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Everyone communicates. It’s something we need to do. Whether it’s a simple wave, a quick wink, or even a full-length conversation. We all do it. Cats, pigs, monkeys, even flowers (no they don’t talk, but they do attract bees to come to them by being colourful!). Not only is it real life beings that communicate, but also games characters do to. Some have no voice; some can speak fluent English. But exactly what thought goes into what accent a character speaks in, and how does this effect their characteristics?
Most non-fictional games really don’t need much thought or imagination on deciding how a character speaks. It’s all there for the producer. For instance, characters in games like Medal Of Honour will almost certainly take the voice of the real life counterpart they are based on. For example, you wouldn’t expect to walk up to a German soldier and here him say ‘Och ey the noo! Kill the wee laddy!’ now would you? And I’m sure developers never even dream of putting that in such games. It would make the game unrealistic and the creators would be laughed at so hard that all the hospital waiting lists would be taken up with people diagnosed with hysteria. So it’s pretty obvious then that a developer making a non-fictional game must get it right, and therefore has limitations on how they can develop the characters speech.
However, sometimes characters are not based on an individual. Take Max Payne. He wasn’t meant to be anyone we know, just a brand new character. So now the developer has a choice. Does the character have an accent that is stereo typical of his appearance, or something completely unexpected? Most likely a character like Max Payne would pick up the voice style of a typical American, but supposing he had an Irish accent. This would probably mean a whole new story line, including different characters and events. And imagine the designer at Rockstar really did want Max Payne to have an Irish accent. The Max Payne we all know could have been totally different!
Sometimes, well quite a lot of the times, games aren’t set in our world. Take Final Fantasy. None of the 10 games have been set in our universe, and I expect any additions in the future will follow this trend. So if these games aren’t set in our world then how come most of the characters speak exactly like us? Surely in order to get the real feel of fantasy then some fantastical new language or accent could have been conjured up? Well yes, maybe. But if we want to understand what they are saying then it does have to be some sort of English. However the new Final Fantasy 10 has a character that speaks with an American pronunciation. This may be due to the fact that the voice actors who did the voices were American, but that’s no excuse. Everyone can put on a voice, and maybe if the accents used in FF10 were altered to sound less recognized then maybe FF10 would have been an even greater fantastical experience.
Not all producers get it wrong though. The brilliant voices used in Jak and Daxter really captured the experience the game offered. Not only were they understandable but also they distinguished every character and clearly showed a step away from the everyday voices we hear all the time.
Quite clever things can be fashioned using accents. Take Metal Gear Solid 2. Almost every one favoured Solid Snake over the girly Raiden. Some say Hideo Kojima shouldn’t have used Raiden at all and just kept Snake. However it seems Raiden was manufactured so that the contrast could clearly be seen between the mighty Snake and the puny Raiden, hence showing the power of Snake. This doesn’t just show through appearance. Clearly Raiden had an almost feminine, ‘spoilt brat’ type voice. On the other hand Snake had a grisly, hard-guy tone. So here, a great method using the accents was used to show a comparison in characters. Clever.
Sometimes voices can get on your nerves. So wouldn’t it be good if you could choose your own? Well some games do give you this option. Take Worms Armageddon. This gave you the choice of all the accents under the sun. From ‘American Sports Dude’ to the very funny Welsh style voice. It had them all. Not only did this give variety, it also meant that the tone could be changed to something the gamer found funny rather than irritating. This was also the case in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2. Hopefully we will see more of this in future games so that the player can have the accent that suits their characteristic rather than some whinging American.. Who knows, there could even be an option to get your own voice in the game in the near future. Lets see shall we.
Thanks for reading.
Nath.
Most non-fictional games really don’t need much thought or imagination on deciding how a character speaks. It’s all there for the producer. For instance, characters in games like Medal Of Honour will almost certainly take the voice of the real life counterpart they are based on. For example, you wouldn’t expect to walk up to a German soldier and here him say ‘Och ey the noo! Kill the wee laddy!’ now would you? And I’m sure developers never even dream of putting that in such games. It would make the game unrealistic and the creators would be laughed at so hard that all the hospital waiting lists would be taken up with people diagnosed with hysteria. So it’s pretty obvious then that a developer making a non-fictional game must get it right, and therefore has limitations on how they can develop the characters speech.
However, sometimes characters are not based on an individual. Take Max Payne. He wasn’t meant to be anyone we know, just a brand new character. So now the developer has a choice. Does the character have an accent that is stereo typical of his appearance, or something completely unexpected? Most likely a character like Max Payne would pick up the voice style of a typical American, but supposing he had an Irish accent. This would probably mean a whole new story line, including different characters and events. And imagine the designer at Rockstar really did want Max Payne to have an Irish accent. The Max Payne we all know could have been totally different!
Sometimes, well quite a lot of the times, games aren’t set in our world. Take Final Fantasy. None of the 10 games have been set in our universe, and I expect any additions in the future will follow this trend. So if these games aren’t set in our world then how come most of the characters speak exactly like us? Surely in order to get the real feel of fantasy then some fantastical new language or accent could have been conjured up? Well yes, maybe. But if we want to understand what they are saying then it does have to be some sort of English. However the new Final Fantasy 10 has a character that speaks with an American pronunciation. This may be due to the fact that the voice actors who did the voices were American, but that’s no excuse. Everyone can put on a voice, and maybe if the accents used in FF10 were altered to sound less recognized then maybe FF10 would have been an even greater fantastical experience.
Not all producers get it wrong though. The brilliant voices used in Jak and Daxter really captured the experience the game offered. Not only were they understandable but also they distinguished every character and clearly showed a step away from the everyday voices we hear all the time.
Quite clever things can be fashioned using accents. Take Metal Gear Solid 2. Almost every one favoured Solid Snake over the girly Raiden. Some say Hideo Kojima shouldn’t have used Raiden at all and just kept Snake. However it seems Raiden was manufactured so that the contrast could clearly be seen between the mighty Snake and the puny Raiden, hence showing the power of Snake. This doesn’t just show through appearance. Clearly Raiden had an almost feminine, ‘spoilt brat’ type voice. On the other hand Snake had a grisly, hard-guy tone. So here, a great method using the accents was used to show a comparison in characters. Clever.
Sometimes voices can get on your nerves. So wouldn’t it be good if you could choose your own? Well some games do give you this option. Take Worms Armageddon. This gave you the choice of all the accents under the sun. From ‘American Sports Dude’ to the very funny Welsh style voice. It had them all. Not only did this give variety, it also meant that the tone could be changed to something the gamer found funny rather than irritating. This was also the case in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2. Hopefully we will see more of this in future games so that the player can have the accent that suits their characteristic rather than some whinging American.. Who knows, there could even be an option to get your own voice in the game in the near future. Lets see shall we.
Thanks for reading.
Nath.
Page:
Yer that is so true....Herdy Gerdy was such an annoying little oik...where'd they get his voice from?
Nice post. I've never really thought about these type of things before. I know what u mean about voices gettin on your nerves, with constant babbling and squeaky voices, from certain games, i'm sorry but the mute button has to be pressed!
Everyone communicates. It’s something we need to do. Whether it’s a simple wave, a quick wink, or even a full-length conversation. We all do it. Cats, pigs, monkeys, even flowers (no they don’t talk, but they do attract bees to come to them by being colourful!). Not only is it real life beings that communicate, but also games characters do to. Some have no voice; some can speak fluent English. But exactly what thought goes into what accent a character speaks in, and how does this effect their characteristics?
Most non-fictional games really don’t need much thought or imagination on deciding how a character speaks. It’s all there for the producer. For instance, characters in games like Medal Of Honour will almost certainly take the voice of the real life counterpart they are based on. For example, you wouldn’t expect to walk up to a German soldier and here him say ‘Och ey the noo! Kill the wee laddy!’ now would you? And I’m sure developers never even dream of putting that in such games. It would make the game unrealistic and the creators would be laughed at so hard that all the hospital waiting lists would be taken up with people diagnosed with hysteria. So it’s pretty obvious then that a developer making a non-fictional game must get it right, and therefore has limitations on how they can develop the characters speech.
However, sometimes characters are not based on an individual. Take Max Payne. He wasn’t meant to be anyone we know, just a brand new character. So now the developer has a choice. Does the character have an accent that is stereo typical of his appearance, or something completely unexpected? Most likely a character like Max Payne would pick up the voice style of a typical American, but supposing he had an Irish accent. This would probably mean a whole new story line, including different characters and events. And imagine the designer at Rockstar really did want Max Payne to have an Irish accent. The Max Payne we all know could have been totally different!
Sometimes, well quite a lot of the times, games aren’t set in our world. Take Final Fantasy. None of the 10 games have been set in our universe, and I expect any additions in the future will follow this trend. So if these games aren’t set in our world then how come most of the characters speak exactly like us? Surely in order to get the real feel of fantasy then some fantastical new language or accent could have been conjured up? Well yes, maybe. But if we want to understand what they are saying then it does have to be some sort of English. However the new Final Fantasy 10 has a character that speaks with an American pronunciation. This may be due to the fact that the voice actors who did the voices were American, but that’s no excuse. Everyone can put on a voice, and maybe if the accents used in FF10 were altered to sound less recognized then maybe FF10 would have been an even greater fantastical experience.
Not all producers get it wrong though. The brilliant voices used in Jak and Daxter really captured the experience the game offered. Not only were they understandable but also they distinguished every character and clearly showed a step away from the everyday voices we hear all the time.
Quite clever things can be fashioned using accents. Take Metal Gear Solid 2. Almost every one favoured Solid Snake over the girly Raiden. Some say Hideo Kojima shouldn’t have used Raiden at all and just kept Snake. However it seems Raiden was manufactured so that the contrast could clearly be seen between the mighty Snake and the puny Raiden, hence showing the power of Snake. This doesn’t just show through appearance. Clearly Raiden had an almost feminine, ‘spoilt brat’ type voice. On the other hand Snake had a grisly, hard-guy tone. So here, a great method using the accents was used to show a comparison in characters. Clever.
Sometimes voices can get on your nerves. So wouldn’t it be good if you could choose your own? Well some games do give you this option. Take Worms Armageddon. This gave you the choice of all the accents under the sun. From ‘American Sports Dude’ to the very funny Welsh style voice. It had them all. Not only did this give variety, it also meant that the tone could be changed to something the gamer found funny rather than irritating. This was also the case in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2. Hopefully we will see more of this in future games so that the player can have the accent that suits their characteristic rather than some whinging American.. Who knows, there could even be an option to get your own voice in the game in the near future. Lets see shall we.
Thanks for reading.
Nath.
Most non-fictional games really don’t need much thought or imagination on deciding how a character speaks. It’s all there for the producer. For instance, characters in games like Medal Of Honour will almost certainly take the voice of the real life counterpart they are based on. For example, you wouldn’t expect to walk up to a German soldier and here him say ‘Och ey the noo! Kill the wee laddy!’ now would you? And I’m sure developers never even dream of putting that in such games. It would make the game unrealistic and the creators would be laughed at so hard that all the hospital waiting lists would be taken up with people diagnosed with hysteria. So it’s pretty obvious then that a developer making a non-fictional game must get it right, and therefore has limitations on how they can develop the characters speech.
However, sometimes characters are not based on an individual. Take Max Payne. He wasn’t meant to be anyone we know, just a brand new character. So now the developer has a choice. Does the character have an accent that is stereo typical of his appearance, or something completely unexpected? Most likely a character like Max Payne would pick up the voice style of a typical American, but supposing he had an Irish accent. This would probably mean a whole new story line, including different characters and events. And imagine the designer at Rockstar really did want Max Payne to have an Irish accent. The Max Payne we all know could have been totally different!
Sometimes, well quite a lot of the times, games aren’t set in our world. Take Final Fantasy. None of the 10 games have been set in our universe, and I expect any additions in the future will follow this trend. So if these games aren’t set in our world then how come most of the characters speak exactly like us? Surely in order to get the real feel of fantasy then some fantastical new language or accent could have been conjured up? Well yes, maybe. But if we want to understand what they are saying then it does have to be some sort of English. However the new Final Fantasy 10 has a character that speaks with an American pronunciation. This may be due to the fact that the voice actors who did the voices were American, but that’s no excuse. Everyone can put on a voice, and maybe if the accents used in FF10 were altered to sound less recognized then maybe FF10 would have been an even greater fantastical experience.
Not all producers get it wrong though. The brilliant voices used in Jak and Daxter really captured the experience the game offered. Not only were they understandable but also they distinguished every character and clearly showed a step away from the everyday voices we hear all the time.
Quite clever things can be fashioned using accents. Take Metal Gear Solid 2. Almost every one favoured Solid Snake over the girly Raiden. Some say Hideo Kojima shouldn’t have used Raiden at all and just kept Snake. However it seems Raiden was manufactured so that the contrast could clearly be seen between the mighty Snake and the puny Raiden, hence showing the power of Snake. This doesn’t just show through appearance. Clearly Raiden had an almost feminine, ‘spoilt brat’ type voice. On the other hand Snake had a grisly, hard-guy tone. So here, a great method using the accents was used to show a comparison in characters. Clever.
Sometimes voices can get on your nerves. So wouldn’t it be good if you could choose your own? Well some games do give you this option. Take Worms Armageddon. This gave you the choice of all the accents under the sun. From ‘American Sports Dude’ to the very funny Welsh style voice. It had them all. Not only did this give variety, it also meant that the tone could be changed to something the gamer found funny rather than irritating. This was also the case in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2. Hopefully we will see more of this in future games so that the player can have the accent that suits their characteristic rather than some whinging American.. Who knows, there could even be an option to get your own voice in the game in the near future. Lets see shall we.
Thanks for reading.
Nath.
Page: