During the Irrational Games Voice Actor panel at PAX Prime 2011, there were a lot of great questions from those in attendance, questions we sadly couldn’t answer due to a lack of time. Fortunately, we heard many of them from the Irrational Games community, so we decided to pay tribute to our fans in this latest installment of Irrational Interviews by going straight to the source for the answers.

In this episode, Creative Director Ken Levine is joined by BioShock Infinite voice actors Troy Baker (Booker DeWitt) and Courtnee Draper (Elizabeth), as they tackle questions taken directly from our audience. Things kick off with Ken, Troy and Courtnee discussing the process of voice acting, how they approach their characters in BioShock Infinite, the emotions involved in a memorable performance, and even the collaborative process between the actors and director.

The podcast closes out as our trio explores how their characters evolve over the project, and how they identify with them as they become more familiar with the roles. Each person has a different perspective on how they learn about the characters, but the actors are able to shape the Booker and Elizabeth relationship as they build the connection between each other.

Share your thoughts about this podcast in the comments below, or head over to the forums for a more in-depth discussion.

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• Produced by James Bonney, Eduardo Vasconcellos, and Julian Murdoch
• Editing by Ant Bear Audio
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

Guillermo del Toro is known for films like Blade 2, Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy series, bringing a specific brand of horror to his works, but it’s his passion for the nerd culture and a love for games that has guided him to where he is today.

In this second part of our Guillermo del Toro interview, Creative Director Ken Levine chats with Guillermo about what’s necessary to tell a story in a brand new medium, and how he’s adapting to the gaming industry to ensure his upcoming projects live up to his standards. These two narrators also discuss how to tell stories in various mediums, and how flexibility and dedication are necessities to the creative process.

To close out the interview, Ken and Guillermo return to the concept of passion, and how hard work and persistence will lead to bigger and better things.“At the end of the day, it’s about love. You can love wherever you are and you can love whatever you’re doing,” says del Toro. “I don’t want to sound like Mr. Chirpy, but put your shoulder to it, and put your heart into it.”

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• Produced by James Bonney & Julian Murdoch
• Editing by Ant Bear Audio
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

Guillermo del Toro is known for films like Blade 2, Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy series, bringing a specific brand of horror to his works, but it’s his passion for the nerd culture and a love for games that has guided him to where he is today.

For this Halloween installment of Irrational Interviews, Creative Director Ken Levine had a chance to sit down with this master of horror to talk about how to tell a frightening story, and how to create a character that is a monster to better suit the narrative at hand. Levine and del Toro also chat about the concept of passion, passion for what they do, and how that kind of enthusiasm helps on each project they work on.

“Films are fantastic – they are one of the peaks of human narrative. But I’m sorry to break the news to the movie industry: So is a video game.” – Guillermo del Toro

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• Produced by James Bonney & Chris Remo
• Editing by Ant Bear Audio
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

This episode of Irrational Interviews features two guests. That’s particularly noteworthy, because either one of them alone has a list of accomplishments a mile long.

Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk co-founded BioWare, the RPG-oriented group that now consists of five locations within Electronic Arts. They started out as doctors (actual practicing medical doctors, mind you), and BioWare was once a developer of games as well as medical software.

As a fellow entrepreneur, Irrational creative director Ken Levine chats with the doctors about the challenges and perks of running a video game company–all three have seen their studios grow from small PC-exclusive teams to modern, triple-A, multiplatform dev studios. They also share the experience of starting out in fields not particularly related to games, Ken in screenwriting and Ray and Greg in medicine.

“We were having lunch one day after having made some medical education software,” recalls Ray, “then we realized what we’re really passionate about is video games. Why don’t we just make some video games? Take everything we own, and everything we make as doctors on weekends, to fund the company. …That was the extent of the conversation.”

It seems to have worked out.

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• Produced by James Bonney & Chris Remo
• Editing by Ant Bear Audio
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

If you’ve played Civilization II, Alpha Centauri, Rise of Nations, or Frontierville, you know the work of Brian Reynolds. Having spent 30 years (and counting) making games, Brian’s game design experience spans the most hardcore to the most casual. He co-founded Firaxis Games and Big Huge Games, and he’s now Chief Game Designer at social game giant Zynga.

Brian sat down with Irrational’s creative director Ken Levine for a chat that touches on the past, present, and potential future of games, on both the hardcore and casual sides of the spectrum. They discuss the ins and outs of entrepreneurship, the advantages of having Sid Meier around when you start a new company, and how a strategy game like Alpha Centauri and a shooter like BioShock may have more in common than you’d think.

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• Produced by James Bonney & Chris Remo
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

Randy Pitchford surprised the world when he announced at PAX 2010 that the near-mythical Duke Nukem Forever would actually come out in 2011, courtesy of his studio Gearbox Software. The independent company developed the Half-Life expansions Opposing Force and Blue Shift as well as the successful World War II series Brothers in Arms, and it struck gold in 2009 with Borderlands, a visually distinctive FPS-RPG blending Diablo’s addictive lootfest with the action of a shooter.

Over Gearbox’s decade of operation, Pitchford has become known as an enthusiastic and outspoken representative of his studio–and of the industry. He joins Ken Levine and Shawn Elliott on this episode of Irrational Interviews to discuss how things have changed for game developers and what they want out of the next generation of game consoles. And since both Ken and Randy, now studio heads, started their careers in the trenches, they reminisce on how much more infuriating dev tools once were.

“Kismet is amazing compared to some of the things we had back in the day,” said Randy, referring to Unreal Engine 3’s scripting tool. “It’s funny when all the newbies bitch about it–it’s like, dude, you don’t even know. Shut the hell up, you have no idea what we struggled with!”

“I try to describe to people what it was like working in the Dark Engine on System Shock 2,” Ken agreed, “but you know what you sound like though? You sound like a fucking grandpa.”

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• Produced by James Bonney, Shawn Elliott, & Chris Remo; editing by Tim Franklin (Ant Bear Audio)
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

Over the last several years, film director Zack Snyder has built a reputation on the back of successfully adapting and remaking fan-favorite works like the comic books 300 and Watchmen, and the zombie film Dawn of the Dead. His next film, Sucker Punch, is based on an original screenplay but draws from many of those same nerd-culture inspirations.

For this episode of Irrational Interviews, Zack joined Irrational creative director Ken Levine as well as Chris Remo for a discussion of how mainstream treatment of niche entertainment has evolved in recent years–but how Hollywood still lags behind when it comes to worthwhile adaptation of video games. Snyder and Levine also discuss the finer points of translating Frank Miller’s comic book panels to the screen, and interpreting Ayn Rand’s philosophical manifestos in a video game; the processes are more similar than you’d think.

Share your thoughts about this podcast in the comments below, or head over to the forums for more in-depth discussion.

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• Produced by James Bonney & Chris Remo; editing by Tim Franklin (Ant Bear Audio)
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

Not many game developers can be considered celebrities, but Cliff Bleszinski fits the bill. One of the industry’s best-known names, he travels in star-studded circles and serves as a de facto representative for games among a wider audience. Meanwhile, he holds down a day job as design director at Epic Games, where he’s in the middle of development on Gears of War 3.

Cliff joins Irrational’s own creative director Ken Levine as well as Chris Remo to discuss that unique role as well as how the mainstream perceives game makers. And along with that consideration of game industry celebrity, there is talk of the realities of how games are made: the collaborative team-based development process.

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• Produced by James Bonney & Chris Remo, with editing by Tim Franklin (Ant Bear Audio)
• Music courtesy of The Happy Hollows

Creative people have no shortage of media through which to express their ideas, and they often move from one to another before they find the one that most speaks to them. Kieron Gillen had a long and successful career as a game journalist, including founding the popular PC game blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Now, he has largely put journalism behind him and has signed an agreement to write comic books exclusively for Marvel, following his respected work on Marvel’s Thor and the Image-published Phonogram.

In the third episode of Irrational Interviews, Gillen joins Irrational’s Ken Levine and Chris Remo to talk about how creative works can convey the fears, preoccupations, and passions of their makers. They discuss the similarities (and differences) between comics and games, and how it becomes more difficult for creators to perceive their works in the same way consumers see them. Also, learn what horse-faced hammer-wielding space aliens have to do with musings on humanity and divinity.

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• Produced by James Bonney, Chris Remo, and Alan Bise
• Music provided by The Happy Hollows

“The city is an equal lead character to whoever your leads are,” says noted comics writer Brian Michael Bendis, author of successful independent series Powers as well as numerous Marvel lines including Ultimate Spider-Man. That philosophy makes Bendis the perfect interview subject for Ken Levine, whose contributions to BioShock’s city of Rapture helped make the game’s setting its most defining element.

Both creators made their biggest impact on fiction after exploring other forms. Bendis cut his teeth on crime fiction, while Levine began his writing career as a screenwriter. Those experiences helped them develop their ideas about writing, as well as an appreciation for what makes their chosen forms unique.

In the second episode of Irrational Interviews–recorded prior to the announcement of BioShock Infinite–Levine, Bendis, and Shawn Elliott discuss lessons learned in writing, the challenges of character permanence in games and comics, and much more.

Share your thoughts about this podcast in the comments below, or head over to the forums for more in-depth discussion.

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• Produced by James Bonney, Shawn Elliott and Alan Bise
• Music provided by The Happy Hollows
• Spider-Woman Motion Comic clips courtesy of Marvel Comics

For the pilot episode we are happy to have Todd Howard, Executive Producer and Game Director from Bethesda Softworks.  Howard has been at Bethesda since 1994, with countless classics under his belt including The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and most recently Fallout 3. Howard is well known for his sense of humor and his drive to make great games.

Head over to the forums for the usual lively discussion.

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• Produced by James Bonney, Shawn Elliott and Alan Bise
• Music Provided by The Happy Hallows