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…

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.

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.

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.

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..?)

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…