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"Tonight, its...the DETROIT, RED WINGS...against the...TORONTO MAPLE...LEAFS"
"Passes the ball to...VonTasben"
"This will be...a...GREAT, match-up"
I'm sick to death of commentary in video games. Now, when I'm playing a game, unless it's something like GTA3 or Tony Hawk's (with in-game sounds I WANT to hear) I just put on the radio, or a CD. Why do games companies feel the need to have commentary in games? Let's examine Pro Evolution Soccer, first of all. Now, the sequel's out on Friday so it's possible things have improved (but I doubt it), but this is based on the original PS2 version: the commentary sucks. Hard.
I remember Fifa 98, and it was better than this...just. After four loops, it gets extremely boring hearing the same stock phrases - and such is the nature of the game, a loop lasts for about 2/3 of a game. So three games in, and I want to find whoever this 'Terry Butcher' guy is, and cause him extreme pain and suffering. There aren't even any humorous asides like in Fifa ("he couldn't...hit a...n...elephant's backside playing...a...ba...n...jo"), it's just the names of the players. And even they're wrong, or at least most of them are, thanks to Konami being tight and FIFA being horrible (the football organisation that is, not the football game series). Still, Konami seem to be proud of it, as there it is, plastered all over the back: "realistic commentary from Terry Butcher!"
I honestly do believe that the likes of Konami just put in commentary so they can say that their game has commentary in it. Not neccessarily to enhance the gaming experience, or to make it more life like...just so that some six year old can add another bullet point to his whining list when he's trying to get his mum to buy a game for him. Let's take another, even better example - WWE Smackdown! This wrestling series is hated by everyone (especially fans of wrestling, and people that buy the game) because it always promises so much, and delivers so little. Smackdown 1 had the excuse of it being the first try. Smackdown 2 was buggy and formulaic. Smackdown 3 felt like Smackdown 2, only on a DVD disc. But there's something else to add on to Just Bring It...it had realistic commentary from Michael Cole and Tazz!
The fact that these are the second string play-by-play is irrelevant, as it could have been JR and The King (in fact, it will be for Smackdown 4: Shut Your Mouth...an unintentionally hilarious subtitle I'm sure, as the commentary will most likely be rubbish) and I still would have hated the option, and switched it off as soon as humanly possible. It had all the repetetiveness and monotony of Pro Evolution Soccer, all the 'funny' one-liners from Fifa, and even the weird gaps between syllables from every other game. Add it all together, and you get an abomination of a feature that was supposed to 'set the title head and shoulders above the rest', and delayed the game's release for at least six months.
When will the games industry get the message? I don't care about commentary. We're not at the stage where it can be remotely realistic...so why bother? Stuff like graphics can be acceptable without being photo-realistic...but badly timed colour commentary and banter that you've hard sixty thousand times before just annoy you.
Maybe this Friday, instead of bundling in commentary, Konami can include the new Foo Fighters CD. At least then Mr Butcher can sleep safely at night, without fear of being attacked.
Do you agree with me? Or do you actually LIKE commentary? Please reply with your thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey
"Passes the ball to...VonTasben"
"This will be...a...GREAT, match-up"
I'm sick to death of commentary in video games. Now, when I'm playing a game, unless it's something like GTA3 or Tony Hawk's (with in-game sounds I WANT to hear) I just put on the radio, or a CD. Why do games companies feel the need to have commentary in games? Let's examine Pro Evolution Soccer, first of all. Now, the sequel's out on Friday so it's possible things have improved (but I doubt it), but this is based on the original PS2 version: the commentary sucks. Hard.
I remember Fifa 98, and it was better than this...just. After four loops, it gets extremely boring hearing the same stock phrases - and such is the nature of the game, a loop lasts for about 2/3 of a game. So three games in, and I want to find whoever this 'Terry Butcher' guy is, and cause him extreme pain and suffering. There aren't even any humorous asides like in Fifa ("he couldn't...hit a...n...elephant's backside playing...a...ba...n...jo"), it's just the names of the players. And even they're wrong, or at least most of them are, thanks to Konami being tight and FIFA being horrible (the football organisation that is, not the football game series). Still, Konami seem to be proud of it, as there it is, plastered all over the back: "realistic commentary from Terry Butcher!"
I honestly do believe that the likes of Konami just put in commentary so they can say that their game has commentary in it. Not neccessarily to enhance the gaming experience, or to make it more life like...just so that some six year old can add another bullet point to his whining list when he's trying to get his mum to buy a game for him. Let's take another, even better example - WWE Smackdown! This wrestling series is hated by everyone (especially fans of wrestling, and people that buy the game) because it always promises so much, and delivers so little. Smackdown 1 had the excuse of it being the first try. Smackdown 2 was buggy and formulaic. Smackdown 3 felt like Smackdown 2, only on a DVD disc. But there's something else to add on to Just Bring It...it had realistic commentary from Michael Cole and Tazz!
The fact that these are the second string play-by-play is irrelevant, as it could have been JR and The King (in fact, it will be for Smackdown 4: Shut Your Mouth...an unintentionally hilarious subtitle I'm sure, as the commentary will most likely be rubbish) and I still would have hated the option, and switched it off as soon as humanly possible. It had all the repetetiveness and monotony of Pro Evolution Soccer, all the 'funny' one-liners from Fifa, and even the weird gaps between syllables from every other game. Add it all together, and you get an abomination of a feature that was supposed to 'set the title head and shoulders above the rest', and delayed the game's release for at least six months.
When will the games industry get the message? I don't care about commentary. We're not at the stage where it can be remotely realistic...so why bother? Stuff like graphics can be acceptable without being photo-realistic...but badly timed colour commentary and banter that you've hard sixty thousand times before just annoy you.
Maybe this Friday, instead of bundling in commentary, Konami can include the new Foo Fighters CD. At least then Mr Butcher can sleep safely at night, without fear of being attacked.
Do you agree with me? Or do you actually LIKE commentary? Please reply with your thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey
Sometimes it can make a game that much better. Take Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 on Saturn, an average football game with more of an arcade slant, but the commentary is soooo funny it just makes it much more enjoyable to play.
Perhaps they should have different commentaries like DVDs do, one is a serious one from the famous commentators and another a silly one, done just for fun. Could be an idea?!
Perhaps they should have different commentaries like DVDs do, one is a serious one from the famous commentators and another a silly one, done just for fun. Could be an idea?!
Truth is commentary sucks in most games. For the one reason that to save space all the recordings are pieced together during the game. So in football games there is a pause while it finds the players name who is recieving a pass or making a bad tackle.
In an ideal world as a game is being created all possible outcomes would be recorded so that it sounds like true speach at the right time, but to save disk space, time and money they record what they need and piece audio together which is why we get the broken up speach.
But games would be worse without it, imagine playing a game of footy or wrestling with silence or music is place of the commentary. It would be awful. Ok so it isn't great but it is the best we can get without letting other aspects of the game reduce in quality.
Soon we will get larger space to make use of when creating games, better techniques for adding and using commentary in games and then less complaints from us. :-)
In an ideal world as a game is being created all possible outcomes would be recorded so that it sounds like true speach at the right time, but to save disk space, time and money they record what they need and piece audio together which is why we get the broken up speach.
But games would be worse without it, imagine playing a game of footy or wrestling with silence or music is place of the commentary. It would be awful. Ok so it isn't great but it is the best we can get without letting other aspects of the game reduce in quality.
Soon we will get larger space to make use of when creating games, better techniques for adding and using commentary in games and then less complaints from us. :-)
"Tonight, its...the DETROIT, RED WINGS...against the...TORONTO MAPLE...LEAFS"
"Passes the ball to...VonTasben"
"This will be...a...GREAT, match-up"
I'm sick to death of commentary in video games. Now, when I'm playing a game, unless it's something like GTA3 or Tony Hawk's (with in-game sounds I WANT to hear) I just put on the radio, or a CD. Why do games companies feel the need to have commentary in games? Let's examine Pro Evolution Soccer, first of all. Now, the sequel's out on Friday so it's possible things have improved (but I doubt it), but this is based on the original PS2 version: the commentary sucks. Hard.
I remember Fifa 98, and it was better than this...just. After four loops, it gets extremely boring hearing the same stock phrases - and such is the nature of the game, a loop lasts for about 2/3 of a game. So three games in, and I want to find whoever this 'Terry Butcher' guy is, and cause him extreme pain and suffering. There aren't even any humorous asides like in Fifa ("he couldn't...hit a...n...elephant's backside playing...a...ba...n...jo"), it's just the names of the players. And even they're wrong, or at least most of them are, thanks to Konami being tight and FIFA being horrible (the football organisation that is, not the football game series). Still, Konami seem to be proud of it, as there it is, plastered all over the back: "realistic commentary from Terry Butcher!"
I honestly do believe that the likes of Konami just put in commentary so they can say that their game has commentary in it. Not neccessarily to enhance the gaming experience, or to make it more life like...just so that some six year old can add another bullet point to his whining list when he's trying to get his mum to buy a game for him. Let's take another, even better example - WWE Smackdown! This wrestling series is hated by everyone (especially fans of wrestling, and people that buy the game) because it always promises so much, and delivers so little. Smackdown 1 had the excuse of it being the first try. Smackdown 2 was buggy and formulaic. Smackdown 3 felt like Smackdown 2, only on a DVD disc. But there's something else to add on to Just Bring It...it had realistic commentary from Michael Cole and Tazz!
The fact that these are the second string play-by-play is irrelevant, as it could have been JR and The King (in fact, it will be for Smackdown 4: Shut Your Mouth...an unintentionally hilarious subtitle I'm sure, as the commentary will most likely be rubbish) and I still would have hated the option, and switched it off as soon as humanly possible. It had all the repetetiveness and monotony of Pro Evolution Soccer, all the 'funny' one-liners from Fifa, and even the weird gaps between syllables from every other game. Add it all together, and you get an abomination of a feature that was supposed to 'set the title head and shoulders above the rest', and delayed the game's release for at least six months.
When will the games industry get the message? I don't care about commentary. We're not at the stage where it can be remotely realistic...so why bother? Stuff like graphics can be acceptable without being photo-realistic...but badly timed colour commentary and banter that you've hard sixty thousand times before just annoy you.
Maybe this Friday, instead of bundling in commentary, Konami can include the new Foo Fighters CD. At least then Mr Butcher can sleep safely at night, without fear of being attacked.
Do you agree with me? Or do you actually LIKE commentary? Please reply with your thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey
"Passes the ball to...VonTasben"
"This will be...a...GREAT, match-up"
I'm sick to death of commentary in video games. Now, when I'm playing a game, unless it's something like GTA3 or Tony Hawk's (with in-game sounds I WANT to hear) I just put on the radio, or a CD. Why do games companies feel the need to have commentary in games? Let's examine Pro Evolution Soccer, first of all. Now, the sequel's out on Friday so it's possible things have improved (but I doubt it), but this is based on the original PS2 version: the commentary sucks. Hard.
I remember Fifa 98, and it was better than this...just. After four loops, it gets extremely boring hearing the same stock phrases - and such is the nature of the game, a loop lasts for about 2/3 of a game. So three games in, and I want to find whoever this 'Terry Butcher' guy is, and cause him extreme pain and suffering. There aren't even any humorous asides like in Fifa ("he couldn't...hit a...n...elephant's backside playing...a...ba...n...jo"), it's just the names of the players. And even they're wrong, or at least most of them are, thanks to Konami being tight and FIFA being horrible (the football organisation that is, not the football game series). Still, Konami seem to be proud of it, as there it is, plastered all over the back: "realistic commentary from Terry Butcher!"
I honestly do believe that the likes of Konami just put in commentary so they can say that their game has commentary in it. Not neccessarily to enhance the gaming experience, or to make it more life like...just so that some six year old can add another bullet point to his whining list when he's trying to get his mum to buy a game for him. Let's take another, even better example - WWE Smackdown! This wrestling series is hated by everyone (especially fans of wrestling, and people that buy the game) because it always promises so much, and delivers so little. Smackdown 1 had the excuse of it being the first try. Smackdown 2 was buggy and formulaic. Smackdown 3 felt like Smackdown 2, only on a DVD disc. But there's something else to add on to Just Bring It...it had realistic commentary from Michael Cole and Tazz!
The fact that these are the second string play-by-play is irrelevant, as it could have been JR and The King (in fact, it will be for Smackdown 4: Shut Your Mouth...an unintentionally hilarious subtitle I'm sure, as the commentary will most likely be rubbish) and I still would have hated the option, and switched it off as soon as humanly possible. It had all the repetetiveness and monotony of Pro Evolution Soccer, all the 'funny' one-liners from Fifa, and even the weird gaps between syllables from every other game. Add it all together, and you get an abomination of a feature that was supposed to 'set the title head and shoulders above the rest', and delayed the game's release for at least six months.
When will the games industry get the message? I don't care about commentary. We're not at the stage where it can be remotely realistic...so why bother? Stuff like graphics can be acceptable without being photo-realistic...but badly timed colour commentary and banter that you've hard sixty thousand times before just annoy you.
Maybe this Friday, instead of bundling in commentary, Konami can include the new Foo Fighters CD. At least then Mr Butcher can sleep safely at night, without fear of being attacked.
Do you agree with me? Or do you actually LIKE commentary? Please reply with your thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
-El Blokey