Give us more awkward celebrity cameos at video game live shows
Summer Game Fest finally provided a hit of the content I need
I'm sad to say that I've long passed the stage where covering a trailer show like Summer Game Fest makes me feel almost nothing, because for me it's a work event where I have to stay up to 1am drinking emergency Fanta, writing posts while I try to remember the name of yer man, you know, from the first game, the guy with the hair. But you know what makes me feel something? An established film and TV actor only bothering to fix his hair a minimal amount before he films a front facing phone camera video to intro a clearly terrible TV based on a game. Goddamn, that's the stuff.
I'll clarify that the upcoming Twisted Metal TV show has a bizarrely stacked cast, and I'm a big fan of Will Arnett (although, sucks to be Samoa Joe, a pro-wrestler who does all the everything else of the clown Sweet Tooth, while Arnett provides the voice). You can just imagine the email from his agent coming through kind of last minute, like "Hey Will, Susan at NBC has asked if you can record a 30 second intro to the arcade fight scene for some video game show", and Will, because he's a pro, smashed it out in two takes max before he went downstairs to make toast for breakfast. Like, he doesn't even leave the editor a second of room to fade to black before turning the camera off, just instantly DONEZO and we get to see his arm reaching up and his eyes glaze over.
In contrast, Nic Cage came on with the energy of an Oscar winner who for some reason was genuinely hyped to be on stage next to Geoffrey "How About That?" Keighley. His shiny cuban heels, the way he almost instantly negged Geoff and the entire audience live to the rest of world with the delivery of "I'm so happy to be invited to your very very cool club"; the man is a living icon. He did actually had some great prepared answers for why he was pleased to be a playable character in Dead By Daylight (he likes that Sadako from The Ring is in it), but the best bit is when Cage - who is playing a version of himself as a Survivor - talked about voicing himself. He said, in true Nic Cage style, "I wan't you to know that we're one, that we're fused." Cage also revealed that someone very important in his family is a DBD enthusiast. I'm calling Francis Ford Coppola on that one. Bet that man likes pretending to be Ghostface and hunting down nerds.
The conventional celebrity E3 cameo used to be a weird mainstay. These days film and TV actors are less confused by the whole video game thing, because a bunch of them are pushing out dedicated game voice actors by taking all the leading roles. Mocap and face mapping technology has made it easier than ever to just put some guy from Hollywood in your game, if you have enough money, so when Chris Pratt inevitably gets pushed, blinking, into the spotlight to talk about voicing the rebooted Crash Bandicoot, he'll understand enough to pretend he's liked Crash since he was nine years old. And it won't seem out of place to us, because famous actor cameos will be commonplace by then.
Right now we're still in the last years where a film star appearing in his shiny suit feels like an adult coming to visit the kids table at a wedding. It's special and weird. Whether you can see the contractual obligation behind their smile like Will Arnett, or whether they are obviously slightly confused about what's going on but loving life like Keanu Reeves, or whether they just instantly walk off again like Yoko Ono did that one time - or, indeed, whether they can work a room like nobody else like Nicolas actual Cage - these always have been and always will be my favourite moments of any E3 or not E3 showcase. If for nothing else, I will thank Geoff Keighly for still doing them, and hope that they only continue. There is theoretically a world where Kojima, Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Cage all come on to yell at us at once. What a world that would be.
NotE3 and Summer Game Fest 2023 is over for another year. You can find out all the latest news by visiting our E3 2023 hub, or you can catch up with our round-up posts of everything that was announced at Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, the PC Gaming Show, Day Of The Devs, and our top highlights from the Wholesome Direct.