I told myself once that I wouldn’t ever write a column while in the grips of a nerd-conniption, but today I must break that vow. Tremble not, gentle reader, for you too are about to be caught up with me in squeals of geekish delight.

As you should know by now, Fallout: New Vegas is coming out soon – geekout reason #1. You might also know that it’s being developed by Obsidian Entertainment – reason #2 – which is home to many of the same folks who worked on the original Fallout games – reason #3.

What you don’t know, unless you pay extraordinary attention to developer press releases, is that the voice cast list has just been announced. And it contains Michael Dorn (Mr. Worf!), Felicia Day (Penny!), Zach Levi (Chuck!), and of course, Ron Perlman (Narration…narration never changes). So that’s reasons 4-9 (Zach Levi counts for two).

There’s also a bunch of other fancy folks, like Matthew Perry and Kris Kristofferson. You can read the full list here.

Bethesda has a penchant for recruiting fine voice talent (Patrick Stewart in Oblivion; Liam Neeson in Fallout 3). They also have something of a reputation for wasting it and letting them phone in their lines (Patrick Stewart in Oblivion; Liam Neeson in Fallout 3). However, Fallout 3 was a marked improvement over Oblivion in this area, and Obsidian is at the helm here, so there’s hope.

What do you think? Will this Obsidian-driven, star-studded adventure be easier on the ears than Attack of the Clones (aka Oblivion)?

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.