Pac-Man is all set to open his mouth and speak for the very first time in a game! So, who's voicing him, and what is he going to say?

In Pac-Man World III, the characters verbal abilities have been greatly expanded. No longer is Pac limited to the traditional "wocka wocka" sound. Now voiced by Martin T. Sherman, he will now have a full vocabulary at his disposal! Sherman has previously worked in such hollywood films as 'Gangs of New York', 'Band of Brothers', and 'Batman Begins'.

Mark Estdale, voice director and CEO of Outsource Media - the company responsible for finding a voice for Pac, commented: "It's been a privilege to create a voice for one of the world's most loved and enduring gaming icons. We've thoroughly enjoyed the process of working with Namco and Blitz in finding the voice for Pac-Man and to my mind he sounds just like he should!

Etsdale continued, "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. This gave the yellow fella lots of scope to identify with. 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."

In Pac-Man World III the character will talk throughout the adventure, as he will provide back story information and will also interact with the game's other characters.

Martin T. Sherman, voice actor added, "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."

Set to release in November 2005, the upcoming title is under development for the GameCube, PC, Playstation 2, PSP and Xbox gaming systems. A DS incarnation is also under-way for release next year.