Why is speech recording so unpopular? (and what are the alternatives)

[Ali]

Sometimes entirely the wrong emphasis or tone was used, and it was off putting.

That bothers me too - I think it's a consequence of recording actors individually rather than like a radio play (as The Simpsons does). I can't imagine the lengths they go to on films like Shrek (which recorded actors separately) to make sure the same thing doesn't happen.

[Miez]

Wouldn't it be nice to have some really good speech synthesis software? that would make making talkie versions so much easier ... it would have to be really good software though, but the technology does exist.

[Abisso]

I don't agree. The interesting thing in games with recorded speech, is the ability of the "actor" to tell hte things the way they need. His use of the voice, the inflessions, the timbre, maybe his inner humour, if requested.

It's difficult (I hope it's impossible, actually) for a machine to transmit you the same emotions.

[Nexic]

Gotta say, I enjoy a game with text and no speech rather than the other way around. Speech is too slow, and gets annoying when you are going back through the characters looking for clues. Having to listen to worthless babble all over is annoying.

Having said that, when done well it can make a game a lot more captivating. But even in commerical games, it is rarely done well enough.

Usually a good piece of music and maybe the odd sound effect will be enough to keep me interested. In a well written game I start to hear the characters speaking in my head, which is always better than real speech, as it leaves more to the imagination.

[simulacra]

In the mean time i will try to think of alternatives as a backup. Maybe you can give me some thoughts on that aswell.
The game i'm working on doesn't have a visible main character. This is for practical reasons as i can't for the life of me get a decent drawing out of my hands. The environment will be in 3D and modeling a character as detailed as its surroundings is also beyond my capabillities (and, not showing the character untill well in the 2nd half of the game is an integral part of the plot!).
That is the reason why i thought of voice acting as a way to get the player to bond with the character. Whithout it it seems to me that you get such a lifeless feeling of just clicking around in a lifeless worlds where it doesn't matter how you feel as long as you get that puzzle solved. The only 'lifesign' you get from the character would be the responses displayed in a modified statusline. I hope you understand what i'm talking about.

So, how would you go about creating a 'liking' for the character without ever seeing him on screen (save for one reflection in the mirror)?

I am also working on a game with an invisible main character (first-person view) and have asked myself the same thing. My answer was to make the exploration of the main character part of the plot and to write dialogues in a manner that made the main character visible. For example: in a scene, the main character gets the question what was the most important part of his/her life and the player gets two possible replies:

"Most important? My job. I spent eight hours at the office every day."
"Most important? I don't know. Life didn't matter to me."

I am very much into voice acting, having worked for the radio theatre in Sweden for a couple of years. But those experiences also made me respect the medium. Voice acting is not easy, nor is directing voice actors. You have to have the right actors, the right script (or rewrite it as you work), the right equipment and knowledge how to use it. You also need to know when to implement the voice acting. As addressed above, too much voices in the wrong places become tedious in an interactive application. On the other hand, voice acting and sound responses make a game more accessible to people with impaired vision. But most important: when done right, voice acting is fantastic.

The game I am working on is a sequel to a live roleplay, where we recorded about an hour of voice acting which represented inner voices and thoughts that were played to players at specific dramatic points. That was a gigantic project in itself and I am still not happy with all of the results - despite my own experience, despite the fact that we used professional actors and professional equipment.

In this game, I do not want to gender the main character as I find it more interesting if both genders can identify with it. I am however, thinking of using voice acting in the game in a limited manner... what if the player found additional clues, information, fragments, etc. in the form of cassette tapes? That would be really cool and a homage to the prequel, which featured lots of eerie radio voices out there in the static ocean...

[TheYak]

I usually find voices in games a bit more immersive.  If it's done well and I turn the speech off, it's almost like watching a movie unfold.  Of course, the number of times it's done well to that extent is very low.  I thought Malcolm's voice acting in KyraIII added to the humor quite a lot, Grim Fandango's voices really fleshed out the world, and Ben from FT was damned awesome. 

As far as amateur adventures go, I usually play the non-talkie unless I'm being asked to critique the voices.  Fatman was an adventure I'd enjoy equally with or without.  And the foreign accent mention? It wasn't that offputting in Fatman, just try to avoid doing other accents like a native English speaker would do them if you can help it.  Imagine a Russian imitating a cowboy, for example.  If you did that, you'd definitely need some backstory to justify it. 

Not having speech certainly isn't a deal-breaker but I do appreciate the effort.

[hedgefield]

I think the best voice acting I've heard was in Broken Sword. The first time I played was the BS2 demo, then BS1 on the GBA. Once I finally got hold of the full pc version I was blown away by the fact the game had voices. It added so much more depth to the game.