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Speak Up, Hero

There’s something jarring about a playing a game that is trying its damndest to look like an interactive movie but just drops the ball where it counts the most. A game might feature an immersive setting, detailed character designs, and an elaborately branching plot structure, only to suddenly stop all the action whenever somebody talks—and suddenly you’re unable to respond. Sometimes, at best, you get to read what you should be hearing. Suddenly the game ceases to feel like an immersive world, and reminds you that using voice actors is quite expensive and time-consuming.

This has been changing, but not quickly enough. One of the greatest improvements to narrative games in recent years, to my mind, has been the expansion of spoken dialog. That’s why it’s so frustrating when game developers downplay this step and try to take us backwards.

Many games nowadays rely on some combination of text and pre-recorded dialog to interact with characters (when you’re not just shooting them). When games have a lot of voice acting, this is something developers brag about because it is more impressive, more immersive, and more expensive. Unfortunately for them, perhaps, by making games with good voice acting, they make their jobs harder in the future. I imagine I’m not alone in that I find it harder and harder to go back to games with older conventions, like when I found it pretty much impossible to get emotionally involved in the plot of Twilight Princess when I realized that there would be no voice acting aside from the occasional gasp or chortle—all the dialog is relayed through text. Wasn’t this supposed to be a “next generation” game?

But I expect this from Nintendo, which has eschewed the idea that “next generation” involves immersive, cinematic gaming experiences. Okay, fine. What really stung was when Bioware started talking about mixing voice acting with text as if it were not a fault, but a feature.

Bioware is the company behind Mass Effect, a highly cinematic action RPG. As the player, you choose between brief text prompts that cue up lines actually spoken by your character, with separate tracks recorded for male and female protagonists. It makes the game feel much more like a story, and I felt sure that it would encourage the rest of the industry to follow suit. Not only does the industry not seem to be following suit, however (as suggested by this Fallout 3 trailer that I watched with some dismay), but even Bioware has decided to take a step backward in its upcoming fantasy RPG title, Dragon Age. Supporting characters will speak, but the main character will be silent, allowing the player to choose between pre-written text responses. This, of course, leads to a question that comes up in plenty of interviews with the gaming press, like so:

Q: Why is there no voice for the central character? A: There’s no voice for the central character because you’re playing as several different races and as either male or female. So we just thought it would be better to concentrate on everyone else and left the character’s voice to the you.

Ah, I see what you did there. To paraphrase the first sentence: There’s no voice for the central character because it would require the developers to record up to six different voice tracks for the whole game (two genders times three races).

In other words, it would be hard. I understand this. But don’t try to feed me crap and tell me it’s bananas. There is no real connection between the it would be hard explanation and the next claim that it would be “better” to leave the character’s voice to the player’s imagination. It would be easier for the developer, but it sure as hell isn’t better just because that’s the old stand-by alternative.

I understand that this convention seemed like a good idea once upon a time. Some games even include full voice acting for the entire supporting cast but no dialog at all—text or otherwise—for the protagonist. Well, that sucks, too. You’ve heard this gripe before from game developers and players alike: They don’t always want to shut up and save the world; they’d rather kill the silent protagonist. Those who aren’t playing for story may not care what comes out of the characters’ mouths, but the rest of us want our heroes to speak up, especially now that we’ve seen it can be done.

Now, I understand there are some hurdles to this. There are the obvious business concerns, like the problem of paying six voice actors to handle the protagonist (especially when voice actors might get indignant about only making $100k per game). And I admit that there are even some concerns about narrative and immersion. In a game where you can change the appearance of your character and replay the game with another face entirely, are you really going to want to have to hear the same voice coming from two different people? (I admit: I couldn’t handle that in Mass Effect, so I used one face as the base to build around when replaying with female characters, and only the default face when I played through with men.)

But let’s be clear here: While face/dialog match-up is a potential challenge to immersion, it’s still less of a challenge than no spoken dialog at all. I would rather deal with too few voice options than with a character who never speaks aloud at all. Ditching the voice acting may avoid one problem, but I think it creates a worse one. (Feel free to speak up, of course, if you feel likewise or otherwise.)

I’m not sure what the best solution is to this. Personally, I think it should be standard in heavily narrative games with customizable characters to ship with at least one male vocal track and one female vocal track. And hey, in the age of the Xbox Live Marketplace, I could even see paying for additional vocal tracks as downloadable content. I would actually give money for this, for a game that was sufficiently replayable. I could even imagine players recording their own vocal tracks on a volunteer basis, provided an infrastructure that would support this (which doesn’t yet exist).

In the end, if people actually did want a silent protagonist, how hard would it be to just check off an option in some menu that turns off the dialog for the main character? Better to offer the option for dialog than not offer it at all—though I suspect most of us wouldn’t bother checking off that box. If game developers want their products to be taken seriously as entertainment comparable to Hollywood output, it’s time to hire more actors and start thinking like storytellers.

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Two points. 1) There are places where text obviously has its advantages. For example, I can read a lot faster than I can listen to dialogue. Sometimes it’s annoying to have to listen to someone talk when you could have read a paragraph in half the time. Skippable cut-scenes are one way of handling that (avoiding watching the same damn thing three times over when you fail a mission). But I suppose it depends on how much of an “immersive” experience you’re trying to attain. 2) I would guess that at some point, you may actually be able to provide the voice of your character via some sort of speech-recognition technology, thus, at least, potentially replacing the need of voice-acting for a protagonist. But that’s probably a ways off, huh?

Gaming is not the cinema, and I’m not convinced it ought to be. You correctly identify the conflict between good voice acting and good interactivity, but I don’t see why cinematic voice acting (or for that matter, hollywood-style immersion) is desireable.

The most engaging character voicing I know of is Animal Crossing, where all the characters murmer and bubble in time with their dialog. By allowing virtually anything to be ’said’, there is a flexibility in dialog that prerecorded voice actors could never match.

If you’re dead set on this though, my first thought is to set your next console game somewhere with cheap labor and English skills and hire folks to read interactive dialog, streamed live to your XBox or whathaveyou. That which we call the rebirth of tabletop RPGing would by any other name smell as sweet…

As for your first points: I appreciate the comments, but they can both be pretty much summed up as “I’m not interested in immersive narrative games.” That’s fine, and I don’t think all games should be immersive narratives, but it doesn’t actually address what I was asking about at all. I’d be more surprised if someone who does like narrative games—who doesn’t skip cut scenes, and who doesn’t think the best voice acting in the medium comes from Animal Crossing—thinks that Bioware made the right call on Dragon Age, and thinks they’d actually enjoy that more. So, now’s somebody’s chance to step up and surprise me.

As for your latter points: I think streaming voice would be a nightmare in terms of ESRB ratings, but it would be neat for RPGs. And yeah, simulated speech technology isn’t there yet, but it would be interesting if there were software that wouldn’t just read lines but could be programmed with intonations and other directions. (Or does that exist already in some form..?)

“As for your first points: I appreciate the comments, but they can both be pretty much summed up as “I’m not interested in immersive narrative games.””

Wait, are you saying that you can’t have an immersive narrative without voice-acting? That seems awfully limiting to me. I mean, I find books to create immersive narratives. And there have long been interactive text-based games as well. I think your definition of “immersive narrative games” is very much bound with the way those games are produced today, and I’d aruge that it’s far from the only way to do them.

Wait, are you saying that you can’t have an immersive narrative without voice-acting?

No, of course I’m not saying that. I’m saying you need to be consistent within your medium or you risk jarring the audience. Text dialog makes perfect sense within a novel, a text adventure, or (arguably) a silent film. It is jarring to encounter in a product that is going out of its way to look visually like a mainstream Hollywood film, however.

I think your definition of “immersive narrative games” is very much bound with the way those games are produced today, and I’d aruge that it’s far from the only way to do them.

I never said there was no other way to make such games. And I completely acknowledge I am talking about a very specific type of narrative game, but it also happens to be the dominant type of narrative game and the one in which the medium and industry are seeing the most progress. So: Let the text adventures be. Let the experimental, non-traditional, non-linear narratives be. Fine. I’m talking about the branch of the medium that is trying its damndest to have realistic graphics and a cinematic story that would appeal to mainstream audiences, which text adventures and experimental narratives do not and are not soon likely to do.

Very interesting post. I agree, I think the Bioware decision is a copout. Thing is, I’m not sure that what you’re looking for has really been done, at least on the scale we’re talking about. Mass Effect having two voices is like having only two haircuts you can choose. I always think of Oblivion, which had every NPC speaking.. but only like five voice actors. Infuriating. Fallout 3, like Oblivion, has a mute, texty hero.

I think there is a tendency for developers to avoid putting money into content that not every player will see. You can understand the logic, but it’s a dangerous tendency that is driving us toward ever more linear games.

What I often think of is Halo. Halo 3 had 35,000 lines of dialogue; most of this is the random exclamations that the marines & aliens say in the middle of battle. It seems ludicrous for a game that is mostly about shooting stuff, but not only does it prevent repetition (something that definitely destroys immersion), it also leads to some entertaining surprises, as there’s some really weird shit in there. So while it seems like a crazy amount of work with little benefit, especially comparing to how it’s done for films, it’s really necessary. I think the same is true of voice acting for main characters. There needs to be a whole gamut of voice choices, both male and females, and if that means extra work for the devs so be it.

The issue of voice control is an interesting one. It’s not as far off as one might think. Speech-to-text technology is very strong right now (see: Jott), so the missing link is probably the software for parsing human language into game controls. The upcoming RTS EndWar has voice command, although of course it will only recognize a limited set of orders – it’s not at the level needed for RPGs and the like, where you’d want to ask characters questions naturally.

Thing is, I’m not sure that what you’re looking for has really been done, at least on the scale we’re talking about. Mass Effect having two voices is like having only two haircuts you can choose.

No, you’re right. I’m still talking pie-in-the-sky stuff, but I was happy enough with Mass Effect and felt like an analogous approach could’ve worked fine (say, for Fallout 3). In general, anyway, I’d personally prefer only half-decent voice acting for all parts than a silent protagonist. Sure, Leon of Resident Evil 4 sort of sounds like a twit a lot of the time, and he can’t ever pronounce Luis’s name correctly, but there’s no reason he should get to talk and Link shouldn’t be able to in a game that comes out on the same console…

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