Poll: Really Need The Voice?

[Nazulu]

I'm interested to find out how many of you think it is essential for the in game characters of the future generation need voices. Whether it helps immerse you, expect it to go with all the new technology or your just fine with reading like me.

I recently started playing an old game that requires a little bit of reading, I didn't think about it while I was playing since I was having fun, but just now I thought to myself 'I don't need the voices'.

I've been a gamer for awhile so it will be different for all the new gamers but I never needed it to improve the experience, in fact a lot of the voices in today's games I find annoying. I don't know how much they spend on it but do you think it would be better to save the money for other things?

Tell me if there is anything I should add to the pole.

Edit: Oh and I missed one thing. I mean actual talking, not grunts like Link or yahoos from Mario.

 

[Julianking93]

Kinda.

I mean, I have no problem with reading in a game, but it just reminds me I'm playing a game and breaks immersion.

But then again, when there's shit voice acting, that can be just as bad, if not worse as broken immersion caused by reading dialog.

 

[CLEVERSLEAZOID]

I'm a bit of both. Sometimes it works having the 'strong silent type' [I.E like Freeman in Half Life, or the Rookie in ODST {Only mentioned Rookie because the fact its one of the first things said to him in game, 'times like these, it pays to be the strong silent type', which sometimes is true!}]

And other times you just want your character to turn to one of the supporting cast to tell them to stfu.

I've no problem with reading, infact sometimes I think it makes a game more immersive. Besides some games have had terrible voice acting [Like the females in FF13 >_>]

 

[Peta Michalek]

Depends on the genre. There is nothing worse than voiced RPGs for example, as the characters talk very slowly and their lines in general contain a lot of redundant/repeated information so you just sit there listening to them go on and on and on.

This is especially visible in games where you can turn on subtitles - you read the entire subtitle and the voice actor is not even halfway there. So you quickly get bored, and boredom is fast lane to frustration.

 

[Phase_9]

good voice acting can really cement the experience and help bring life to characters.

 

[oppp7]

Nintendo games have proven voices aren't required.

 

[Matt8Bit]

I voted Yes other. I think that a game's main characters should have voices but they don't necessarily have to be of this World. Take Lylat Wars for example, I much preferred playing the game with Lylat dialogue as it gave a feel of more immersion. Even Link, from the Legend of Zelda made grunts and noises when he fought and fell, this made him much more believable as a character.

That's not to say they that everyone in a game should have a voice, a lot of RPG's have NPC's that aren't really that important but you can still talk to them, I find a text bubble is fine in these cases, and doesn't draw anything away from the overall game-play experience. Plus paying voice actors is something that's going to get far more expensive as voice acting becomes used more in gaming, many smaller companies may decide against it for this reason.

 

[Nicarus]

I say voices are necessary, but not in EVERY part of the game. Put voices in when they truly make the scene.

 

[joshuaayt]

Was Oblivion greatly improved by the voices? Balls no, but a game like, say, Bioshock, would have difficulty immersing one if it were purely text. So it really depends, case by case, on the type of game played.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I'm certainly not adverse to text-only games. As voiced in previous posts I'm a retro-gamer anyway, so that doesn't bother me at all, whether it's point-and-click games like Beneath a Steel Sky or RPGs like Morrowind. Voice-acting in games does help a game feel more immersive, but only if done right, by having a large cast (GTA IV). If done badly, with a small cast (Oblivion) then the endlessly repeated, same few voices can totally destroy all feelings of immersion.

It's worth my mentioning that, in my personal case, I always switch subtitles on even in a well scripted game, because a) I don't want to miss a vital piece of info just because I'm in the middle of a fire-fight (GTA, I'm looking at you!), and b) I'm a very quick reader and can invariably read all that a character has to say in the time it takes the voice actor to get through the first sentence (Fallout 3, I hereby find you guilty).

 

[imaloony]

Yes, but only if the game calls for it. RPGs on the DS don't need it, pokemon doesn't need it, Megaman doesn't need it, but a lot of games do.

 

[SpaceJam89]

There are some games that have terrible voice acting. If the voices of the characters are going to make my ears bleed, I'd rather just play without the voices.

 

[neoontime]

Yes, i like there to be voices in order to add feeling, this why i especially don't care what language it has to be in

 

[Vet2501]

IF the voice acting is good then it can improve a game, but I don't find it neccesary to enjoy a game. I actually like reading the dialoge as it lets me imagine the voices, put on accents and use punctuation to characterise people myself.

 

[Rainboq]

Kinda.

I mean, I have no problem with reading in a game, but it just reminds me I'm playing a game and breaks immersion.

But then again, when there's shit voice acting, that can be just as bad, if not worse as broken immersion caused by reading dialog.

You stole what I was going to say.... bloody ninja....

 

[NoNameMcgee]

Yes, it should be standard! If it's a serious action game, no voices can pretty much be a deal-breaker for me. One of the reasons I disliked STALKER was having to read a lot of text for my missions rather than having them spoken to me. Big interface overlay screens where I have to read a lot of shit may convey a story to me just as well as if it was spoken, but I tend to lose interest in it at that point. I need to voice acting to hear the emotion in whats happening. Even if the voice acting is bad it's usually at least tolerable, where as lack of it can completely put me off a game.

 

[Tony2077]

i like having voices

 

[Veleste]

Many games have proven to me that voices are superfluous. Torchlight had awful voice acting so i stopped playing it half way through and FF XIII was a game I didn't even buy as the voices from the advert annoyed me.

If the voice acting is good, like the voice acting in Dragon Age or FFX then yes, it can greatly increase the experience. But if it is done badly, which it so often is done (Mass Effect 2 didn't have the best voice acting in the world. Sheppard was virtually monotone through out.) it can really decrease enjoyment of the game.

If anime has taught us anything, it's that people don't mind subtitles.