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Most if not all of us have been in a situation where we have found ourselves talking if not yelling at our computer/TV screen while playing games, with other household members looking at us as if we have gone mad. Usually it is done when you can’t do something in a game, or it is very hard. For example in a shoot ’em up you might of been pumping round after round of ammo into the enemy, but they just wont die so you find yourself shouting “die god dam you die”. Or maybe its on a platformer where you have lots (or maybe one hard one) of jumps to do, so you find yourself saying “jump, jump”. What if this was taken a step further, where the game actually responded to this!
I know voice recognition is nothing new. It’s been around ages, but it hasn’t really taken off within gaming. The main uses of it so far have been in things such as dictation to the computer, so it types it in for you while you say what you want typed. The main place that it has been used in games is in PC strategy games on a network or the Internet. The only thing that it was really used for in these games was to communicate with other players, by talking in to the microphone that was on the headset. This saved typing in messages, so you could continue playing while communicating with another player. At first you may of felt like a total idiot talking into a microphone, but after a while it was just like talking on the telephone.
The other thing that it could be used for in some games that had lots of different button combinations was to replace them with voice commands. For example, switching weapons in Unreal Tournament's first-person shooter mode took too long. You either had to toggle through your arsenal with a wheel mouse or assign each weapon to a key in close proximity to your movement keys. But for players that like using a variety of weapons, scrolling took too long. With a voice recognition headset (such as Game Commander) you could say the name of the weapon, and the character would load it up. This proves much faster than hunting for the right key or scrolling. And it worked almost all of the time. Even when it didn't, repeating the weapon name would do the trick. With a lot of the headsets you could assign ‘code words’ with certain buttons/button combinations, so it was customisable. This feature not only worked in games; it also worked in windows. So you could just say ‘open word’ or ‘shutdown’ and it did.
One game that did use voice recognition brilliantly was Sega’s ‘Seaman’ (Loads of jokes could be made from this title). Well it was more of a virtual pet on your TV than a game. You would talk to this half fish; half man creature and it would learn from you and evolve. At time it seemed strange as it would remember conversations you had previously had with it and it would then bring them things into the conversation that you were currently having with it.
Nintendo have also already released a game with voice recognition. It was called ‘Hey you Pikachu’. The idea was basically the same as Sega’s Seaman game. Talk to Pikachu as if he was a pet. If you said things like “Pikachu your stupid” or “Playstation” he would get visibly angry and walk away from you. And to get the yellow rat, er I mean Pokémon back you would have to sweet talk to him. In there next generation machine ‘Gamecube’ Nintendo may have developed this idea further ready for a new type of game, but then again maybe not. No-one ever knows what Nintendo are going to pull out of the bag at the last minute.
Recoton have announced that they are jointly developing a voice recognition headset with Microsoft for use with online games that use this feature. The X-box has the ability to include voice communication in its online games thanks to its Ethernet port. The headset is currently scheduled for release alongside the launch of the X-Box network, so there are likely to be some games that support this feature.
Playstation hasn’t (from what I know) yet released/announced any voice/headset kit yet. Maybe they have one in secret development somewhere. Along with a game that will use it to its full. But then again they might not. But it seems a bit strange if they haven’t at least researched it, as the other main companies have. And with online gaming slowly (very slowly) coming online voice communication is going to become ever more popular, especially between strategy game players.
Who knows maybe in the future when the technology is advance enough, in a shoot ‘em up such as Quake or Perfect Dark you will be able to talk to characters and learn things or just have a conversation with them before you kill them. The possibilities for it are endless.
So what do you think, do you think that voice recognition/communication is going to be the next gameplay step along with online gaming? Or is it just something that will never take off, as it is something that is too far ahead of its time or is just a crap idea like virtual reality helmets? Or will we just have to wait and let time tell?
I know voice recognition is nothing new. It’s been around ages, but it hasn’t really taken off within gaming. The main uses of it so far have been in things such as dictation to the computer, so it types it in for you while you say what you want typed. The main place that it has been used in games is in PC strategy games on a network or the Internet. The only thing that it was really used for in these games was to communicate with other players, by talking in to the microphone that was on the headset. This saved typing in messages, so you could continue playing while communicating with another player. At first you may of felt like a total idiot talking into a microphone, but after a while it was just like talking on the telephone.
The other thing that it could be used for in some games that had lots of different button combinations was to replace them with voice commands. For example, switching weapons in Unreal Tournament's first-person shooter mode took too long. You either had to toggle through your arsenal with a wheel mouse or assign each weapon to a key in close proximity to your movement keys. But for players that like using a variety of weapons, scrolling took too long. With a voice recognition headset (such as Game Commander) you could say the name of the weapon, and the character would load it up. This proves much faster than hunting for the right key or scrolling. And it worked almost all of the time. Even when it didn't, repeating the weapon name would do the trick. With a lot of the headsets you could assign ‘code words’ with certain buttons/button combinations, so it was customisable. This feature not only worked in games; it also worked in windows. So you could just say ‘open word’ or ‘shutdown’ and it did.
One game that did use voice recognition brilliantly was Sega’s ‘Seaman’ (Loads of jokes could be made from this title). Well it was more of a virtual pet on your TV than a game. You would talk to this half fish; half man creature and it would learn from you and evolve. At time it seemed strange as it would remember conversations you had previously had with it and it would then bring them things into the conversation that you were currently having with it.
Nintendo have also already released a game with voice recognition. It was called ‘Hey you Pikachu’. The idea was basically the same as Sega’s Seaman game. Talk to Pikachu as if he was a pet. If you said things like “Pikachu your stupid” or “Playstation” he would get visibly angry and walk away from you. And to get the yellow rat, er I mean Pokémon back you would have to sweet talk to him. In there next generation machine ‘Gamecube’ Nintendo may have developed this idea further ready for a new type of game, but then again maybe not. No-one ever knows what Nintendo are going to pull out of the bag at the last minute.
Recoton have announced that they are jointly developing a voice recognition headset with Microsoft for use with online games that use this feature. The X-box has the ability to include voice communication in its online games thanks to its Ethernet port. The headset is currently scheduled for release alongside the launch of the X-Box network, so there are likely to be some games that support this feature.
Playstation hasn’t (from what I know) yet released/announced any voice/headset kit yet. Maybe they have one in secret development somewhere. Along with a game that will use it to its full. But then again they might not. But it seems a bit strange if they haven’t at least researched it, as the other main companies have. And with online gaming slowly (very slowly) coming online voice communication is going to become ever more popular, especially between strategy game players.
Who knows maybe in the future when the technology is advance enough, in a shoot ‘em up such as Quake or Perfect Dark you will be able to talk to characters and learn things or just have a conversation with them before you kill them. The possibilities for it are endless.
So what do you think, do you think that voice recognition/communication is going to be the next gameplay step along with online gaming? Or is it just something that will never take off, as it is something that is too far ahead of its time or is just a crap idea like virtual reality helmets? Or will we just have to wait and let time tell?
Armatige Shanks wrote:
I always thought they were quitre a good idea... especially now they
> have removed most of the bulky components from the helmet and use VR
> goggles?
What I ment was that they were a bit ahead of the time, because the technology wasn’t around to support the idea!
I always thought they were quitre a good idea... especially now they
> have removed most of the bulky components from the helmet and use VR
> goggles?
What I ment was that they were a bit ahead of the time, because the technology wasn’t around to support the idea!
Ace_greg wrote:
> or is just a crap idea like virtual
> reality helmets?
I always thought they were quitre a good idea... especially now they have removed most of the bulky components from the helmet and use VR goggles?
But otherwise... I suppose it depends on the need...
I know people who, when playing racing games (mario kart especially) tilt the joypad in the direction they want the car to turn... 3+ years back, decent tilt controllers came onto the market, where tilting actually allowed the player to contorl the vehicle... but it didnt really take off...
Part of the problem is that most casual gamers dont seem to want to keep spending their hard-earned on little add-ons...steering wheels, joysticks, etc... they would rather just have a universial interface which they can justify spending the extra pennies on... so the joypad lives on
Partley because most software that uses speech recognition has been novelty stuff... nothing to spark a gaming phenominon...
Partley because speech recognition software still needs to be tailored to the user... I always remeber the problems IBM had when releasing their software in the UK... because there are so many accents within the UK, regionalising the Speech Recognition oftware became an almost impossible task....
and some other stuff...???
:)
> or is just a crap idea like virtual
> reality helmets?
I always thought they were quitre a good idea... especially now they have removed most of the bulky components from the helmet and use VR goggles?
But otherwise... I suppose it depends on the need...
I know people who, when playing racing games (mario kart especially) tilt the joypad in the direction they want the car to turn... 3+ years back, decent tilt controllers came onto the market, where tilting actually allowed the player to contorl the vehicle... but it didnt really take off...
Part of the problem is that most casual gamers dont seem to want to keep spending their hard-earned on little add-ons...steering wheels, joysticks, etc... they would rather just have a universial interface which they can justify spending the extra pennies on... so the joypad lives on
Partley because most software that uses speech recognition has been novelty stuff... nothing to spark a gaming phenominon...
Partley because speech recognition software still needs to be tailored to the user... I always remeber the problems IBM had when releasing their software in the UK... because there are so many accents within the UK, regionalising the Speech Recognition oftware became an almost impossible task....
and some other stuff...???
:)
Hur hur hur
Most if not all of us have been in a situation where we have found ourselves talking if not yelling at our computer/TV screen while playing games, with other household members looking at us as if we have gone mad. Usually it is done when you can’t do something in a game, or it is very hard. For example in a shoot ’em up you might of been pumping round after round of ammo into the enemy, but they just wont die so you find yourself shouting “die god dam you die”. Or maybe its on a platformer where you have lots (or maybe one hard one) of jumps to do, so you find yourself saying “jump, jump”. What if this was taken a step further, where the game actually responded to this!
I know voice recognition is nothing new. It’s been around ages, but it hasn’t really taken off within gaming. The main uses of it so far have been in things such as dictation to the computer, so it types it in for you while you say what you want typed. The main place that it has been used in games is in PC strategy games on a network or the Internet. The only thing that it was really used for in these games was to communicate with other players, by talking in to the microphone that was on the headset. This saved typing in messages, so you could continue playing while communicating with another player. At first you may of felt like a total idiot talking into a microphone, but after a while it was just like talking on the telephone.
The other thing that it could be used for in some games that had lots of different button combinations was to replace them with voice commands. For example, switching weapons in Unreal Tournament's first-person shooter mode took too long. You either had to toggle through your arsenal with a wheel mouse or assign each weapon to a key in close proximity to your movement keys. But for players that like using a variety of weapons, scrolling took too long. With a voice recognition headset (such as Game Commander) you could say the name of the weapon, and the character would load it up. This proves much faster than hunting for the right key or scrolling. And it worked almost all of the time. Even when it didn't, repeating the weapon name would do the trick. With a lot of the headsets you could assign ‘code words’ with certain buttons/button combinations, so it was customisable. This feature not only worked in games; it also worked in windows. So you could just say ‘open word’ or ‘shutdown’ and it did.
One game that did use voice recognition brilliantly was Sega’s ‘Seaman’ (Loads of jokes could be made from this title). Well it was more of a virtual pet on your TV than a game. You would talk to this half fish; half man creature and it would learn from you and evolve. At time it seemed strange as it would remember conversations you had previously had with it and it would then bring them things into the conversation that you were currently having with it.
Nintendo have also already released a game with voice recognition. It was called ‘Hey you Pikachu’. The idea was basically the same as Sega’s Seaman game. Talk to Pikachu as if he was a pet. If you said things like “Pikachu your stupid” or “Playstation” he would get visibly angry and walk away from you. And to get the yellow rat, er I mean Pokémon back you would have to sweet talk to him. In there next generation machine ‘Gamecube’ Nintendo may have developed this idea further ready for a new type of game, but then again maybe not. No-one ever knows what Nintendo are going to pull out of the bag at the last minute.
Recoton have announced that they are jointly developing a voice recognition headset with Microsoft for use with online games that use this feature. The X-box has the ability to include voice communication in its online games thanks to its Ethernet port. The headset is currently scheduled for release alongside the launch of the X-Box network, so there are likely to be some games that support this feature.
Playstation hasn’t (from what I know) yet released/announced any voice/headset kit yet. Maybe they have one in secret development somewhere. Along with a game that will use it to its full. But then again they might not. But it seems a bit strange if they haven’t at least researched it, as the other main companies have. And with online gaming slowly (very slowly) coming online voice communication is going to become ever more popular, especially between strategy game players.
Who knows maybe in the future when the technology is advance enough, in a shoot ‘em up such as Quake or Perfect Dark you will be able to talk to characters and learn things or just have a conversation with them before you kill them. The possibilities for it are endless.
So what do you think, do you think that voice recognition/communication is going to be the next gameplay step along with online gaming? Or is it just something that will never take off, as it is something that is too far ahead of its time or is just a crap idea like virtual reality helmets? Or will we just have to wait and let time tell?
I know voice recognition is nothing new. It’s been around ages, but it hasn’t really taken off within gaming. The main uses of it so far have been in things such as dictation to the computer, so it types it in for you while you say what you want typed. The main place that it has been used in games is in PC strategy games on a network or the Internet. The only thing that it was really used for in these games was to communicate with other players, by talking in to the microphone that was on the headset. This saved typing in messages, so you could continue playing while communicating with another player. At first you may of felt like a total idiot talking into a microphone, but after a while it was just like talking on the telephone.
The other thing that it could be used for in some games that had lots of different button combinations was to replace them with voice commands. For example, switching weapons in Unreal Tournament's first-person shooter mode took too long. You either had to toggle through your arsenal with a wheel mouse or assign each weapon to a key in close proximity to your movement keys. But for players that like using a variety of weapons, scrolling took too long. With a voice recognition headset (such as Game Commander) you could say the name of the weapon, and the character would load it up. This proves much faster than hunting for the right key or scrolling. And it worked almost all of the time. Even when it didn't, repeating the weapon name would do the trick. With a lot of the headsets you could assign ‘code words’ with certain buttons/button combinations, so it was customisable. This feature not only worked in games; it also worked in windows. So you could just say ‘open word’ or ‘shutdown’ and it did.
One game that did use voice recognition brilliantly was Sega’s ‘Seaman’ (Loads of jokes could be made from this title). Well it was more of a virtual pet on your TV than a game. You would talk to this half fish; half man creature and it would learn from you and evolve. At time it seemed strange as it would remember conversations you had previously had with it and it would then bring them things into the conversation that you were currently having with it.
Nintendo have also already released a game with voice recognition. It was called ‘Hey you Pikachu’. The idea was basically the same as Sega’s Seaman game. Talk to Pikachu as if he was a pet. If you said things like “Pikachu your stupid” or “Playstation” he would get visibly angry and walk away from you. And to get the yellow rat, er I mean Pokémon back you would have to sweet talk to him. In there next generation machine ‘Gamecube’ Nintendo may have developed this idea further ready for a new type of game, but then again maybe not. No-one ever knows what Nintendo are going to pull out of the bag at the last minute.
Recoton have announced that they are jointly developing a voice recognition headset with Microsoft for use with online games that use this feature. The X-box has the ability to include voice communication in its online games thanks to its Ethernet port. The headset is currently scheduled for release alongside the launch of the X-Box network, so there are likely to be some games that support this feature.
Playstation hasn’t (from what I know) yet released/announced any voice/headset kit yet. Maybe they have one in secret development somewhere. Along with a game that will use it to its full. But then again they might not. But it seems a bit strange if they haven’t at least researched it, as the other main companies have. And with online gaming slowly (very slowly) coming online voice communication is going to become ever more popular, especially between strategy game players.
Who knows maybe in the future when the technology is advance enough, in a shoot ‘em up such as Quake or Perfect Dark you will be able to talk to characters and learn things or just have a conversation with them before you kill them. The possibilities for it are endless.
So what do you think, do you think that voice recognition/communication is going to be the next gameplay step along with online gaming? Or is it just something that will never take off, as it is something that is too far ahead of its time or is just a crap idea like virtual reality helmets? Or will we just have to wait and let time tell?