Who is Jennifer Hale? Chances are you already know the answer to that question. You may not know her by that particular name, but if you're a fan of video games you almost certainly know her by another. Does the name Bastila Shan ring any bells? If that name doesn't sound familiar then do the names Naomi Hunter or Emma Emmerich? Certainly, it would take a very ignorant gamer not to at least recognize either the name of Samus Aran or that of Commander Shepard? These are just a few of Jennifer Hale's aliases. Bastila is, of course, a Jedi from the Knights of the Old Republic games and the player's main love interest in the first game. Naomi and Emma are prominent figures from the Metal Gear Solid Series. Samus is the main protagonist from the Metroid games and Commander Shepard is the lead figure from Mass Effect. (Hale did the voice work for the female Shepard.)



Jennifer Hale is a voice actress and probably everyone in the video game industry is familiar with at least one of her many roles, even if they didn't know the name of the person behind it. She has voiced an incredible number of the most famous female characters in video game history. The roles listed on her official wikipedia page are nothing less than a tour de force of the industry's most important and best beloved female characters. You won't find Lara Croft or Alyx Vance on that list, but you'll find plenty of other household names. Hale's versatility to replicate so many different voices across such a broad range of female characters is remarkable. So why is it that many people probably have no idea who Jennifer Hale actually is when most of us have probably fallen in love with at least one of her characters over her incredible career? Compare the wikipedia page that I posted for her to the one for Ninja Gaiden director Tomonobu Itagaki. You'll find that there is really no comparison between them. Hale's page is barely more than a laundry list of different roles she has played. It doesn't even contain a picture of her. Tomonobu Itagaki's seems to contain his entire life story. One of these two seems to be viewed as a real person with an actual biography and history while the other is apparently less real than her Fall-From-Grace character from the renowned RPG Planescape: Torment. Why is this?



I suspect at least part of the answer lies with Hale herself. She's a mysterious figure and part of it apparently by choice. Looking at her official website, I can't find a single picture she's chosen to show that doesn't have her face either blurred, partially covered or in some other way hidden from view. It's an odd paradox for an actress that she seems fully intent on hiding her face from public view.



Oh sure, a Google search will turn up a picture or two , but Hale herself almost seems to want to hide behind her characters. An alternative explanation is that she has no need to hog the glory or the credit for a great game when she is just one piece among many that make such amazing games a success, but I digress.



Usually, wherever you look around for information on Hale, it shows barely more than the same list of parts she's played that her Wikipedia page shows. She remains an intensely private figure. Personal details about her are remarkably hard to find, be it on her own website or through Google searches. She's been some of the most important characters in video game lore and we hardly know her. Does this woman even exist beyond her characters? This is the complete opposite of some of the other prominent figures in the industry who almost seem to want to wallow in the fact that we know who they are. Itagaki, for example, is rarely seen not smiling for a camera with sunglasses on, indoors or out, to show how cool he is. He's always there, thrusting himself front and center into the spotlight. You can pretty much find out everything there is to know about him in about fifteen seconds. He is as shallow as his games are. Pretty to look at and fun to play, but ultimately rather forgettable and containing little complexity in storyline or character. To a certain extent this dichotomy is understandable. After all, Itagaki is the director of some popular major video game titles, not merely a two-bit voice actor. In a manner of speaking, he would be Hale's boss if they ever actually worked together for a game. (Which seems unlikely given how Itagaki portrays female characters in the Ninja Gaiden and the Dead or Alive games he's done versus which roles Hale tends to enjoy and accept playing.) But it does invite the question, why, with a resume and a history as impressive as Hale's is, do so few people have any idea who she is?

I would think that companies that secured Hale's services for their next major game would go out of their way to broadcast that fact. When an A-List Hollywood actor signs on to play a role in a new movie, the director almost always makes sure that the entire world knows this fact. The actor is a star after all. Let's look at Russell Crowe for example. We can name off the top of our head three or four movies we've seen and enjoyed him in without even thinking hard. Having Russell Crowe sign on to your next movie makes it more likely that people will go see the movie. Having him agree to be in it helps sell it, so naturally when he agrees to work on a film his image is used in commercials, trailers, etc. to help market it. So why not do the same for games? Why not include in game trailers, when you're listing all the exciting things that an upcoming game has to offer, the major selling point that a star actor has agreed to work with you on it? Why not say something like: "Featuring the voice acting talents of Jennifer Hale, the lady who brought you such memorable characters as Bastila Shan, Samus Aran and Naomi Hunter"? It isn't hard to see how this could be a good selling point either. Hang around long enough, and you'll find a female video game character that you'll grow deeply attached to. Maybe not in the romantic sense, but in a sense that you grow to urgently care what happens to them and feel genuine unhappiness if they experience hardship or tragedy. Good actors make you grow attached. Lots of people go watch Denzel Washington act because they had a great time the last time they watched him act. It could and perhaps should be the same with characters in video games.



Good voice acting can make a character come alive and seem real in a way that nothing else can, because it is real. It is a real person's voice! This is something that stellar graphics just haven't mastered yet.



Mass Effect was justifiably lauded for its remarkable facial expressions and body language, but nobody is ever going to mistake the characters on the screen for real people. As good as the graphics are, we never forget that they're just good graphics and hence that the characters are just that: made up beings. Graphics just have not advanced far enough to be indistinguishable from reality at a glance. A voice on the other hand is different. We can all recall thinking we heard someone talking to us only to realize "oh, it was just the TV." When sound work for a game is done well, and the player has high quality sound equipment to listen to it on, our ability to differentiate between the voice of someone who is physically present and a voice coming from a game or show is diminished enough to approach zero. I can think of no better way to aid immersion into a game, no more effective method to blur the line between fantasy and reality, than superior voice acting. Maybe that is part of the problem. When someone has been consistently great for a long enough time, we start to take that greatness for granted. We fail to really appreciate it until it is gone. One of the things that helped sell the recent Metal Gear Solid game was the line "this will be my last mission" in the trailer. Suddenly people realized, "Holy ****! It's the last time we'll get to appreciate the Snake character!" Well, I'm not going to forget to show appreciation. Hale has brought too many characters into my life that I'll remember forever for me not to appreciate and applaud her efforts. So, to end this I just want to say "thank you" and "a job well done" to all the people, like Hale, who labor behind the scenes to make us a game that we'll never forget about and go back and play a decade later. So, to Jennifer and to all the others like who her labor in anonymity, thanks for all your efforts to bring something memorable and special into the games that we play.