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On Integrating Voice Commands Into Videogames
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing ways future videogames can use the player's voice more creatively. The writer notes of Rainbow Six 3 on Xbox: "It's the headset that really roped me into this one. While it's often easier to key in your commands from the controller, that's just a lot less fun", and goes on to suggest: "I'd like to be able to have my own macros of my own entry patterns. Heck, it might be cool if they laughed at a joke I cracked. I want a game where I can get in a shouting match with a character in the game - real Gene Hackman or Al Pacino business is what I'm talking about here." How would you like to see voice control in videogames evolve, going forward?
What do you do when your girlfriend comes home and finds you yelling at yourself in front of the tv??
The / in
Don't forget Konami's Lifeline which is coming in march in the US. It's a game where you "control" another person by having conversations with them.
Looks really interesting.
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
"I'd like to be able to have my own macros of my own entry patterns. Heck, it might be cool if they laughed at a joke I cracked. I want a game where I can get in a shouting match with a character in the game - real Gene Hackman or Al Pacino business is what I'm talking about here."
Or you could just make some friends. If network-enabled games have given us dorks nothing, they've given us the ability to connect with other anti-social dorks.
El riesgo vive siempre!
I played a demo of this game for the Xbox the other day, but damned if I can remember what it was called. The premise is that you're a commander of a rebel squad in alternate future US.
You command your team alternately to guard, follow, attack, etc. I found it difficult to switch to the correct screen to call my group while in the middle of a firefight. It would have been a lot easier if I could've Just issued voice commands.
often i really need to talk to my fellow players not tell the computer what commands i want to do. I could have saved myself from soooo many deaths if i had voice communication between players in MMORPGs. i never have the need to command a game with voice. in fact most of the time i talk on the phone while playing games.
Myself, if a game is complicated enough control wise to require this sort of voice-control, at least for basic commands, then the game might very well be TOO complicated.
In this case, they should start thinking hard at putting a bit more focus into their game.
However, voice is very cool for games, mainly for multiplayer games communicating with your teammates. The Half-Life engine was built with this in mind. It works for the more team based games. I've been playing a lot of Day of Defeat/Natural Selection, and people in those games rely on the voice communication. It works a lot faster than typing things in.
Then again, in Subspace/Continnuum, Chat Macros are easy enough that voice never took off. Sooo..whatever.
"I want a game where I can get in a shouting match with a character in the game - real Gene Hackman or Al Pacino business is what I'm talking about here."
Are you certain you want to lose arguments to video game characters? They'll have scriptwriters. You won't.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
TeamSpeak
RogerWilco
Both work swimmingly with most MMORPGs (I play Shadowbane). Go with God.
El riesgo vive siempre!
I tried voice command with the Starfleet Academy game, and decided to revert to keyboard when it decided "one half impulse" = "shields down" repeatedly. Or "fire photons" = "all stop". Perhaps the recognition is better today, but that combined with my cell phone's continual "please repeat the name" on voice dial just don't give me a lot of faith in voice recognition.
I did get good recognition rates out of the Dragon Dictate program, or whatever it was called. I suspect stress changes voices enough to make it a harder challenge to recognize the same command when it was recorded originally in an unstressed environment.
Sig under construction since 1998.
yes but those require me to set up my team in advanced.... in MMORPGs teams seem to be created on the fly. i can't assume everyone has these programs. i have used rogerwilco before though. decent last i used it.
I would love to see a game based around magic and spellcraft where you speak the words. It would be very simple, and with the addition of a peripheral like the eye-cam on the PS2, using hand gestures in addition to vocal commands would be quite engaging.
Voice Command features seem to be the most popular part. Nearly hands free gameplay if you train your system a little.
Normally I really hate "talking" to my computer.
I think this might change my mind!
Gaming with voice commands could really improve
Gaming skills, and get more people in to games.
Eliminating the "hand-eye coordination" slowdown
Really would speed things up and make things better!
I never got the hang of using a mouse in an RTS. Between building units/buildings, giving them orders, waypoints, and all that, I find it difficult to monitor the entire battlefield. I would prefer to use the mouse just for viewing the map, the status of buildings/units, etc...
What I think would finally immerse me in an RTS would be the ability issue voice commands to a virtual lieutenant, set waypoints with the mouse, but otherwise have him control the squad. It would also be nice to just station a squad outside of a target, concentrate on something else for a bit, and without switching your view, just to be able to say, Squad one, attack/retreat, what have you.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Yeah, baby, that's what I'm talking about....
I have misplaced my pants.
Some sort of intelligent voice-recognition work would allow (for example) a Karaoke version of Dance Dance Revolution where the console tracks how well you stay on key while singing along to various tracks? Hmm...
I've played SOCOM 1 (not two yet), and had great fun yelling into the microphone in an American accent (it didn't understand my Kiwi accent). My flatmates would come home to find me talking to myself "Bravo attack at will" "Bravo ATTACK at will" "Damn it Bravo ATTACK AT WILL!!!" Good fun though once I got the accent right...
I have a microsoft (yeah I know) sidewinder headset and hub, and I love useing the voice command and chat for gaming. It works especially well for flight simulator types where you have to give commands to your wingmen. The only thing I dont like about it is being 'locked' in to old unsupported microsoft software. So if anyone wants to do an open source project thats compatable with this thing, I would be eternally grateful.
Jainith
While this is a generic utility, I've found that Shoot, by Martin Traverso provides an excellent way to add voice control to any Windows game, and it's free. Once trained, the accuracy is phenomenal.
--
Freelook - A Free Headtracker for Games and Disabled Access
Consider the most common, vulgar single word utterance made by most gamers, usually when they are killed.
Now, do you REALLY want your game to be voice controlled?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Alright, the first thing which came to my mind was "what if a person has an accent?" What happens when the game can't understand what you're saying or, worse, misinterprets one verbal command for another? Theoretically, a stuffed up nose could turn "attack the house" into "a tank the how's," leaving the units in a strategy game to stand around looking for a tank when they should be advancing.
Joking aside, there could be (and have been) problems with voice-recognition/speech-interpretation software. Probably the only device which has the capability to correctly interpret languages through accents, slurs, and illness is the human brain... and even that fails, sometimes.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see some voice control for NPCs in computer and video games. I'm just not daydreaming of A.I. which can engage in arguments and intelligent debates, or a piece of software which can translate any accent correctly, even the accents of non-native language speakers (like Americans speaking Japanese or vice-versa).
So, in my opinion, there's a long way to go before we should make speech an integral and necessary part of controling actions in a game. And, to answer the question posed, that's an area where I'd like to see voice control progress. The other area is to simply include it in any relatively complicated game which has a multiplayer component.
Take, for example, Halo PC; it has no voice control built in, but the fast-paced nature of the game prohibits typing out instructions, observations, etc. If I take time to type out "watch left!" while driving across a bridge in a Warthog, I and my passenger(s) will be smoked or the warning will be made useless by the fact that we'll be across the bridge before they can read and react to it.
After we reach these two aspects of voice recognition/control in games, we can talk about where and how it should be implimented, and why. In the mean time, I'll go back to shaking my fist at my broken PC.
~UP
(P.S. My apologies for the grumpy tone of this message. I didn't get enough sleep, last night.)
Eat the Path.
Voice recognition works well in the SOCOM series. For the single player campaign, you can order your 3 squadmates around, telling them to hold fire, escort you to a waypoint or cover an area. It's a gimmick, but it's a fun gimmick and probably provides enough leverage to get people on the mics for the online game.
Karaoke Revolution provides a sort of inverse fun to this. It matches pitch but doesn't bother with voice recognition. This means when you're playing with your friends, you can suddenly in the position of improvising clever lyrics to a cheesy song.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Here's the thing. Voice control is great if it works... and if it's not tied to simply five or even fifty commands. I think if someone's talking to you in your game, you should be able to talk back freely... and I'm sure that's where it's going. Here's my problem however:
:)
I'm playing the game with virtually the same joystick that I played the atari 2600 with. Sure, it has a couple of more buttons, but that's about it (and yes, digital and analog blah blah). In fact, with Kirby and some other new games, one button is all you need.
Voice control is about immersion. And Further Immersion into the game is a good thing... However, the industry is bad this way. The immersive controls (like those where you stand or tilt) don't sell well so they don't invest into them. Joysticks do well by default... there's nothing else. Because there's an immediate payoff with the voice features, we'll have to settle for only partial immersion... and still play with ancient controllers.
This is why I love the eyetoy. It's completely useless, sure... but could lead the way to real complete immersion into video games.
Just a rant... no point really
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
If...you...are...willing...to...yell...yell...YELL ...at ...the...game...at...about...this...speed......You ...might...be...able...to...have...an...in-game... conversation...conversation...con-ver-sation...wit h...it.
:-)
Natural language processors kinda suck.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Altogether it worked pretty well. Personally I am more of a keyboard guy, but this may be just what you are looking for.
Link Here. Good luck!
Not really. If you're playing an MMO, you're in a guild. If not, there's half your problem already. So you're going to be in a chat server with them already, just hop to the right channel.
I definitely prefer 3rd party vvoice over an MMO using up even more bandwidth and being even more laggy than they already are. Not to mention that its hard to write good voice comm software, I'd rather game devs concentrated on the game.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
In the game, regular sounds come from the TV, but a tormentor speaks to you through your headset (if you are so equipped). Also, stealth is an important part of the game, and people who are trying to kill you hear your voice in the microphone. You can use the tactic to distract others.
How would you like to see voice control in videogames evolve, going forward?
Personally, I'd prefer slightly to the side. If that's all okay with you.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
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Uses a gesture based system for spells.
For instance, you cast a shield by drawing a circle around the area you want to shield.
Apparantly, the more perfect your circle, the stronger your shield, though I haven't been able to notice a large difference.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
you talk to the game and it would talk back. The game sucked thu.
First, how about we expand the average gamer's vocabulary beyond the words; f***, s*** or homosexual terms. Then I'll consider wearing a headset with some stranger online talking to me in a game.
Otherwise I'll just stick to talking on the phone and playing with someone I know. Or better yet, play at a LAN party.
He just wants to be loved!
I can just see myself yelling at the squad guys in Rainbow 6 until they start to cry, then feeling bad and taking them all out for a beer. Then we'd forget completely about the mission.
The moral of the story? Voice recognition makes the terrorists win. Or something.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I was thinking of making an operating system based on a audio interface that could be controlled over a cell phone. But then I had a terrible though, what if M$ made one. And I couldn't really submit people to that kind of horror.
But as far as gaming is concerned, people can't organize with each other very well what makes us think we can do it with a computer.
A satisfying solution for all those people who already talk to the screen!
"Don't go in there! Don't go in there!"
"Hmm... I don't think I'll go in there right now."
Then again, think of all the people who insult the on-screen character whenever they're doing badly.
"Stupid @$%* Mario!"
"Oh, yeah? Let's-a see you do any better, wise-a-guy!"
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
Need For Speed: Backseat Driver
from the website
"Unlike ordinary driving games where the player controls the car with a game pad or steering wheel, BSD-players use voice command to control the car. With Logitech, EA has developed a new controller for the game: a headrest with force-feedback and a built-in microphone."
I love bbspot.
I remeber that there was this helmet that you could buy for the ol' NES that had a mic in it. I think it was attempting to complete the look for those who'd already had a powerglove. I don't remeber the name of it, but one of my friends had one. I was very envious of him until I actually tried to use it. it was a piece of crap. I'm not sure it was able to distinguish between commands, so it was essentially another button (or more accurately a duplicate of one of the buttons) and it was just generally a poor peripheral. looked kinda cool.
I think I kinda remember the commercial, too; some kid playing some fighter pilot game yelling "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!" etc. into the mic. It was an accurate portrayal, as you had to yell multiple times just to have it work.
piece o' crap.
who remembers that old game on the N64 where you could talk to pikachu?
If you haven't tried Rainbow Six 3 on xbox with voice command, you owe it to yourself to give it a spin. It's REALLY cool. I find myself wishing all sorts of games had this feature, and on the PC as well!
_/\ - Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.