Adventure Gamers - Forums

Your poll options are a bit biased, assuming voice acting is necessarily better. I usually skip voice as it’s way too slow for my taste and most games have so-so acting. So, I actually prefer games with no voice acting except for rare cases.

Antrax - 14 January 2017 11:49 AM

Your poll options are a bit biased, assuming voice acting is necessarily better. I usually skip voice as it’s way too slow for my taste and most games have so-so acting. So, I actually prefer games with no voice acting except for rare cases.

I think poll options are always debatable :-). As for assuming that voice acting is better - the opposite is the case. I’m not assuming anything. The intend of the poll is to determine whether people on this forum find that voice acting in a game is better (or not).

Maybe the confusion is because of the actual topic name (?) which differs some from the poll question (not the best choice perhaps).

The actual poll question is: “Would you purchase / play a new adventure game if it lacked voice acting?”

Looking at your reply, why would either option 2 or 3 not fit your preference?

I have played a number of very good games that don’t have voice-acting (& agree with the sentiment of a previous poster that none is better than bad!). But I won’t cast a vote in the poll as Antrax is actually right:

Antrax - 14 January 2017 11:49 AM

Your poll options are a bit biased, assuming voice acting is necessarily better.

No! For me option 2 doesn’t fit due to it’s proviso that implies that because there is no voice-acting there is a price limit. Option no 3 doesn’t fit for me either as how will I know it’s really good (for me) unless I play it! (Bearing in mind that there may be other aspects of the game to tempt me to play aside from the lack of voice-acting   ) Don’t get me wrong - I do love voice-acting in a game but good well-written dialogue can compensate & all the better if it’s accompanied by a pleasing soundtrack! 
 

chrissie - 14 January 2017 03:27 PM

...Don’t get me wrong - I do love voice-acting in a game but good well-written dialogue can compensate & all the better if it’s accompanied by a pleasing soundtrack!

Fair enough. Your argument-based opinion is in fact more valuable to me than a vote :-). Thanks for clarifying!

There’s many games I love that have no or minimal voice acting.  That being said, bad voice acting makes games worse and great voice acting makes games better.

On a small budget I’d say it’d be safer to have no voice acting.  Because even with bigger studios I’d say games are more often on the bad side than the good side.  But then there are also some smaller developers that do voice acting well (like Wadget Eye), and that does add something to the presentation.

Bitano - 14 January 2017 12:45 PM

As for assuming that voice acting is better - the opposite is the case. I’m not assuming anything.

Uh-huh. So let’s look at the options:
Play it but won’t pay for it - makes no sense if you think voice acting is bad. The implication is that a game without voice is not worth any price of admission.

Wouldn’t mind paying a “reasonable” price. First of all, this is a catch-all, as “reasonable” is probably “the price I would be willing to pay for a game” so most likely all people will always play reasonably-priced games. But if we look past that, again the term “reasonable” implies the game is flawed by not having voice - otherwise why add the qualifier?

I’d be hesitant - again, why would you hesitate? It implies you wouldn’t hesitate if the game had voice -> voice is good.

Never - self explanatory.

Assuming you really wanted to gauge people’s opinion about a game with voice acting, your poll options would be something like “I prefer no voice”, “I don’t mind either way” and “I prefer voice” probably with some weaker options in-between. What you have now is the poll “how much are you upset by games not having voice” with the “best” option being “I’d be willing to forgive it maybe, if it’s cheap or the game is really good otherwise”.

Well, Antrax. Your points are valid. I don’t think it’s in the options though, but in the question. And indeed the question implies that a game with voice acting is more appealing than one without.

I think this holds true in the same way that the majority of people would rather watch a movie than read a book.
Another example would be the remastered Day of the Tentacle. I don’t know whether less people would’ve bought it if it didn’t have voice acting (maybe not), but I’m pretty sure in this game the voice acting was a welcome addition for most if not all.

Assuming you really wanted to gauge people’s opinion about a game with voice acting, your poll options would be…

This part I have to disagree with. Studies show that if you want to invoke someone’s opinion you have to refrain from being neutral.
When being presented with a neutral option, people tend to be indifferent and don’t bother. However when you present an option someone disagrees with, (s)he has the urge to correct this. Kind of what happened in this thread.

At any rate i’m happy with the poll’s outcome :-).

If it’s a game like Machinarium, Botanicula or Samorost or freeware I don’t miss it a bit.  A polished game that is for sale however seems incomplete with no voice acting.  Imagine Tex Murphy or Gabriel Knight games without it, for instance.

That said, I’m sure there are games I’ve played which didn’t have it and I enjoyed anyway.  Some casual games come to mind.

Dara100 - 17 January 2017 03:46 PM

Imagine Tex Murphy or Gabriel Knight games without it, for instance.

You mean like Mean Streets or the non-CD-ROM GK1? Because I thought they were fine when I played them.

Antrax - 18 January 2017 12:52 AM

Dara100 - 17 January 2017 03:46 PM

Imagine Tex Murphy or Gabriel Knight games without it, for instance.

You mean like Mean Streets or the non-CD-ROM GK1? Because I thought they were fine when I played them.

I really enjoyed Mean Streets, but I wouldn’t say it had the same flavour as the other Tex games we know and love - if it had, there’d be no need for Overseer. GK1 is more of a question.

I just found it funny the two examples used actually started without voice acting. Also, I believe the voice acting in GK3 is generally considered to be a detriment.

Antrax - 18 January 2017 08:00 AM

I just found it funny the two examples used actually started without voice acting. Also, I believe the voice acting in GK3 is generally considered to be a detriment.

Yeah, fair point
I didn’t find the voice acting offputting in GK3, but it was the first of them that I played.

It’s not that crucial if the story is good and/or the game offers good puzzles. Two examples come to mind: Last week, I played the Norwegian indie-adventure “Milkmaid of the Milky Way” - no voice acting, subtitles were in rhyme, graphics were very retro, i.e. pixels all over and not much room for facial expressions. The developer, however, did an amazing job in making the main character very likeable from the start - solely via monologues, dialogues and as much facial expression as the graphics would allow. Also, the story was very good. Every character had a distinctive look so you knew immediately who you were dealing with. I didn’t miss the voice acting for one second and really enjoyed the game.

The second example I can think of is “Goetia”. That game worked very well without voice acting because the Story was excellent and the puzzles gave you so much to think that you really didn’t have time to miss the voice acting. Also, the main character was very well-written and likeable.