If one aspect helped define the character of Snake more than anything else in the original
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David Hayter reprises his role as Solid Snake for the sequel. |
Metal Gear Solid, it was his gruff voice, created by David Hayter, a well-known voice-over actor who also wrote the script for the X-Men movie and is currently at work on Watchmen and X-Men 2. According to Hayter, the way Snake sounds in the game was an accident. "I've never told anyone this before, but the voice I auditioned for Snake is actually different than the voice we ended up using," he says at home in Los Angeles. "I honestly couldn't remember what voice I had auditioned with when I went to do the real job. And when we reviewed the audition tape, we found that Snake initially sounded a lot like me--but for some reason I made his voice a lot rougher for the real deal."
The real deal would happen again over the summer months of 2001, as Hayter would spend more than three weeks reading through some 800 pages of dialogue in a Los Angeles recording studio. The recording sessions happened under the voice direction of Kris Zimmerman and were supervised by Konami's Scott Dolph, who, in addition to being the inspiration for the game's Commander Scott Dolph character, also had a hand in translating all the dialogue from Japanese to English.
Hayter says that he was always keen to come back and reprise his role as Snake, even though this summer he was in the midst of writing four different screenplays. "I love this character, and it's always fun when people find out I'm the voice of Snake," Hayter explains. "I don't look like him, so you wouldn't know it on the street, but sometimes people find out and get incredibly excited." Such an occurrence happened recently to Hayter when his friend James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek) brought his brother into town. "We were all out at a bar, and when I said I did the voice of Snake, his brother just freaked out. He wanted me to talk as Snake for the rest of the night," remembers Hayter. "That was a great moment for me."
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A new addition to the cast is Quinton Flynn as Raiden. |
Hayter spent a significant amount of time in the studio, but for most of the time he was joined by a new member of the cast: Quinton Flynn, the voice of Raiden. Flynn is a veteran actor who has voiced characters such as Johnny Quest and Timon in the TV version of Disney's The Lion King. Both Hayter and Flynn admit they had no idea about Raiden's extensive role in the game when they first showed up for work on the sequel. "No one told me ahead of time about Raiden," admits Hayter. "But I sort of figured out eventually that I was coaching Quinton's character along." Hayter says that even now he isn't sure how much Snake is in the game. But he plans to find out soon when he plays his copy--he claims to have completed the first MGS game five times over.
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Snake and Raiden spend significant time in the game talking with each other. |
For Flynn, joining the project as Raiden was a great opportunity for a meaty role--the only problem was that he couldn't tell anyone that he had landed the gig. "I couldn't tell anyone I was playing Raiden," he recalls. "But a few days into the project they did say to me, 'Quinton, mum's the word, but you are kind of the new Snake.' That was pretty exciting to hear."
Flynn says he immensely enjoyed the process of working in the studio with Konami and Hayter. In fact, he goes as far as to say that Metal Gear Solid 2 is his favorite voice-over project to date. "Through Raiden I got to go through the journey of life we all go through--making choices and decisions and sometimes finding out that those choices aren't where we want to go," he says. "I definitely associated with Raiden's voyage and was amazed that a video game written in Japanese could have this strong a script. It really felt like a motion picture project to me."
By mid-July the team had finished recording all the key dialogue for the English version of the game. Dolph immediately said good-bye to the voice cast and returned to Tokyo with the DAT tapes, ready to prepare the dialogue for insertion into the game. Will the actors meet up again in the studio? While neither Flynn nor Hayter is signed on to do additional Metal Gear games, both say they would be happy to reprise their roles if the series continues.
But continuing the series was not on Kojima's mind in the summer of 2001--he was more concerned with figuring out if it was possible to finish this game before the holidays. With 2001 more than halfway over and the game still lagging behind schedule, Matsuhana and Kojima made an important decision: More team members would be needed if the game had a hope of coming out in 2001.
Submerging
All in the Family
