Pac-Man finds his voice

Pac-Man has never been the most vocal of characters, having had nothing much to say for himself other than the odd "wocka wocka" for the past two and a half decades.

But to celebrate his 25th birthday, Namco is giving our pill popping friend a very special gift - the power of speech.

Actor Martin Sherman, whose performance credits include Gangs of New York, Band of Brothers and Batman Begins, will provide the yellow fella's voice in Pac-Man World 3 - much to the delight of Mark Estdale, the CEO for voice production company Outsource Media.

"Casting a voice for such a gaming icon was a challenge. I was expecting to just deal with his half-eaten cheeseness, "wocka wocka’" and his icon status but thankfully we were given a well-written and crafted script with lots of character to base the casting on," Estdale said.

"We whittled down 300 possibles to a short list of 15. Then working from the script we auditioned all the actors we felt could bring Pac-Man to life. The holy grail of casting is to find the voice that energises the character within the context and makes the character easy to identify with. Martin nailed him from the get go."

Sherman, who has also done voice overs for Second Sight, Timesplitters: Future Perfect and Driv3r, had this to say: "I’ve been the voice of many different characters but Pac-Man is without doubt the most fun and the most difficult - I mean, what is a yellow, ghost-eating circle supposed to sound like?

"Me, apparently! I had a great time recording this voice and can’t wait to see how people react to it."

Apparently Pac-Man will talk throughout the game, providing backstory information and interacting with other characters. You'll be able to hear what he sounds like in January, when Pac-Man World 3 is released on PC, PS2, Xbox, GameCube, PSP and DS.