« The Auteur | Main | The Tragic Hero »
October 17, 2005
What? We're over a Mountain!
I learned this evening that Charlie Rocket, who voiced one of the main characters in my first two games, committed suicide a little over a week ago at his home in Connecticut.
As the voice of Nym, Mr. Rocket completely brought that character to life for me. Until we received the voice recordings, Nym was a pirate captain without a soul, a character on whom we had hung a bit of a story, who had been the focus of some cutscene work.
But having the voice, this boisterous, brash, guttural boom suddenly coming out of the speakers at me really brought the character home. Nym was suddenly alive in a way that Rhys Dallows and Vana Sage never were. Even Adi Gallia, who had actually been a character in Episode 1 (albeit briefly), never felt as real to me as Nym did. And the voice was a huge part of that.
I guess part of it was that he was a main character in my first game; in fact, it was the first game for at least a few folks on the team. I had helped invent the character near the beginning of the project -- a pirate captain with a whole set of missions as a bit of an anti-hero -- and he had later been better incorporated into the storyline when we added a proper writer to the project¹.
The title of this post refers to something of a weird project battle cry, taken from one of the voice lines Rocket had done. I don't think the direction on that particular line had been all that clear, and it came out a little confused -- we ended up pulling the line from the shipping product and refactoring the mission in which it appeared.
But from that point on, whenever we needed a little comic relief, or when the pressure of being the company's first PS2 game was a little high, or when we were all just a little confused ourselves, someone would yell out the line in their best befuddled Nym impression. It was good for a laugh every time, a little letting off of steam. It continued to be in the years afterwards, and I'll occasionally get it in the odd instant message from an old teammate to this day.
I never met him, but he touched my life in a small way. I'm saddened by his passing.
¹Haden Blackman, still at LucasArts. Haden came back and helped us out for JSF as well, before he went off and got so super-involved with that MMO in a galaxy far, far away. (back)
Posted by Brett Douville at October 17, 2005 10:29 PM
Comments
Good old Charlie Rocket - in something else yet again....
He touched the lives of many people through his work - he just never knew it.
click on name for reasons for suicide
“ in memory of Charles Rocket”
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/yasmin_anjumuk/my_photos
Posted by: yasmin at April 19, 2007 08:44 PM