Three of Chicago’s top talents, who have voiced major roles in Halo “Combat Evolved” games, will be part of the exciting 3-day HaloFest this weekend, Aug. 26-28, in Seattle’s Washington Conference Center, where 80,000 passionate “Combat” fans are expected to attend.
Steve Downes, famously known as the game’s lead character, “Master Chief,” Pete Stacker, ship commander “Commander Jacob Keyes,” (also a UNSC Marine sergeant named after him in Halo 3) and Tim Dadabo, the evil nemesis “343 Guilty Spark,” and will help celebrate Halo games’ 10th anniversary.
The anniversary celebration marks the first time all principals of Halo games will be in attendance at the same time.
The premise of Halo games, as every fanatic video gamer knows, “is that humans discovered rings, created by alien creatures believed to be gods, and called the rings Halos,” explains Dadabo, an enthusiastic gamer himself.
“When we humans find that these Halos seek to destroy and inhabit us, we, of course, attack them, with ‘Master Chief’ leading the charge. But it’s much, much deeper than that. It truly has an epic story-line.”
Since Downes, Stacker and Dadabo’s character voices are integral to the games, they continue to be recorded in Chicago at Resolution Digital Studios. Other roles are recorded in Los Angeles and Seattle.
Actors have voiced game characters for 12 years
Dadabo recalls the first video game he, Downes and Stacker recorded back in 1999, which subsequently led to their famous Halo roles. They were cast by Marty O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori’s River West recording studio, TotalAudio, for a Valkyrie Studios’ video game called “Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator.”
Shortly thereafter, Bungie Studios of Chicago, located a few blocks from TotalAudio’s studio, contracted TotalAudio to compose and produce music for several projects, including “Halo: Combat Evolved.” O’Donnell, who had liked the work of the three actors on “Septerra,” called them back them for the new Halo game and launched what became an enduring and rewarding relationship with the gamemaker.
TotalAudio’s engineer was Bryan Hensley, who continues to record the actors’ dialog tracks at RDS.
In 2000, Bungie Studios hired O’Donnell 10 days before they sold the company to Microsoft and O’Donnell moved to Seattle along with Bungie’s personnel. Microsoft took their then-current project and made it their launch title for Microsoft’s new Xbox console, called “Halo: Combat Evolved.”
Halo went on to become the Xbox’s “killer application,” selling millions of copies and spawning a billion dollar franchise.
Bungie, feeling constrained by its vast parent company, amicably split with Microsoft in 2009, with Microsoft retaining the Halo franchise under the name of 343 Industries. Bungie later incorporated and signed a 10-year publishing deal with Activision Blizzard.
Salvatori remained in Chicago and presently works out of RDS and continues to be involved in Halo games. He is presently writing music for an undisclosed video game.
Downes, Stacker, Dadabo are non-stop working talent
The three Halo actors, represented by Stewart Talent, are established, versatile in-demand talents heard on a multitude of different types of projects.
Steve Downes is a national rock ‘n’ roll radio icon, who hosts the morning show on local classic rock station, WDRV The Drive 97.1 and a Sunday syndicated show, “The Classics.” He’s also been a voiceover for 20 years, most recently heard on Best Buy commercials and upcoming promos for the Big Ten Network. He says he frequently attends Halo game conventions throughout North America and the one in Seattle will definitely be the biggest.
In-demand Pete Stacker voices major national advertising campaign; he’s the main promo voice on “Comedy Central” including the announcer on “The Colbert Report” and “Country Music CMT” and currently does all the syndication promos for “The Big Bang Theory.”
A non-stop commercial talent, Tim Dadabo’s most recent project was voicing the character “Shamus” in a Diet Dr. Pepper spot. He’s played characters in other games, including “Disney’s Guilty Party” from Chicago-based Wideload, which Disney acquired in 2009.
The three leads recorded tracks for Halo’s newest game, “Halo 10th Anniversary Edition,” and Dadabo notes, “There’s a Halo 4 in the works for late 2012.”
Click here to see the official trailer.
