Konami's Lifeline Goes Voice All The Way

Mechanik writes "A new CNN article details Konami's new PlayStation 2 game LifeLine, which has a very interesting twist on control schemes. The piece explains: 'Unlike some other games, voice commands in 'LifeLine' are not optional -- they're the only way to control the action. With the help of a USB headset... you talk to characters and they respond by following your commands and/or answering your questions.' Apparently, the developers know just how we gamer geeks think too... 'Of course, if you have a virtual hottie like Rio at the center of an action game, some players will try to command her to do more than just run and shoot. 'I love you,' 'Take your clothes off,' 'What's your sign?' We have responses for most of those,' [the developer] says'." This title has only had a couple of reviews thus far, although they seem to paint it as a flawed experiment.

Question...

[BTWR]

how well will this game work for someone with a heavy accent, speech impediments, stuttering, etc? it'd be interesting if they programmed for this scenario...

Re:Question...

[alphaseven]

I don't know, try the demo: lifeline pc voice recognition demo [gamespot.com], I got it to work 80% of the time, seems kinda sloppy though, thing crashed on me after a while too.

Re:Question...

[nicky_d]

I played a fair amount of Rainbow 6 on Xbox, and that has voice recog. in it. It's only a matter of time before you try putting on an Irish brogue (or the closest you can get) and other accents, to see how well they work. I found that R6 was pretty solid in that respect, and there were a few commands that worked more consistently with accents applied. Of couse, we all have an accent, but if a computer game can understand what I'm telling it when I'm talking in a ludicrously exaggerated Birmingham (England, not Alabama) accent, someone's doing something right... I also tried drawling my words as fasr as I could before crossing the recongnition line, and there was a fair amount of slack there, too. Be nice if the game characters answered you with the same affectations...

Re:Question...

[MagicM]

Probably the same way a controller-operated game works for someone with Parkinson's: not very well.

Re:Question...

[BTWR]

parkinson's disease is a disability, accents are not.

Re:Question...

[Baikala]

I'm glad to inform you that you have been awarded the "Isensitive clod" award of this day, you must be proud aren't you?

Re:Question...

[MagicM]

I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement. I merely tried to point out (perhaps in a rather politically uncorrect way) that game designers are already not able to make their games playable by EVERYONE.

Again, I apologize.

Rio's not that hot

[ObviousGuy]

I imagine that you'd have to go through a period of training in order to get the girl to respond to your particular voice. However, trying to get Rio to take her clothes off seems a little self defeating. She's awfully ugly.

Killer app...

[Myco]

Okay, so this one's probably a stinker. But it's a cool idea, more so than you may realize. It's a video game that requires no hands. No hands, understand? ...

Okay, maybe it's not obvious yet. But just remember, every new technology is driven by porn.

Ahhhh, now you see.

Re:Killer app...

[TheScogg]

I'm a mute, you insensitive clod.

Re:Killer app...

[Myco]

lalalalalalalala i can't hear you

Yes, but what about cheats?

[b0r0din]

You: "Take off your clothes."
Rio: "You can't possibly mean that."
You: "Oh, I do."
Rio: "What do you do?"
You: "Just take them off. It's the only reason I bought the damn game."
Rio: "I'm not going to do that, sir."
You: "Fine. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start."
Rio:
You: "Woot! It still works!"

Dreamcast voice control...

[MegatronUK]

Did anyone ever play the voice-controlled DC game "Seaman"? That was voice controlled - you had to make an fish-type creature evolve.

Re:Dreamcast voice control...

[bjb]

Did anyone ever play the voice-controlled DC game "Seaman"? That was voice controlled - you had to make an fish-type creature evolve.

That wasn't QUITE voice control, since you did many things with the controller; you had a virtual "hand" that you operated. The microphone was used more for voice recognition, i.e. when speaking with the Seaman.

A fine line of difference, but I wouldn't call Seaman "voice controlled".

Re:Dreamcast voice control...

[TLSPRWR]

Voice interactive, at least. Talking to Seaman was a vital part of the game, and no ammount of cleaning the tank or grabbing unmovable objects would let Seaman progress in his evolution. Only through your voice interaction would he grow.

Re:Dreamcast voice control...

[MegatronUK]

Was it any good? I've managed to rustle up most of the wierd/good/cool/unusual DC games, but Seaman + controller is one I've yet to find.

Re:Dreamcast voice control...

[Scorchio]

As a games developer, we got a Japanese import of the game when it was released, for urm, research purposes. Unfortunately, none of us could read Japanese, so the manual and on-screen instructions were muddled through by trial and error.

The voice control was a bit disappointing. The microphone sat on a short stalk, plugged into a memory card slot on the controller, if I recall. Our Seaman wasn't progressing much, even with plenty of vocal encouragement - "Hello little fishy! How are you today? Who's my fis

Lin

[TLSPRWR]

The main drawback behind it is Seaman requires a lot of time. Seriously, it sounds stupid, but... it does. If you don't clean Seaman's tank (forget what you exactly do), it fogs up and causes the Seaman to die or get sick. You have to grow weird bugs in a seperate tank to feed him, so you have to worry about them. Plus, he becomes angry with you if you neglect him too long. You have to check up on him every day, two days at the most, or else the problems become severe.
One way around this is adjusting the i

Re:Lin

[bjb]

You hit the nail on the head: it takes a lot of time.

I spent several weeks tending to Seaman on an almost-daily basis so I could at least say that I "finished" the game. Its been a year now since I last left him in an "almost left the small pool in the mostly drained tank", but mostly due to the fact that I have to find the memory card that he was stored on after a move :-) Time to turn the clock back to 2003.

What about voice combination?

[ptolemu]

Seems to me that having a game controlled solely by voice, though interesting, might be somewhat restricting in that it would not allow for very precise control. I think it would have been a more practical approach to add voice-enabled commands that could be customized macro-style. This could prove to be a far more intuitive use of voice control as you would have the precision of an analogue joystick for movement while the voice commands could execute combination style commands without having to memorize/execute complex controller manoeuvres.

Re:What about voice combination?

[SuiteSisterMary]

That's the whole point. You're not controlling the on screen character; your character is talking to her character via intercom, and watching what she does via camera.

Therefore, you shouldn't have precise control over what she does; your job is to give advice, information, commands.

Re:What about voice combination?

[b0r0din]

I agree that it'll be restricting, but while I don't think it'll be a commercial hit I think the game begins to push the envelope of what we can do. I imagine a killer app will be developed that uses voice recognition in the near future. Example: Metal Gear Solid. Maybe make some parts of the game voice recognition. Not the whole game, but maybe a specific part where you have to instruct someone on how to diffuse a bomb over the radio. Or maybe you can talk over the radio to your superior. Although most VR

For those of you interested in learning more...

[TechnoPops]

Check out IGN's hands (or maybe "lips?")-on video demos [ign.com] of the game, and their review [ign.com].

This is kinda like old Sierra games...

[ottawanker]

Maybe now we can get a game like Police Quest, and instead of typing 'Open Door', we can just say it.

The Sierra games really went downhill when they changed from the text-input control to the icons, and this seems like it would be the best of both worlds (assuming it works properly).

Re:This is kinda like old Sierra games...

[gl4ss]

well I'd like to see this kind of thing on some action titles.. especially those where you're supposed to manage a team while in action(vietcong & all).

"FLANK!!" "RADIOMAN!!!" & etc..

as a related sidenote just the other day we tried playing ut2004 demo with a friend while using ventrilo for voicechat. worked excellently :) ("incoming!!! run to the door!!")

Re:This is kinda like old Sierra games...

[moonbender]

You say that and even mention UT2004 in your post but miss pointing out that UT2004 actually lets you control your bot teammates using voice commands! I haven't tried it so far, but allegedly it works quite well. It's not the first game to do this, though, I think some Xbox game had that feature. And of course there have been other games which allow you to control AI teammates using the keyboard, which you could control using voice via add-on speech recognition software.

Re:This is kinda like old Sierra games...

[scabb]

"The Sierra games really went downhill when they changed from the text-input control to the icons"

No they didn't, that's stupid. Using a mouse is a lot more convenient, and makes a lot more sense. I know the King's Quest remakes, and the LSL remake have definitely benefitted from eliminating frustrating systems where you have to get the word "just right". Besides, even if they did go down hill, do you really think the interface was to blame for that?

Remember those old text adventure games?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the past, you had to type out exactly what you want the character to do, like 'open can using axe'. This seems to be a rather similar type, except that instead of typing, you're talking instead. I'd think that this would better suit those adventure games of old, and most definately not action packed games. (the only exception I'd think would be games with AI involved, in which you give commands to direct the action, not control them)

AI and human voices

[MMaestro]

If theres anything Sierra adventure games have taught me in the past, its that adventure games gets infinitismly more difficult to get through as more words are put into it. I think it would've been better if Konami included a list of key phrases or words players were to use instead of having them guess what the name of a certain item was.

The game does provide word prompts

[Webapprentice]

In the screenshots I've seen, objects that Rio can interact with have "tooltip" windows that appear. This will help the player find the right word to use, although Konami says they do have some synonyms built into the system.

D&D memory

[alexjohns]

There's this clerical spell in D&D that's called 'Command'. If successfully cast on an opponent they will do whatever your command was for 1 round. The command could only be one word and it had to be a verb. The most common use was 'die', which was specifically addressed in the rules - the affected 'monster' would just fall down in a coma for one round and be able to get up the next round and re-commence beating the crap out of you.

Being able to take an opponent out of the battle for one round is a good thing, but you'd like to do more. Eventually, I came up with a better one: 'Undress!'. A fighter with plate mail: drop the sword, drop the shield, start undoing a bunch of leather straps, etc. When the round was over he had to put his armor back on or his AC wouldn't be as good as it was. So you might take him out of the fight for two rounds (or more - it often takes longer to put stuff back on than it does to take off.)

So then if you know you're gonna be fighting 'the big-breasted babe from Bouncytown' the next day, you ask for all the command spells you can remember (clerical spells are granted by your god), then sit in the back of the party and just 'Undress!' until you run out. This, of course, led to someone eventually switching to: 'Masturbate!'. The first time somebody did that we were all rolling on the floor.

Needless to say, DM interpretation of events varied widely. Points to remember: You don't ever want to tell a dragn to 'Masturbate' (depending on the DM, self-gratification to a dragon may not be exactly what you'd pictured), and you really, really don't want to lose a fight to someone who was forced to diddle themselves in public. Believe me, there are worse things to be impaled on a pike than your head, if you're still alive to... uh, 'enjoy' the experience.

Re:D&D memory

[hambonewilkins]

No offense, but this is why I've never played D&D.

Perhaps the stereotypes are true.

Re:D&D memory

[alexjohns]

I'm not offended. Although I'm not sure what you're referring to. You don't want to hang around someone who says the word 'masturbate'? WTF are you doing on /. Word of advice: Don't ever read at -1. ;}

OK so, does that sound like I was 15 when that happened? I was a bit older than that, but so what. What should I have been doing? At 15, what are my options - go to the mall? Go to my friend's house and watch TV? Do homework?

Or, let's say I was 21. Should I have been at a bar, drinking? I did plenty of that when I was in my 20's. I've been drunk in more different countries than most people can name (US Navy). So what?

Should I perhaps have been watching a sporting event? Did plenty of that, too. About 10 years ago I stopped watching sports - right after all the baseball players went on strike. (BTW, Cal Ripken does not have an unbroken streak of playing in however many games he was supposed to have played in. He went on strike and sat on his ass at home for a year.) Right after that football or basketball went on strike and I said that's that. So when I look at the front of the Washington Post sports section and see 'indicted', '$50 million dollar contract', 'steroids', 'rape', 'self-defense', etc. I just laugh. Do I think Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame? Probably not, but at this point I could give a shit. Barry Bonds - probably guilty - yes his records are probably meaningless, and again, I could care less. I keep up enough so I know what the issues are, but that's it.

Which stereotype are you talking about? Bunch of pimply-faced male teen-age geeks? We had several women/girls/females play with us. I dated several of the girls I met through D&D. Do I look back on my high school years and wish I'd been more sexually active? Sure, there are several girls whose pants I wanted to get into. Which guy doesn't have that yearning? In reality, if I'd done that I would have probably gotten someone pregnant and my whole life would have been screwed up.

What did you do on Friday and Saturday nights while in high school and college? Get drunk? Watch TV? Hang out? How is that a better way to spend your time? I'm 40 now. I'm still friends with those people. I'm not friends with anyone from my high school or the neighborhood I grew up in. But I'm still friends with a lot of the people I played D&D with. How many friendships do you have that have lasted over 20 years?

On Friday and Saturday nights we killed Dragons and Demons; forged swords of legend; rescued maidens; toppled kingdoms; fought everything in the Monster Manual (at least twice); escaped fiendish traps (well, sometimes we didn't). We laughed, we cried, we fought. We had fun. The fact that most of this happened in our heads doesn't matter. We had an amazing amount of fun.

If I could find a bunch of people around here to play with, I'd join in a night a week. I think my wife and son could spare me that.

Re:D&D memory

[Unknown Kadath]

My gaming group came up with that idea for use in Vampire with the first level of Dominate, which functions similarly to Command. No one ever actually tried to use it, though. Sheesh.

I like your sig, however.

-Carolyn

Re:D&D memory

[alexjohns]

I don't know that we used that exact action very often. It was kind of an epiphany sort of thing when it happened. I think we decided that 'flee' was probably the best use. That puts the commandee out of action for at least two rounds. And if the corridor he's fleeing down is one you haven't checked for traps yet... well, all the better.

What exactly would a vampire do if you told him to masturbate? Probably try to suck your blood if he wasn't doing so already.

Thanks about the sig.

Re:D&D memory

[Unknown Kadath]

I don't know that we used that exact action very often. It was kind of an epiphany sort of thing when it happened. I think we decided that 'flee' was probably the best use. That puts the commandee out of action for at least two rounds. And if the corridor he's fleeing down is one you haven't checked for traps yet... well, all the better.

We found that "Stop!" usually worked well enough for your friends with Celerity (extra actions) to close the distance and do painful things to the target. Vampire combat

Voice adventure?

[TLSPRWR]

Playing Lifeline is like trying to play a text adventure with a malfunctioning keyboard - Gamespy [gamespy.com]

Seems to me like a very true statement.

Nifty idea, but...

[Jerf]

It's a nifty idea, but I think the developers didn't think this one out completely.

you'll realize the fights boil down you yelling a set of commands, "Shoot, shoot, shoot!" "left" "dodge" and "reload" a whole lot.

This is stupid. Voice is a much more symbolic control scheme then a control pad. If this is the majority of the voice commands, then leave the controls on the pad.

Voice and words are a much more symbolic medium then clicks and button presses; we call it "point and grunt" for a reason. Converting the "grunt" into a word is not progress. What you really need is something more like the old Infocom games, which was a "native" word game. You never/rarely said "Walk forward six inches"; instead it was "Put the lamp on the oven".

The best use of this technology is to bring back the adventure game on the console with the rich verb set of the old Infocom games, without requiring any typing which puts off anybody who can speak more quickly then they type. The worst use of this technology is to convert button presses into voice commands. Sounds like this title did a little of both, but the latter can rapidly overwhelm the former.

Re:Nifty idea, but...

[StocDred]

This month's OPM has a Lifeline demo. Yeah, the fight seemed to be simple commands (although it was a simple fight), but the game supposedly knows 2000 words... so it's not just a short list of commands. According to the game's bullet points, it does have a "rich verb set." Whether it can understand you saying them is a different matter!

It's a cool idea, and it could be very cinematic, but the demo showed how spotty the voice recognition is. When it works, it's pretty cool... almost like having a real con

going clubbing?

[call_me_leon]

what purpose could this have? it was probably a good idea on paper, but once it got going, i thought Konami would realize the absurdity of their idea. Is voice controlling fun? Does someone have some kind of twisted sense of humor. I know what i would do if i had voice control - the electric slide.

Not exactly "new" game / technology.

[mowph]

As some other people have pointed out, this technology has been tried before (Seaman). But the post further gets it wrong with the idea that it's a "new" game -- as the article mentions, Lifeline is the US localization of an existing Japanese game.

The original game was called "Operator's Side" and was released over a year ago in Japan, where it did well enough to go to a "PlayStation 2 the Best" Release within 8 months.

Linguistically speaking, voice-rec may be easier to do in Japanese. Japanese has a very regular syllabic structure, consisting almost entirely of open syllables, with long syllables composed of shorter ones.

Japanese cellular phones have had voice recognition based on breaking down words for a long time, and it was only natural that the tech find its way into games. For example, if you input the word "sakura", it would be parsed as "sa" "ku" "ra", instead of compared outright to the waveform of entire words.

Now what would be really interesting to see this sort of game software used in a language learning environment... It would also be interesting to play a Japanese game that for once requires spoken fluency in Japanese instead of written!!

IGN's stream of consciousness

[hambonewilkins]

From the IGN review of the game:
Sound
Technically, Lifeline offers little. It doesn't support Dolby Digital or Dolby Pro Logic II, and it's not supported with widescreen or progressive scan (though those last two don't have much to do with sound).

Mind you the "Sound" part of the review immediately follows the "Graphics" section. Was it to hard to move the "widescreen and progressive scan" note up a couple paragraphs? They know it is in the wrong place and COMMENT on it... what gives?

Perhaps IGN lacks

Buggy

[tini1212]

You: Shout Rio doesn't move You: Shout Rio rolls You: Shout Rio finally manages to shoot but gets shot before she could fire How accurate can it be?

played a few hours into the game

[sleepy_htk]

I played about 5 hours into the game now and the voice recognition works in some parts better than i expected but in other it can sometimes be REALLY frustrating when you try to solve puzzles in the game. (computerterminal:"please say the voice password", Me:"password", Computer:"beep - wrong" Me:*hmm... did i solve the puzzle incorrectly or was my pronounciation bad...?") As for accents... i got stuck around 5 times where i had trouble to pronounciate words correctly (I'm german) but in general i could p