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?

Comments

Re:voice communication between players not command

[the Man in Black]

TeamSpeak
RogerWilco

Both work swimmingly with most MMORPGs (I play Shadowbane). Go with God.

Shields down

[Godeke]

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.

Re:Shields down

[bmyers]

Actual speech recognition is still best when there's a limited vocabulary -- the more limited the better, especially if the vocabulary can be constrained so that the words are very different. I am surprised you got such lousy recognition on things like "fire photons", etc. The recognizer in Starfleet Academy sounds pretty bad.

Dragon's program was called Naturally Speaking (IIRC). There's also ViaVoice (from IBM) and a few others. My wife works in this field, so I know far too much about it for my own good. ;-)

Stress *does* affect the recognition, and so does inflection and accents. Using "dictation" mode in games has a long way to go, and probably limited-vocabulary for commands, and player-to-player (hopefully with voice fonts!) is what we're likely to see for the next few years.

Re:LifeLine

[ectizen]

some LifeLine info

Re:Sing Sing Revolution?

[OgdEnigmaX]

Karaoke Revolution, you mean :)

Shoot

[FrenZon]

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

Microsoft Game Voice

[MBraynard]

This is have out for a while. I had one and it worked really well; the headset is exceptionally high quality and is made by Platonic. It worked pretty well for player conversations and you can also macro commands to your voice.

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!

Re:Are you sure?

[FlipmodePlaya]

Seaman punkd me a few times during arguments... He had some pretty good comebacks, for a digital fish. He could take Big Mouth Billy Bass out to farm.