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Voice commands for games

Submitted by Makk on
Forum

Wouldnt it be cool if there were an RTS game that had voice recignition. Instead of assigning a unit/s to a number on the keyboard, you give them a name, by pronouncing a word.
Say, for example I called a group of units "Terra Squad" Whenever I held a button (thats assigned as the voice recignition button) and said the word " select terra squad" those units hold be selected.
This would make selecting units quicker and easier.

Another way to utilize this would be giving selected unit/s commands.
Example- I have a group of unit/s selected and want them to attack a specific areaof the map or an enemy unit.
With the unit/s selected, I the mouse over on said area/enemy and say the word "Attack" The unit/s would then attack that area/map.

There are more uses for this, for things like moving, gathering resources, using special attacks/commands.
I think it would make RTS games easier and faster, as you wouldnt have to move mouse/click on unit/move mouse/use command (attack enemy, etc).

Anyway, its just an idea I had while getting my ass kicked in Starcraft! Its probably a nightmare to code though.

Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:17 AM Permalink

i dont think that kind of input is very far off at all - i remembering reading that sony has something in production like that for an rpg ( as ambitious as it sounds ) whereby the player character ( you ) can walk up to an NPC and actually have a conversation with them.

imagine this tho..
varying pitches and tones in voice - ie you start getting shitty and yelling into the headset, and NPC characters / townsfolk start oogling at you, shopkeepers sart getting pissed and ordering gaurds to throw you out of their store.

Voice recognition i think is not too far off - but when we get to that level, i think.. WOOOoo the fun :)

Submitted by Jigen on Thu, 06/05/04 - 6:09 PM Permalink

I can see it now. Summoning a feirce beast. "DENIZEN OF THE NEITHER WORLD COME FORTH AND HEAD MY COMMAND. I SUMMON YOU RYOOOOOOOZUUUUUUUUU" and every one is just staring at you I get that alot.

Submitted by Aven on Thu, 06/05/04 - 6:40 PM Permalink

Until you get a fantastic game that comes along that just happens to have either bizarre names for their creatures and you can't actually pronounce them. Let alone do anything with them :) "I choose you hk'adsk"

Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 06/05/04 - 9:03 PM Permalink

Lol Aven, " i said attack the guhtarcaj!! not the guitar case! christ man are you stupid !?!? oh gosh dont attack the shtooped!! NOOOoooOO! "

Submitted by palantir on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:28 PM Permalink

LOL - yeah, I think it would really need to be cleverly designed.

But it is a very interesting concept. I could image it taking off and a lot of games having it just for the gimmick, but eventually someone would come up with new, revolutionary gameplay because of it. It could open the door to all new game concepts.

A cool idea would be some modern military game where you speak to other units over the ?radio? like in real warfare. ?Alpha Charlie Zulu, this Echo Bravo requesting napalm over grid 3, 4, Hector. Over?? (Or something to that effect) ? Or even just yelling at the other troops for covering fire would be cool.

A silly idea of a voice command gimmick: You could have a Tekken style of beat 'em up where the more you grunt and make martial arts noises, the better your character fights...
erm?

Submitted by Kane on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:47 PM Permalink

I could just see the voice-recognition enabled version of GTA. Swear at someone and they go off at you. Hehe...realism to the max!

Or, I don't know, Hitman or James Bond games. You use your own voice as per normal but need to pick up devices that change the sound of your voice so that enemies can't recognise you or something...[:p]

Submitted by souri on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:53 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

i dont think that kind of input is very far off at all - i remembering reading that sony has something in production like that for an rpg ( as ambitious as it sounds ) whereby the player character ( you ) can walk up to an NPC and actually have a conversation with them.

Unreal Tournament 2004 lets you use the microphone to order around the bots on your team. Just download some Microsoft software to allow voice recognition and away you go! I haven't tried it yet, but I heard it's pretty good..

Submitted by CombatWombat on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:02 PM Permalink

Well UT 2k4 supports this kind of thing with your bots - mind you haven't used it, so it could be crappy, not sure...

Personally I'm hanging out for some kind of device that tracks your eyesight, so you can look at specific areas of the screen to select units :)

Makk you gotta use those keyboard shortcuts for starcraft :) Otherwise, as a friend of mine puts it: "you lose to the interface" :-( Plus waypoint list helps lot with that game - reduces the amount of flipping between units.

Cheers,

Mark

Submitted by Kane on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:17 PM Permalink

haha...put the whole light gun technology into contact lenses hey CombatWombat?

that would be cool...[:D]

Submitted by Blitz on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:22 PM Permalink

Voice recognition will REALLY take off when natural language understanding improves. At the moment simple commands work great in shooters where your mouse is your aim, but in RTS's don't provide much if any advantage over the mouse. The mouse is more precise and in some cases it is much faster to click a bunch of things than to say a few words!.

quote:With the unit/s selected, I the mouse over on said area/enemy and say the word "Attack" The unit/s would then attack that area/map.

Thats a good examply of where it is pointless. Much more efficient to just click the enemy/area.

Where it will come into it's own will be when the computer can understand things like "All units near city X advance on enemy position gamma and attack from long range. When enemy forces are at 70% of the current level, charge."
So, actually being able to describe a plan to the computer and have it act out the plan.
"Team beta, patrol area between mountain X and river crossing Y"
etc. without actually having to be looking at the map.
I think voice recognition will be in RTS's soon, but it may be quite a while before it is more than a useless gimmick...
CYer, Blitz

Submitted by souri on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:25 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by CombatWombat

Personally I'm hanging out for some kind of device that tracks your eyesight, so you can look at specific areas of the screen to select units :)

Sony (or the guy who got the playstation happening for Sony) is on record for saying they're planning mind controlled games for Playstation 7 or so.. Jack yourself in like the Matrix!! I think they/he was serious too. [:)]

Submitted by Jigen on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:37 PM Permalink

quote: in some cases it is much faster to click a bunch of things than to say a few words!.

Thats true Im a big fan of rpg and in those games you can issue orders with bliding speed so fast that people watching have no idea whats going on

Submitted by palantir on Fri, 07/05/04 - 1:30 AM Permalink

Playstation 7!? Whoa! [:0] When?s that going to come out? About 50 years or what? I don?t see how anyone could accurately guess what possible features something that far ahead might have. There?s really no way to know what technology will be like then. Voice regognition might be as common as the humble mouse is today? For all we know, AI might actually take over the world and we could all be living in a real matrix type universe by then! Actually come to think of it, we could be in a matrix right now.. [8D]
Wake up, Neo?

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 07/05/04 - 5:46 AM Permalink

(heh could you imagine matrix n00bs, just a thought that occured :P )

ive given the UT2k4 voice command thingy a bit of a whirl, its ok but not perfect, that could be my mike but its more likely the game. It is in no way 100% reliable, but sometimes it works and its really neat. Mostly i play online (like without bots) tho so i havent really had the chance to use it much.

Submitted by Makk on Fri, 07/05/04 - 8:35 AM Permalink

Aven: hahah, funny! :D

CombatWombat: Yeah, I group my units with CTRL, etc but I still lose anway!!
:P
:)
Whats this about waypoints and unit flipping?
Bloody Protoss and their Carriers!! :(

Blitz: Comparing Keyboard/Mouse Vs Voice command, I think really comes down to the individual's personal preference. They are probably about the same speed, but some poeple would prefer voice, as Im sure some would prefer keyboad/mouse.

Regarding the PS7 thing, am I the only one a little freaked out and distrubed by that?!?!?

Submitted by Blitz on Fri, 07/05/04 - 10:16 AM Permalink

quote:Blitz: Comparing Keyboard/Mouse Vs Voice command, I think really comes down to the individual's personal preference. They are probably about the same speed, but some poeple would prefer voice, as Im sure some would prefer keyboad/mouse.

It's not as simple as user preference though, the user does actually have to be able to play the game! It's about an input interface that is suitable to play the game, and in cases where people want to beat the game, it is about the input that provides the most powerful and quickest interface to the game.
In the case of RTS's it is certainly not as fast to use voice commands as kb/mouse. For instance, it takes me much longer to say an intelligible word/s such as "(Select) group one" than to press the 1 button. Especially if i already know where the 1 button is on the keyboard!
Also, as moonunit said, voice recognition still isn't (and probably for a while) 100% reliable, at least in game implementations where no user particularly wants to spend 2-10 hours "training" the game to understand their speech patterns. KB/Mouse is 100% reliable, unless you have faulty equipment (which is not the games fault!).
If console manufacturers become really serious about voice recognition, they could build it into their hardware/os and allow the user to train the voice recognition, then let all games access that data. With the current state of things though, i think kb/mouse is going to be king for some time to come.
Oh, and the other problem voice recognition has is context. It's very difficult for the computer to understand "Attack THAT tank!", whereas mouse has context (it clicks on specific items). So even when voice recognition is 100% reliable etc. and even with full natural language understanding, you still have the problem where the computer/game doesn't know what the hell you're talking about without using some other context device (eg. that can move the cursor on the screen or tell what your eyes are looking at).
I'm not suggesting that anyone else was suggesting that RTS's completely get rid of everything else and use only voice support, but just pointing out a number of hurdles it faces to become at least as useful as plain old kb/mouse.
CYer, Blitz

Submitted by Aven on Tue, 01/06/04 - 6:58 PM Permalink

I was watching XPlay last night when they showed a new game that has come out. It is called 'Life Line'.

http://www.konami.com/lifeline/

Basic idea is that the game is a survival horror game. The difference is that you don't actually play as the main character. You play as some guy who has locked himself inside the security room of a giant space station. You give voice commands to some poor lady that is stuck in a room. You have to help her through the game. This is done by constantly giveing her voice commands.

Everything from walking to a room in a corridor to shooting at areas of a monster and what items to pick up is done through voice control. It sounds and looks like quite a cool idea, unfortunately to voice recognition didn't seem to work too well. The guy that was testing was constantly having troubles getting the main character to do what he wanted.

The character is in a room standing next to a mirror. The mirror (like other objects) had a set of rings pulsing from it. He said "mirror", to get the character to interact with the mirror. Instead the character said "Okay, I will run around", and actually ran in a circle around the room. The main problem came from when he became pissed off from that and was trying to tell her to "stop". She just kept on running around the room. There was also a table with a few objects on it. He had to say "camera" three times until she stopped saying "that item isn't there". When she finally looked at the camera, it gave the usual survival horror response. "it is just an old antique. no use".

I really like the idea of it, but it just didn't seem to work very well at all.

Submitted by Prema on Wed, 02/06/04 - 8:28 PM Permalink

Heya Avin- Life Line sounds like an awesome game- or at least a game that has the POTENTIAL to be awesome.

-From the Gamefly Review-
LifeLine represents an ambitious undertaking, so the developer certainly deserves credit for trying something different. However, the experience is undermined by unreliable technology and some poor game design.

I would really agree that games technology has to make some progress in order to keep up with the creative ideas that the industry wants to implement. Imagine the interfaces that could be designed if there weren't the constraints of "what if the voice isn't properly recognised and the character takes the wrong action" This is what I meant when discussing the potential of games to move beyond puzzle-solving challenges to EXPERIENCES in the time thread.

-From the Gamefly Review-
The conceit (I think they mean concept) behind LifeLine is certainly an interesting one. Forcing you to actually talk out loud to the character onscreen to get things done is a potently immersive effect, and when everything is humming, the game can feel surprisingly real. Unfortunately, the voice recognition isn't as advanced as it needs to be to effectively support the entire gameplay experience.
Despite the game's many imperfections, there are moments when everything clicks. In these instances you're given experiences that are truly unique.

I have to say that I think these kind of game experiences that are less clear cut- where as the player you're getting spatially displaced, are really interesting. You're dealing with to spatial areas and all the sounds that come with hem at once.

Here a game experience has the potential to be like an interactive cinematic experience. We don't need our attention to be held by little "wins" and progress rewards as we move through level type structures. Instead we get "potently immersive" and "moments where everything clicks" and "experiences that are truly unique" in a game that is "suprisingly real". If we're so immersed in the characters and game environment then the sheer fear of our girlfriend being hurt- keeping her alive, should be enough to keep us playing without constantly thinking about how well we're playing, whether we've collected enough tokens, how long until we get rewarded with our next cut scene and new level. It could also mean in RPG style that there's less need to keep us collecting crystals, cards, magic items or whatever to justify boring hours of levelling up and participating in random mini-challenges. If games were immersive enough in themselves then suggesting this would be like suggesting a solitaire intermission in Jurassic Park.

Submitted by bullet21 on Wed, 02/06/04 - 11:38 PM Permalink

We're talking about voice commands in a game, i can't even to get voice typing thingy to work in word. You spend hours trainging it and then it'll stuff up on you. If i say "Gay" it types "Texas" <- True

What i'm trying to say is if you can't get just a word processor to work while your speaking normally, imagine what'll will happen during the excitement of exchanging fire with zombies or while your ask for back up as your base gets hacked at by Elfs.

I just don't see it happening anywhere in the near future, but hey, i said the same thing about games like Eye Toy.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Sat, 03/07/04 - 2:12 AM Permalink

voice recognition in games would be awesome and i have fantasised many a time about it in very cool rpg game style :)
although the player would need to run through and train the software to recognise each critical word that can be used in the game. that would be very time consuming although may eliminate alot of the mistakes made by the software.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 03/07/04 - 4:12 AM Permalink

Would levelling up require saying "attack" for a couple of hours? [:)]

Submitted by Daemin on Sat, 03/07/04 - 10:09 AM Permalink

I would say the only place where voice commands would be appropriate and actually of any use would be in a tactical shooter game. Like Ghost Recon and others, where you could give voice commands to your squad while you were moving and performing actions yourself too. Using your voice would free up your hands to keep controling you character, so you wouldn't have to move your fingers off the movement keys/mouse during a firefight to order your squad etc.

In an RPG it will probably be only of a novelty value until we can actually get a good enough vocabulary to make interaction with NPC's interesting, and in an RTS, well I have to say that I don't see it working at all. You could say squad 1 go to location x, but you'd have to first define squad 1, and then location x. (This of course would work best in a Ground Control style game, which is akin to the tactical shooter example above) Asking anything more from the voice commands would be asking for trouble.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the subject at hand.

Submitted by redwyre on Tue, 11/10/05 - 12:19 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

Would levelling up require saying "attack" for a couple of hours? [:)]

LEEEEEROYYYYY JENKINS!

Submitted by lorien on Tue, 11/10/05 - 8:33 PM Permalink

Waco Ressurection used voice commands http://waco.c-level.cc/

The David Koresh helmets have a mic in them. You quote bible passages to cast spells [:)]

Posted by Makk on
Forum

Wouldnt it be cool if there were an RTS game that had voice recignition. Instead of assigning a unit/s to a number on the keyboard, you give them a name, by pronouncing a word.
Say, for example I called a group of units "Terra Squad" Whenever I held a button (thats assigned as the voice recignition button) and said the word " select terra squad" those units hold be selected.
This would make selecting units quicker and easier.

Another way to utilize this would be giving selected unit/s commands.
Example- I have a group of unit/s selected and want them to attack a specific areaof the map or an enemy unit.
With the unit/s selected, I the mouse over on said area/enemy and say the word "Attack" The unit/s would then attack that area/map.

There are more uses for this, for things like moving, gathering resources, using special attacks/commands.
I think it would make RTS games easier and faster, as you wouldnt have to move mouse/click on unit/move mouse/use command (attack enemy, etc).

Anyway, its just an idea I had while getting my ass kicked in Starcraft! Its probably a nightmare to code though.


Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:17 AM Permalink

i dont think that kind of input is very far off at all - i remembering reading that sony has something in production like that for an rpg ( as ambitious as it sounds ) whereby the player character ( you ) can walk up to an NPC and actually have a conversation with them.

imagine this tho..
varying pitches and tones in voice - ie you start getting shitty and yelling into the headset, and NPC characters / townsfolk start oogling at you, shopkeepers sart getting pissed and ordering gaurds to throw you out of their store.

Voice recognition i think is not too far off - but when we get to that level, i think.. WOOOoo the fun :)

Submitted by Jigen on Thu, 06/05/04 - 6:09 PM Permalink

I can see it now. Summoning a feirce beast. "DENIZEN OF THE NEITHER WORLD COME FORTH AND HEAD MY COMMAND. I SUMMON YOU RYOOOOOOOZUUUUUUUUU" and every one is just staring at you I get that alot.

Submitted by Aven on Thu, 06/05/04 - 6:40 PM Permalink

Until you get a fantastic game that comes along that just happens to have either bizarre names for their creatures and you can't actually pronounce them. Let alone do anything with them :) "I choose you hk'adsk"

Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 06/05/04 - 9:03 PM Permalink

Lol Aven, " i said attack the guhtarcaj!! not the guitar case! christ man are you stupid !?!? oh gosh dont attack the shtooped!! NOOOoooOO! "

Submitted by palantir on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:28 PM Permalink

LOL - yeah, I think it would really need to be cleverly designed.

But it is a very interesting concept. I could image it taking off and a lot of games having it just for the gimmick, but eventually someone would come up with new, revolutionary gameplay because of it. It could open the door to all new game concepts.

A cool idea would be some modern military game where you speak to other units over the ?radio? like in real warfare. ?Alpha Charlie Zulu, this Echo Bravo requesting napalm over grid 3, 4, Hector. Over?? (Or something to that effect) ? Or even just yelling at the other troops for covering fire would be cool.

A silly idea of a voice command gimmick: You could have a Tekken style of beat 'em up where the more you grunt and make martial arts noises, the better your character fights...
erm?

Submitted by Kane on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:47 PM Permalink

I could just see the voice-recognition enabled version of GTA. Swear at someone and they go off at you. Hehe...realism to the max!

Or, I don't know, Hitman or James Bond games. You use your own voice as per normal but need to pick up devices that change the sound of your voice so that enemies can't recognise you or something...[:p]

Submitted by souri on Thu, 06/05/04 - 10:53 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

i dont think that kind of input is very far off at all - i remembering reading that sony has something in production like that for an rpg ( as ambitious as it sounds ) whereby the player character ( you ) can walk up to an NPC and actually have a conversation with them.

Unreal Tournament 2004 lets you use the microphone to order around the bots on your team. Just download some Microsoft software to allow voice recognition and away you go! I haven't tried it yet, but I heard it's pretty good..

Submitted by CombatWombat on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:02 PM Permalink

Well UT 2k4 supports this kind of thing with your bots - mind you haven't used it, so it could be crappy, not sure...

Personally I'm hanging out for some kind of device that tracks your eyesight, so you can look at specific areas of the screen to select units :)

Makk you gotta use those keyboard shortcuts for starcraft :) Otherwise, as a friend of mine puts it: "you lose to the interface" :-( Plus waypoint list helps lot with that game - reduces the amount of flipping between units.

Cheers,

Mark

Submitted by Kane on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:17 PM Permalink

haha...put the whole light gun technology into contact lenses hey CombatWombat?

that would be cool...[:D]

Submitted by Blitz on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:22 PM Permalink

Voice recognition will REALLY take off when natural language understanding improves. At the moment simple commands work great in shooters where your mouse is your aim, but in RTS's don't provide much if any advantage over the mouse. The mouse is more precise and in some cases it is much faster to click a bunch of things than to say a few words!.

quote:With the unit/s selected, I the mouse over on said area/enemy and say the word "Attack" The unit/s would then attack that area/map.

Thats a good examply of where it is pointless. Much more efficient to just click the enemy/area.

Where it will come into it's own will be when the computer can understand things like "All units near city X advance on enemy position gamma and attack from long range. When enemy forces are at 70% of the current level, charge."
So, actually being able to describe a plan to the computer and have it act out the plan.
"Team beta, patrol area between mountain X and river crossing Y"
etc. without actually having to be looking at the map.
I think voice recognition will be in RTS's soon, but it may be quite a while before it is more than a useless gimmick...
CYer, Blitz

Submitted by souri on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:25 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by CombatWombat

Personally I'm hanging out for some kind of device that tracks your eyesight, so you can look at specific areas of the screen to select units :)

Sony (or the guy who got the playstation happening for Sony) is on record for saying they're planning mind controlled games for Playstation 7 or so.. Jack yourself in like the Matrix!! I think they/he was serious too. [:)]

Submitted by Jigen on Thu, 06/05/04 - 11:37 PM Permalink

quote: in some cases it is much faster to click a bunch of things than to say a few words!.

Thats true Im a big fan of rpg and in those games you can issue orders with bliding speed so fast that people watching have no idea whats going on

Submitted by palantir on Fri, 07/05/04 - 1:30 AM Permalink

Playstation 7!? Whoa! [:0] When?s that going to come out? About 50 years or what? I don?t see how anyone could accurately guess what possible features something that far ahead might have. There?s really no way to know what technology will be like then. Voice regognition might be as common as the humble mouse is today? For all we know, AI might actually take over the world and we could all be living in a real matrix type universe by then! Actually come to think of it, we could be in a matrix right now.. [8D]
Wake up, Neo?

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 07/05/04 - 5:46 AM Permalink

(heh could you imagine matrix n00bs, just a thought that occured :P )

ive given the UT2k4 voice command thingy a bit of a whirl, its ok but not perfect, that could be my mike but its more likely the game. It is in no way 100% reliable, but sometimes it works and its really neat. Mostly i play online (like without bots) tho so i havent really had the chance to use it much.

Submitted by Makk on Fri, 07/05/04 - 8:35 AM Permalink

Aven: hahah, funny! :D

CombatWombat: Yeah, I group my units with CTRL, etc but I still lose anway!!
:P
:)
Whats this about waypoints and unit flipping?
Bloody Protoss and their Carriers!! :(

Blitz: Comparing Keyboard/Mouse Vs Voice command, I think really comes down to the individual's personal preference. They are probably about the same speed, but some poeple would prefer voice, as Im sure some would prefer keyboad/mouse.

Regarding the PS7 thing, am I the only one a little freaked out and distrubed by that?!?!?

Submitted by Blitz on Fri, 07/05/04 - 10:16 AM Permalink

quote:Blitz: Comparing Keyboard/Mouse Vs Voice command, I think really comes down to the individual's personal preference. They are probably about the same speed, but some poeple would prefer voice, as Im sure some would prefer keyboad/mouse.

It's not as simple as user preference though, the user does actually have to be able to play the game! It's about an input interface that is suitable to play the game, and in cases where people want to beat the game, it is about the input that provides the most powerful and quickest interface to the game.
In the case of RTS's it is certainly not as fast to use voice commands as kb/mouse. For instance, it takes me much longer to say an intelligible word/s such as "(Select) group one" than to press the 1 button. Especially if i already know where the 1 button is on the keyboard!
Also, as moonunit said, voice recognition still isn't (and probably for a while) 100% reliable, at least in game implementations where no user particularly wants to spend 2-10 hours "training" the game to understand their speech patterns. KB/Mouse is 100% reliable, unless you have faulty equipment (which is not the games fault!).
If console manufacturers become really serious about voice recognition, they could build it into their hardware/os and allow the user to train the voice recognition, then let all games access that data. With the current state of things though, i think kb/mouse is going to be king for some time to come.
Oh, and the other problem voice recognition has is context. It's very difficult for the computer to understand "Attack THAT tank!", whereas mouse has context (it clicks on specific items). So even when voice recognition is 100% reliable etc. and even with full natural language understanding, you still have the problem where the computer/game doesn't know what the hell you're talking about without using some other context device (eg. that can move the cursor on the screen or tell what your eyes are looking at).
I'm not suggesting that anyone else was suggesting that RTS's completely get rid of everything else and use only voice support, but just pointing out a number of hurdles it faces to become at least as useful as plain old kb/mouse.
CYer, Blitz

Submitted by Aven on Tue, 01/06/04 - 6:58 PM Permalink

I was watching XPlay last night when they showed a new game that has come out. It is called 'Life Line'.

http://www.konami.com/lifeline/

Basic idea is that the game is a survival horror game. The difference is that you don't actually play as the main character. You play as some guy who has locked himself inside the security room of a giant space station. You give voice commands to some poor lady that is stuck in a room. You have to help her through the game. This is done by constantly giveing her voice commands.

Everything from walking to a room in a corridor to shooting at areas of a monster and what items to pick up is done through voice control. It sounds and looks like quite a cool idea, unfortunately to voice recognition didn't seem to work too well. The guy that was testing was constantly having troubles getting the main character to do what he wanted.

The character is in a room standing next to a mirror. The mirror (like other objects) had a set of rings pulsing from it. He said "mirror", to get the character to interact with the mirror. Instead the character said "Okay, I will run around", and actually ran in a circle around the room. The main problem came from when he became pissed off from that and was trying to tell her to "stop". She just kept on running around the room. There was also a table with a few objects on it. He had to say "camera" three times until she stopped saying "that item isn't there". When she finally looked at the camera, it gave the usual survival horror response. "it is just an old antique. no use".

I really like the idea of it, but it just didn't seem to work very well at all.

Submitted by Prema on Wed, 02/06/04 - 8:28 PM Permalink

Heya Avin- Life Line sounds like an awesome game- or at least a game that has the POTENTIAL to be awesome.

-From the Gamefly Review-
LifeLine represents an ambitious undertaking, so the developer certainly deserves credit for trying something different. However, the experience is undermined by unreliable technology and some poor game design.

I would really agree that games technology has to make some progress in order to keep up with the creative ideas that the industry wants to implement. Imagine the interfaces that could be designed if there weren't the constraints of "what if the voice isn't properly recognised and the character takes the wrong action" This is what I meant when discussing the potential of games to move beyond puzzle-solving challenges to EXPERIENCES in the time thread.

-From the Gamefly Review-
The conceit (I think they mean concept) behind LifeLine is certainly an interesting one. Forcing you to actually talk out loud to the character onscreen to get things done is a potently immersive effect, and when everything is humming, the game can feel surprisingly real. Unfortunately, the voice recognition isn't as advanced as it needs to be to effectively support the entire gameplay experience.
Despite the game's many imperfections, there are moments when everything clicks. In these instances you're given experiences that are truly unique.

I have to say that I think these kind of game experiences that are less clear cut- where as the player you're getting spatially displaced, are really interesting. You're dealing with to spatial areas and all the sounds that come with hem at once.

Here a game experience has the potential to be like an interactive cinematic experience. We don't need our attention to be held by little "wins" and progress rewards as we move through level type structures. Instead we get "potently immersive" and "moments where everything clicks" and "experiences that are truly unique" in a game that is "suprisingly real". If we're so immersed in the characters and game environment then the sheer fear of our girlfriend being hurt- keeping her alive, should be enough to keep us playing without constantly thinking about how well we're playing, whether we've collected enough tokens, how long until we get rewarded with our next cut scene and new level. It could also mean in RPG style that there's less need to keep us collecting crystals, cards, magic items or whatever to justify boring hours of levelling up and participating in random mini-challenges. If games were immersive enough in themselves then suggesting this would be like suggesting a solitaire intermission in Jurassic Park.

Submitted by bullet21 on Wed, 02/06/04 - 11:38 PM Permalink

We're talking about voice commands in a game, i can't even to get voice typing thingy to work in word. You spend hours trainging it and then it'll stuff up on you. If i say "Gay" it types "Texas" <- True

What i'm trying to say is if you can't get just a word processor to work while your speaking normally, imagine what'll will happen during the excitement of exchanging fire with zombies or while your ask for back up as your base gets hacked at by Elfs.

I just don't see it happening anywhere in the near future, but hey, i said the same thing about games like Eye Toy.

Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Sat, 03/07/04 - 2:12 AM Permalink

voice recognition in games would be awesome and i have fantasised many a time about it in very cool rpg game style :)
although the player would need to run through and train the software to recognise each critical word that can be used in the game. that would be very time consuming although may eliminate alot of the mistakes made by the software.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 03/07/04 - 4:12 AM Permalink

Would levelling up require saying "attack" for a couple of hours? [:)]

Submitted by Daemin on Sat, 03/07/04 - 10:09 AM Permalink

I would say the only place where voice commands would be appropriate and actually of any use would be in a tactical shooter game. Like Ghost Recon and others, where you could give voice commands to your squad while you were moving and performing actions yourself too. Using your voice would free up your hands to keep controling you character, so you wouldn't have to move your fingers off the movement keys/mouse during a firefight to order your squad etc.

In an RPG it will probably be only of a novelty value until we can actually get a good enough vocabulary to make interaction with NPC's interesting, and in an RTS, well I have to say that I don't see it working at all. You could say squad 1 go to location x, but you'd have to first define squad 1, and then location x. (This of course would work best in a Ground Control style game, which is akin to the tactical shooter example above) Asking anything more from the voice commands would be asking for trouble.

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the subject at hand.

Submitted by redwyre on Tue, 11/10/05 - 12:19 PM Permalink

quote:Originally posted by Souri

Would levelling up require saying "attack" for a couple of hours? [:)]

LEEEEEROYYYYY JENKINS!

Submitted by lorien on Tue, 11/10/05 - 8:33 PM Permalink

Waco Ressurection used voice commands http://waco.c-level.cc/

The David Koresh helmets have a mic in them. You quote bible passages to cast spells [:)]