Nolan North, You Are Not Samuel L. Jackson

I write this not because I think Nolan North has a misconception about the existence of a country called 'What,' but because I'm concerned that Mr. North doesn't quite have the same ubiquitous appeal as Jackson, despite the recent casting decisions made by many developers.

I like Nolan North. I think he does great voice work, especially wielding the dry wit of Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, but I'm starting to wonder if he might not be getting a tad over exposed. I mean, he's already typecast as the Lovable Rogue--which, as far as typecasting goes, is pretty good--but it sometimes feels like the man is in every game I play. Assassin's Creed 2 is the latest in a long list that has got me thinking about it.

As Desmond, North's character in AC2, was opening the game, I immediately recognized North's voice and couldn't dissociate it from Nathan Drake's. Did he voice Desmond in the first game too? Curious, I looked up the voice credits for AC1 and, lo-and-behold he had done the voice work for the original as well, before he exploded as the voice of Drake back in 2007.

This past summer North also starred as the voice of Jason Fleming in the biggest-selling Xbox Live title to date, Shadow Complex. Jason so much resembled Nathan Drake that many people took to calling the game Uncharted Complex.

In 2008, North starred as the re-imagined Prince in the newest Prince of Persia. Again, north seemed to play Nathan Drake, adapted to a mythical ancient Persia-type setting.

So, North has starred in two Assassin's Creed games, two Uncharted games, Shadow Complex and Prince of Persia, for a total of six mega-selling triple-A titles all released within the past two years.

Aside from this already exorbitant amount of exposure, North has done videogame voice work for Dragon Age: Origins, Halo 3, Halo ODST, Transformers 2, inFamous, Madworld, Gears of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Dark Sector, Lost Odyssey, Unreal Tournament III, Spider-Man 3, TMNT, Rachet and Clank: Size Matters, Lost Planet, Resistance: Fall of Man, SOCOM, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Saints Row, Call of Duty 2, God of War, Everquest II and, in addition, only about a hundred cartoons and television shows. He's also already slated for what seems to be a major supporting role in Obsidian's upcoming RPG/FPS, Alpha Protocol.

Again, I do enjoy North's work. However, the fact that I now recognize his voice in most games I play, even if it's just as Red Shirt #1, is really starting to hurt my sense of immersion and investment. Not so much when North is playing backup, but when the leads from three of my favorite series start to become some strange amalgamation of Assassin/Prince/Fortune Hunter, it really does make me stop, think "North has his fingers in this one too?" and wonder why it is that so many developers see him as a buoy for character development and likability.

He's good. He's not so good to keep from being instantly recognizable and slightly grating as when he (too often) plays only slight variations of Drake's character. There are lots of videogame voice actors that also seem to be in every game, but, to their credit, their characters are more diverse in disposition.

I guess I'm worried that North is commanding too much of a monopoly on the male-lead parts in the videogame casting world. I like his work, but I don't want to hear him in everything I play and, if I must, I really want him to start trying harder and not just settle into channeling Nathan Drake for every character.

Is it just me? What do you guys think? Do you notice him too, or is his mile-long list of credits a surprise to you? If you have noticed him, has it bothered you?

Edit: Also, does it bother anyone else that the characters he plays the same all look similar to each other (and to him!) to boot?

A Fistful of Dollars...Thousands and Thousands of Dollars

As those who watch my gamerscore on the left there over there <--- may know, I've been playing Assassin's Creed II lately. A lot has been said about the game, mostly good (though there's a certain truth to this Destructoid review of AC2 that almost made me want to toss my copy in the garbage. I didn't. The quibbles addressed exist, but they're not game-ruining), mostly touching on how AC2 is more ambitious and better executed that its predecessor. This is all true, in my assessment, but one new mechanic that was added, a fairly hefty one, isn't getting the praise it deserves. The economy in AC2 is something that more game developers need to pay attention to.

Plenty of games out there use money. Gil, rupees, coins, rings, bottlecaps and plain old dollars get tossed around in videogames like they don't even matter. And that's the problem: they don't. Too many games out there suffer from broken economies in which the player, usually no further than midgame, is richer than God and looks better than him too because of all the sweet armor he's bought. Money might mean the difference between a better gun, sword or shield in the first few hours of the game, but by the time the player has handled a few quests the money is their pocket is reduced to free whatever-you-want vouchers.

Two recent-ish games whose economies have disappointed me sorely: Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3. Both games attempt, and largely succeed, at creating intricate, believable worlds inhabited by (somewhat) believable characters that interact in a believable way. The only glaring fault, for me, is that my interaction with them is different because I can buy and sell their assess just as fast as I can snap my fingers. In GTAIV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, the most recent GTA experience I've had, I was swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck within the first hour of my game. I could have cars delivered to me for free, I could take weapons from my enemies, buy discount weapons from my friends and every mission gave me enough money to wallpaper my apartment with. I was being given too much money, and I didn't even need to spend it to begin with. My megabucks became an empty number; I didn't feel empowered by the growth of my in-game bank account because it had no value to my character.

Similarly, in Fallout 3, I left the vault with maybe fifty caps looted from the vault guards I had downed. After an hour or two wandering the wasteland, shooting and looting raiders and prying open every metal box and locker I could find I had just enough money to get myself comfortably outfitted at Megaton's weapons shop. I was impressed. I felt like my money had been hard-fought and earned, and the classy new armor and death-deliverers it translated into were worth the time and effort I put into getting them. Looking for money wasn't easy, but it was worth it, I thought. This wasteland is tough, but I like it, and I'm going to get out there and conquer it, I thought. Jump just a few hours ahead and I had already killed for some of the better weapons in the game and received a free suit of the (almost) best armor in the game from one of the fallen brotherhood soldiers. Jump ahead a few more hours, when I no longer needed to barter for caps, when I simply started to round up what the merchant owed me in Stimpaks (of which I now no longer dipped below a reservoir of 200 in my inventory) and I'm starting to feel like I am the one-man second coming of capitalism in the wasteland. Sadly, none of the golden eggs of the game, the unique weapons and armor, we purchasable, only findable. What if one or two of them could have only been bought? Where was my motivation to accrue money and spend it wisely? Why did Fallout and GTAIV's economies drop the ball and leave me feeling like my money was only for show?

It's because neither game gave me enough appropriate reasons and places to spend my money. Sure, both games technically have hundred of places to buy stuff, but they all sold the same things: just stuff, stuff I could find in the world just as easily as I could pay for it. Both games lacked imagination in offering me ways to spend cash. The options were spend money on one-off things that don't matter, like going out to eat or paying off a slave-trader (when I could have just as easily killed or persuaded him) or use it to buy items I would encounter piles of out in the game world. In this respect, AC2 really does rise above.

In AC2 there are the usual things like armor, weapons and healing to spend your money on. Where AC2 diversifies is in your ability to invest your money, and gain through spending. AC2 encourages the player to spend money to increase the value of their hub area, a small Villa in the Italian countryside. Everything the player buys, from armor to weapons to local art increases the return they get on the Villa. The Villa pays out a certain sum every twenty minutes, and this sum increases with the assets (armor, weapons, art, lots of collectibles) acquired by the player. This sum also has a cap, so the player must withdraw the money frequently in order to earn more. This isn't always possible, since the player must actually return to the Villa to get it (sometimes annoying, but I'm making a point about the intelligently controlled flow of money), so the money is your Villa is safe, but it doesn't grow infinitely. The Villa's return also increases for every full set of armor or weapons bought, and also for every building the player chooses to renovate in the Villa, so you end up buying a lot of things you might otherwise ignore, because maybe a mace isn't part of your playstyle, and giving them a try. None of this stuff comes cheap, either. Just one sword can easily wipe out what Ezio, the main character, is carrying on him and this means doing more missions or heading back to the Villa. Even paying for new clothes comes with a clever caveat: you're paying to dye your clothes, not get new ones, so you never amass a wardrobe. Every time you feel like flashing some new colors it's going to cost you, and every new city you visit has about five new dye schemes.

There are other games that handle in-game economy quite well (Valkyria Chronicles comes to mind), but few games in the action genre really know what to do with it. AC2 doesn't have the developed economy of a Sid Meier game, but the economy also isn't a central feature in AC2. The game is primarily about climbing and killing. The economy is there for players that want to get everything in the game--and not just have it handed to them, but to earn it. Do you want to be a rich assassin or a poor assassin? It's just a small question in a thoroughly satisfying game.