Full game voice control that works (so we're told)
A big new feature for EndWar is the use of total voice control where you can tell your units what to do, where to move, who to attack, all by using a set of voice commands. This means you can take a ‘hands-off’ approach if you want and just use your voice for the entire game. Michael reckons that in playtesting, once the testers were used to speaking to the game they used the voice control more than standard controls, even though a ‘move to reticule’ command would’ve been quicker with one button press.EndWar isn’t the first RTS to attempt voice control as GMX’s Will Of Steel had a crack at it a few years back... but it was bloody dire and simply unplayable. However, Michael reckons that today’s hardware and voice recognition software are both much more advanced and able to handle everything from differing volume levels and background noise through to regional accents.
Now before you Geordies get too excited by the thought of being able to have the game understand “Way-aye, ah wannus yus to gahn doon t’rood an’ shoot ‘im in the nappa! Mak ‘im deeed, like!” the game isn’t that clever. It’ll get the accent but you rely on a list of keywords to control the game.
Click for larger imageThe system is similar to the one used on SOCOM but this is just used as a basis and has, according to Michael, been vastly improved upon. So you get a list pop on the screen and when you speak a word from the list, a sub menu pops up with a range of options related the previous selection... so you just talk your way through the options and then your choices are applied. The options are context sensitive depending on the units you’ve selected and their situation, which helps to speed things up a bit and also adds to the realism of the game itself. Michael reckons that talking to the game gives you a far more immersive experience as you start to feel you really are giving orders to real units. So to build on this they’ve recorded over 30,000 lines of battle chatter, giving a more lifelike to the grunts on the ground. In addition to this, units gain experience and the surviving ones get taken to the next mission becoming more effective the more they fight. So losing a long serving, experienced unit can be a quite a blow and even affect the outcome of the battle.
