, being what it is, has Prince Alexander meet the Beast (as in, from the Beauty and the Beast fairytale). Reaching his sanctuary placed Alexander under a curse, causing him to transform into a Beast himself if he doesn't find the Beast a bride in time. Robby Benson, who voices Prince Alexander, also voiced that other Beast one year earlier.
  • Many of the characters who Quinton Flynn plays are either Ax Crazy, Badass, like to Play With Fire, or all three.
    • Axel and Reno both have the same color hair, eyes, and have facial markings near their eyes are voiced by the same Japanese and English voice actor, which would be Flynn.
  • In the Disgaea series, Laharl is voiced by Barbara Goodson, previously best known for voicing Power Rangers' Rita Repulsa. In Disgaea Infinite, Laharl complains that exposure to his Kryptonite Factor[2] is giving him a headache.
  • A GameFAQs meme of responding to topics (mostly ones that question some of the design choices in the game) with "Sakurai:(Laughs)" (a response given in an interview to dodge a question) gained a spin off "Dedede: (Laughs)" after the official Super Smash Bros. website mentioned Sakurai voices King Dedede in Brawl.
  • Mark Hamill was specifically chosen to play The Obi-Wan to the main characters of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, just as Obi Wan was...uh, The Obi Wan to his other character, Luke Skywalker. The student becomes the master...
  • Fallout 3 has this, with a metal pole in the exact centre of the Capital Wasteland (i.e. the game map), reading TES-04, a reference to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a popular game by Bethesda Softworks, the company that made Fallout 3.
  • The same thing also appears in Fallout: New Vegas, with the only change being that this is visible on the majority of the metal power poles in the game, instead of just one.
  • In the first Simon the Sorcerer game, the title character was voiced by Chris Barrie. One scene involved Simon being yelled at by a dwarf in a red shirt, who told him to "smegging well naff off".
    • The second installment went so far as to have Simon quote several of Rimmer's actual lines from the show, even though Barrie was no longer voicing Simon.
  • Halo 3: ODST is based around this trope: out of the six main characters, three of them are former Firefly alumni, and Bungie refused to let gamers forget it. The most notable is Gunnery Sergeant Eddie Buck, played by Nathan Fillion. Not only is his personality a carbon copy of Mal's, Buck's face was also modelled after Fillion's. Tricia Helfer is also onboard as ONI Captain Veronica Dare--Buck's ex-girlfriend. Helfer is Fillion's ex-girlfriend in real life too. It's still an excellent game.
    • In fact, the Firefly cast had previously been in Halo 3 as unnamed infantry (at the end of one Halo 3 mission, a marine voiced by Fillon will say: "Looks like we got here in the nick of time! What does that make us?). So it's kind of a loop-de-loop of references, but Bungie certainly took advantage and gave us all a reason to care about ODST in the fist place.
    • There's also the Red vs. Blue actor cameos in the Crow's Nest level of Halo 3 (the "Password-Lacking Marine"). In all cases, they're more or less in character for Red vs. Blue.
  • This is the whole point of a downloadable extra for Call of Duty Black Ops. Call of the Dead has Buffy, Machete, Freddy and Michael fight George. Yeah.
  • In Dead Rising 2, Carl Schliff is a post man whose order and routine was completely demolished by the chaos of a zombie apocalypse, going rather insane because of it. The actor, Samuel Vincent, played Edd, who has had a nervous breakdown at least once in the show due to order, rules, and basically everything decent to him being disrupted in some way.
  • In BioShock (series), Rapture founder and capitalist Andrew Ryan is voiced by Armin Shimerman, the same man who portrays somebody who worships the almighty latinum.
  • Mass Effect 2 features the voice of Tricia Helfer as the Artificial Intelligence aboard the player's ship, in a universe where self-aware machines have been banned for trying to destroy humanity. The allusion is wonderfully climaxed with the gently delivered line "I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees."
    • There's also Michael Beattie, who plays Mordin. At one point, Mordin reveals he was in a Gilbert and Sullivan production ("Always had me do the patter songs.") and proceeds to break out in song. Beattie was part of the chorus in a television adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance.
    • In Lair of the Shadow Broker, Liara and Shepard are outside on a ship during a storm and lightning is useful element during that segment. The lightning may be a visual reference to Lightning Farron, the protagonist of Final Fantasy XIII who shares Liara's voice actress, Ali Hillis. They go to rescue Liara's friend, Feron, whose name is pronounced exactly like Lightning's last name.
    • The pilot of the Normandy, Jeff "Joker" Moreau, bears an uncanny resemblance to his voice actor, Seth Green.
    • It's also funny to hear Martin Sheen advising a powerful leader named Shepard.
    • Then, in Mass Effect 3 you can come across an outpost of Cerberus scientists led by Dr. Brynn Cole, voiced by Jo Wyatt, aka Female Hawke. She calls herself and her fellow scientists "refugees," and when questioned by Shepard, she says "our stories are different, but the themes are the same." As an added gag, Nicholas Boutlon, the actor who plays Male Hawke, voices another scientist at the station.
  • For a So Okay It's Average game, there's a hilarious moment of recognition to be found in Playstation Move Heroes. One of the two antagonists, Lunk, is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, more famous for his roles as Zim and Orthopox among other small, hammy characters. The fact that Lunk is a little, omnicidal alien already fits for Zim, etc. but take a look at his character design. The helmet (minus goggles) will look familiar.
  • A possible case in Ghostbusters the Video Game. In the very first mission of the game you fight a ghost called Pappy Sargassi, a grizzled old sailor who strongly resembles The Flying Dutchman from SpongeBob SquarePants. Just one mission later you are introduced to the mayor of New York, played by Bill Murray's older brother Brian-Doyle Murray a.k.a. The Flying Dutchman from SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • The Jerkass church guy in Left 4 Dead is voiced by the same person who voices Scout in Team Fortress 2, who is a jerkass as well.
  • In Transformers, Shockwave's (voiced by Corey Burton) voice was actually based on David Warner's performance as Sark in the movie Tron. In Kingdom Hearts II, Sark is voiced by... ...Corey Burton!
  • Many of the voice actors from Demon's Souls return voicing very similar characters in the game's Spiritual Sequel Dark Souls.
  • Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox will be voiced by Grey DeLisle in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. She previously voiced another anthro cop by the name of Kitty Katswell from Tuff Puppy.
  • In This Is the Police protagonist Jack Boyd mentions when explaining the "class" of a gentleman's club (Strip Club) that without rules he'd be jumping up on the table with the dancers yelling "Shake it baby". Jack Boyd is voiced by Jon St. John, the voice of Duke Nukem, who in Duke Nukem 3D would utter the phrase if the interact button was used on a dancer at a strip club (which generally requires jumping up on the platform).
  1. ↑ The later ports used new character portraits.
  2. ↑ Gag Boobs
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