Can You Hear Me Now?: The Future of Voice Commands

With the recent release of Tom Clancy’s EndWar, the voice command-centric real time strategy title from Ubisoft, the possibilities inherent in using your voice to play a game are once again brought to light. Using your voice to command battalions of troops is certainly a natural progression; the omnipotence granted to the player by most RTS games is only enhanced by having your units live and die by your order. However, I want to take a look at other genres and titles that could benefit from this kind of vocal integration. Some of these suggestions are serious, some are ridiculous, and some (if not all) almost certainly require technology that doesn’t exist yet.

But I digress.

Stealth/Survival Horror – Picture this. You’re tiptoe-ing down a hallway in a new survival horror game, followed closely by your friend/squadmate/hot ex-girlfriend. The ambiance has you on edge, the creaks of floorboards and groans of unearthly creatures wanting to gnaw at your brain. You want your companion to stay put while you investigate further, so you whisper into your headset, “Wait here.” You whisper, of course, not only because you’re scared out of your mind, but because the game knows how loud you’re talking; say it any louder, and hordes of demons/zombies/aliens will rip you to shreds. Suddenly, one of the aforementioned demons/zombies/aliens busts through the window! “RUN!” you yell, and you and your companions flee to safety. Intense, huh? The idea would work similarly for a squad or partner-based stealth action game, à la Splinter Cell. Make sure you whisper so you can still successfully snap that terrorist’s neck!

The Sims – This franchise makes it onto my list mainly because of my frustrated memories of these games. It seemed there was always at least one of my little sims who I could never make happy, or feed correctly, or get laid. I mean, I was already yelling at the little bastards, so it would be nice if they could respond in some way. It does raise some disturbing ethical questions, however. Can you actually verbally abuse a virtual person? We can only hope.

Sports – Here’s another scenario for you. You’re playing a football game on the couch with your buddy. Instead of going through some list of plays that your opponent can clearly see, you do what the pros do: utter a string of nonsense words. I mean, the whole notion of play calling is designed to prevent your opponent from knowing what you’re going to do. Why not bring it to the gaming world? You could even take it a step further and call actual audibles at the line of scrimmage! And since experienced Madden or NCAA Football players are used to setting up their own audibles, you could record the voice commands yourself, further customizing your experience. The downside? The inevitable abuse of audibles with euphemisms for “penis” in them.

Puzzle/Adventure Games – You know as well as I do that the puzzle-heavy adventure games of yesteryear are all but extinct, but I feel that a well-implemented gimmick like voice integration could really revitalize a genre like this one. Imagine puzzles where you had to decipher a code out-loud to open a doorway, verbally guide a companion through a series of pitfalls, or answer nefarious riddles to avoid certain doom! Sounds pretty adventurous to me.

Spell Casting – Okay, we’re about to get into major geek territory here, but I’ve always thought it would be cool for a game to allow you to cast spells the way most games and movies portray it: through words. I don’t even really care what genre the game is, I just think it would be badass (well, whatever the geek equivalent of badass is) to say some magical words into your headset and have your character rain fiery death on your enemies. Imagine how chaotic a large battle could be if you actually had to verbally cast every spell on your own. I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Rein it in, Josh.

Well, there you have it. Some of it indulged in the realm of technological fantasy, to be sure, but maybe someday, within my lifetime, I’ll be able to finally reach the new tier of laziness that is playing games without even needing thumbs.