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Video games

The regional bias of voice acting

I have become so accustomed to Japanese character models and American voice acting that Xenoblade’s British voice acting cast came as quite a shock to me as a Brit (and no doubt to a great many American gamers who imported the game).

Xenoblade’s British streak hints at something lacking in more of our gaming experiences (in English at least). We’ve lost a lot of our world view. We’ve started to expect the characters in our games to sound a certain way. With all the same regional hallmarks.

Sounding distinctly foreign

Xenoblade’s British voice acting cast came as a welcome shock to me. It was wonderful to hear many of my native tones and accents pour of the screen. It was also strangely jarring. I grew up with games that didn’t speak, and those that did were a rare and impressive novelty. My immersion into game characters sounding a certain way came very slowly.

I read text heavy games such as Final Fantasy VII in my own style internally, I imagined Cloud and the other characters speaking in my native accent, in the same way that you imagine a character in a book looking or sounding in a way particular to your own instincts and background. That’s not to say that’s how any of those characters sounded, but that’s merely how I imagined them within the framework of what I knew.

Over time though this imaginative approach to gaming has been slowly eroded away by the inclusion of voice acting. While this is for the most part totally welcome it’s definitely affected the way that I now perceive games. I don’t even blink hearing lead characters with an American accent anymore, or even a Japanese audio track.

Yet hearing the Xenoblade characters for the first few minutes was very hard work – despite how brilliant the voice acting is. The British tones are how I hear Shulk and Reyn when I imagine them now – without question. I was merely taken aback by how ubiquitous American and Japanese voices have become in the gaming world, how rare and exciting it was to hear my own country in the audio track of this distinctly Japanese game.

I hadn’t realised this voice casting bias had happened until Xenoblade came along, and now I’ve realised it, it’s really made me question why more games aren’t voiced by people from another region.

Xenoblade’s not the only example of British voice acting of course, but it’s one of the first I’ve experienced, and certainly the first one to really make me sit up and think about this, precisely because of the polarity between how this games sounds and what I am used to. It’s marvellous.

A slow change in standards

Of course the quality of the voice acting in a game is an important factor too. A good voice acting cast will often make me forget about the original nationality of the voice actors. Mass Effect is a great example of this. The only reason I found Xenoblade so briefly jarring was because of the rarity of hearing my native accent in the context of a game.

Another difficulty with voice acting comes with the localisation and modernisation of older games that didn’t previously have an audio track for voices. A part of me still prefers to read game dialogue than to hear it, as I can take in the story at my own pace – perhaps faster or even slower than someone acting the part could allow.

It can also be extremely hard to hear characters you know intimately who were previously silent. I still can’t watch Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children with the English audio track. No one will ever sound or come close to sounding how I imagined those characters through our hundreds of hours together. The “sound” of that game has become something very personal to me, and it’s a difficult listen for someone else to retrospectively try to voice those characters.

That’s why a game like Xenoblade stands more of a chance at exposing the issue of the lack of variety of video game voice acting. The characters are new to us and stand a better chance of making their mark as to how those characters should sound to a Western audience.

The fact that it’s come to Europe first means the localisation has been done with a European audience in mind, with a voice cast to match, and that’s turning the tables to an American audience, forcing some gamers (perhaps sometimes uncomfortably) to realise what we on this side of the Atlantic have realised for some time. That voice acting may not always be pretty – that it can infuriate and not always be appropriate to your needs, or how you feel a character should sound.

Certainly not in Xenoblade’s case though, I think the voice cast have done a fabulous job, and I highly recommend any American gamers awaiting the NA release try it (rather than the Japanese voices) to see what I mean.

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Video games

Finding time for gaming

Getting older means a balancing act to squeeze in all your commitments. Perhaps setting aside the things that you’d like to do with your spare time (gaming) with things you should probably do instead (like being a responsible adult).

Trying to go through life without the things you enjoy can mean things can quickly become a burden. So I measure my gaming time as quality time for myself. That said it’s becoming more difficult with each passing year to find time for it at all.

A balancing act

A quote from the Kevin Smith film Dogma seems oddly appropriate at this moment.

“He said that faith is like a glass of water. When you’re young, the glass is small, and it’s easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn’t fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.”

Like anything in life, even the most effortless pasttime becomes another burden in our busy adult lives. Things were simpler when we were children, our minds were unburdened with worry, stress and commitment. We were free to simply to relax, play a game and enjoy it properly – without the distraction of social media, family responsiblities, work and the other minutiae of life.

As I’ve grown I’ve lost faith in a great many things, but I have yet to lose my faith in video games and the video games community. For better or worse this community is vibrant and compelling and I couldn’t surround myself with better people. Gaming as a body of work continues to motivate this wonderful community of ours and that’s only going to get more exciting as gaming gets older.

The downside is we’re getting older too, and it’s occasionally a struggle to keep abreast of all the changes and developments that gaming has to offer, sometimes (just sometimes) it doesn’t feel like my community anymore. It can all go faster than I can manage.

I find myself looking back to when I could manage it better. One of the many reasons I have a fondness for gaming because it is a constant reminder of the person I used to be. Games continue to be a comforting reminder of when things were simplier. I think back to games like Final Fantasy VII – one of the first games I experienced with the presence of the internet, and how exciting this new experience of playing a game in paralell to so many others was.

I’d always like to play games more than I am able, but I think I actually have richer and more rewarding gaming experiences because of how precious my gaming time becomes. Commitments such as work and maintaining my home life always come first naturally, but my game time has become more of a reward for the difficult moments.

A constant struggle

The internet has had a profound way on the way we play video games. I remember the time before the internet was the norm, if you were stuck on a particular moment in a game you relied on magazine for help, or the advice of friends to see you through. You learnt secrets about games by watching other people play them. Crucially there was no single resource for our gaming queries. Now our gaming time is infrequent, and we have less patience for finding things out organically, it’s easier to look things up online or discuss them online rather than taking the time to figure out what we’re doing wrong. Realistically as adults we don’t always have the time to persevere as we once did.

There is an improved tolerance of gaming now as it popularity increases, but even so many of us find it difficult to make time for gaming because of a lack of understanding by the people closest to us. There is definitely some pressure from people who do not understand games for us to play less than we do, to use our gaming time for something else – anything else deemed a better use of our time than gaming is.

There’s another more subtle effect at play here too. A lack of time to commit to gaming can affect the games we choose or are able to play. A bias arises towards games that suit the limited time we have rather than larger sprawling games that will dominate what little time we can commit to play. Bigger games such as RPGs will have goals and hundred hour completion times that can now take (us time pressed gamers) weeks to complete rather than the hours it would take someone with more time.

I only manage to accumulate the little gaming time I can slice out of the day because I am lucky enough to live with another gamer. I appreciate that not everyone can be in this position, but I am also genuinely saddened by how many people who really enjoy gaming have to play less or hold back on their interests or collections because of a partner or friends who actively discourage their pastime. This seems pretty common – despite gaming becoming more popular in this decade than it’s ever been.

When we were children finding time to settle down and play a game was effortless. These days I definitely have to work harder than I’d like to so I can make the time. I am playing less games than any point in my life even though my desire to play hasn’t diminished any. This is a problem that plagues all gamers, but seems to have more of a negative impact as we get older.

However I’ll always make time for a great game, and despite a lack of tolerance for our hobby, and the stigma frequently assosciated with gaming, that’s never going to change.

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Video games

Let’s play together

As I write this the sound in our gaming space is punctuated with the fire of gunshot. It takes me out of my train of thought for a moment but it’s suitably apt. When did the term “multiplayer gaming” become so synonymous with first person shooters and MMOs?

It’s fantastic that we can so easily play games with others online, and it’s a key part of life as a gamer now. I just wish we all had more opportunities to play with others together – in the same room. It’s my de-facto gaming experience, and here’s why.

A good atmosphere

Playing games with others takes me back to my very first experiences of gaming. As a young gamer I used to experiment with games that I found difficult by playing them co-op with my friends. We used to pass the controller back and forth as we each struggled with moments that we found difficult. It’s a beautiful metaphor for local co-op games. There’s an indescribable pleasure in co-op gaming, you’re sharing a pastime that you adore directly with another, and they are often with the people closest to you. You talk, share ideas, and enjoy the game together.

As annoying as games without online co-op play are. I can’t help but be a little bit gleeful when games are made with no online support. Take Scott Pilgrim (pictured) as an example. It’s a vibrant, action-packed, scrolling beat-em-up. Which can only be played with others when done in the same room. It makes the chances you do get to play all the more special. No matter how inconvenient finding someone to play with might be, I can’t help but agree a little bit with the decision. Seeking out someone who’ll try a particular game with you, and finding the time to do so regularly can be the making of a game.

This “intended” method of play can become crucial to a games sense of magic, with every session as anticipated and exciting as the last. The electricity of play isn’t just on the screen, but it spills around the room too. It’s a neat way to include people that may not always play video games. Your confidence as a gamer can often get non-gamers involved and serves as a backup to those who need a bit of extra help and guidance.

Longevity

I love playing video games with other people. I think it’s the main aspiration I have for my game-playing time. I enjoy gaming a great deal, but there’s something even more wonderful about playing games with another person. The experience becomes as much about the atmosphere in the room, the company of the person or people that you’re spending your gaming time with and the banter you share as you play. Other people are an important sounding board for difficulty, as you can battle on together to solve a problem, rather than struggling alone.

This is backed up by my extensive list of favourite games. (Of which Phantasy Star Online and Monster Hunter are but two). So many of the games I could continue playing forever are cooperative experiences. That said, while I enjoyed playing PSO online a great deal, I enjoyed the experience of playing it split-screen far more, but as a general point I can think of a great many games that come into their own when played with others.

Online play

To me the primary benefit of gaming is how inclusive it is. Many of us enjoy playing games with someone else in the room, but how often do we get a chance to do so? The added convenience of online play seems to have diminished the need for local co-op. As superb as online gaming is, I can’t help but think it’s diluted our need to play gaming in it’s most natural state. Games like Rock Band can be played online, but overall you get a better experience (and something closer to the one the developers imagined) from encouraging three others to play with you in person. A great deal of that is due to the pleasure of using the instruments, watching others using them, and the particular sense you experience by having people over to play in your band, but the same principle applies for many multiplayer games.

Video games can be quite complex upon occasion. In the process of playing a new game you learn how to control the game, how to navigate the menus and find the information you need. You also embark on a series of objectives whether explained literally, or understood over the course of the narrative. It’s a slow process that we as gamers do almost naturally. Multiplayer games are a great way to balance the complexity of games against their inherent sense of fun. You muddle through a game together, talking through approaches, and experimenting with a friend or friends.

Let’s make the time to play together more often, we’ll only get better and more frequent co-op experiences if we demand them (and use them).

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Gaming and gender

Girl gamers should aim higher

As I get older I’m finding the “girl gamer” moniker harder to live with. It’s so at odds with how I see myself. There are many playing fields where women are still (sadly) not equal, gaming is young enough for women to not have to make a distinction.

Gaming can be a fractured community as it is without putting gamers of a specific gender above or below anyone else, but that said girl gamers should be demanding more from the game development community.

Girl gamers

My primary problem with the term “girl gamer” is that it sells an entire genders aspirations for our community very short. It’s a well-documented fact that women play games, I think that’s a total given. Girl gamers should be aiming higher. Women who deem themselves as girl gamers shouldn’t just be trying to raise awareness of the fact that they’re playing games, but raising awareness of the fact that women are not adequately reflected at every point of game development. I want more than a mere acknowledgement than I am here, I want more gaming experiences that speak to me, made by like-minded people rather than a team that doesn’t adequately reflect the gaming population guessing at how to accomplish that.

I’m less bothered about proving women play games, I’m more concerned about the near-complete gender bias when it comes to how games are made. More women should be programmers, animators, and developers, if more women are playing games than ever, why are women in game development still mere punctuation in a largely male landscape? The ladies that are there are incredible and making their mark (as a female web developer I know the difficulties well, the two career paths are definitely comparable) but I cannot help but feel the lessened number of female faces means a shortfall in gamings overall output.

For example, it must have a direct effect on how female characters are portrayed in games (there are some great female characters out there, but some consistency would be an ideal starting point). For every empowered female character there are ten or more patronising or insulting ones.

There is a consistent a lack of features that women might desire in a game (basic things, like being able to choose a female avatar), and then the wider consequences of female absenteeism, namely how we as women gamers are treated and perceived in the occasionally brash gaming community (if you think it can be soul-destroying playing a multiplayer FPS online, you can and do often generate more antagonism with a female voice).

A severe lack of female faces

It’s certainly not always easy for a girl to play games, I will acknowledge that. I’ve occasionally been accused of being able to vocalise my love of gaming more because I am a girl, as if somehow the very fact that I am female automatically nulls the stigma associated with playing games. This is a misconception, and is perhaps why the girl gamer movement is so tempting. Gaming is still a very masculine pastime, and I am looked down upon outside of the gaming community as equally as men are – just for slightly different reasons. Namely the fact that I am interested in things that depart from most people’s understanding of the normal feminine persona (if such a thing exists).

I think the games community as a whole (and that means both men and women) should be championing the women who develop and design our games more, so that overall perception of women in games are improved. Girl gamers should refocus their efforts, rather than the championing the role of women who simply play, let’s champion the women who play and create. It’s not my intention to belittle the girl gamer movement any, but we can’t demand better from the game development community if there aren’t enough people (from a mixed background) working hard to learn how to make games and understand the concepts involved.

There are some great women in gaming out there (this may be a subject I have to return to), but I think a good litmus test is how much visibility people outside of a particular industry have. I’ve no doubt that someone outside of the gaming community could mention a couple of key male figures in the game development industry – but how many women could they name? Not many, if any. It’s a sobering thought.

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Currently playing

Is gaming a good use of time?

I think video games are wonderful. For me it almost goes without saying, but every so often a game will come along to really remind you of why you still spend time playing games. A great game will inspire feelings you haven’t felt in a long time, when everything was new and new concepts were magic, it’s a nice reminder of when things were nothing but fun.

So what’s the harm in a little whimsy once in a while?

My muse

A primary accusation levelled at gaming is that is simply not a good use of time. Conceptually it’s still deemed by many people to be “dead time”. Moments that would be best spent doing productive things. The problem is that “good ways” to spend time are completely subjective, one person’s ideal evening can completely different to anothers and that’s never going to change.

I’ll give you one main reason why gaming is a good use of my time though. It constantly reminds me to keep the youthful part of me alive, to be silly, to have fun, to occasionally put my sense of whimsy before real-world concerns, to give time back to myself after a day spent focused on others and others goals.

Rayman Origins is a great example of this, there’s a fantastic moment in the game where you’re swimming through the gloom of a dark underwater level, you have an extremely limited source of light, and you’re navigating carefully through this dangerous trap-filled murk. Suddenly you exit the darkness and soaring over this beautiful underwater backdrop, it made my spine tingle. I was beaming, I enjoyed spinning in the water, pausing the goals of the game for a moment to simply smile, dabble and “piss about” in the water with my co-op partner.

The reason I mention this is that it’s these sorts of sensations that justify the entire video game experience to me.

Swimming among the fishes in Rayman Origins.Playing in the beautifully rendered water.

Gaming is appealing precisely because it’s usually something we do in our unproductive “downtime”. Not everything in life needs to be about doing that someone else deems worthy. Your life has to be a balance between your goals and the things you do that are still valid, but keep you content and inspired. The latter idea definitely helps the former. We just have a different muse to most people, it’s as plain as that.

Personally video games inspired a life-long love (and now a career in technology). Games continue to fascinate me because their methods and production are on evolving paths rather than static line. It is the future possibilities of gaming that excites me as much as it’s present. By buying into gaming I genuinely believe I’m supporting something worth spending my time on, precisely because it offers such a rich and inspiring backdrop to my life.

Two characters decide how to navigate an underwater trap.Jumping between pipes in a fiery level.

Positivity out of negativity

Fair play to my parents, who weren’t completely enamoured with games like I was, had the presence of mind to let me explore and experiment on them as much as I felt I needed to. I dabbled with many activities when I was younger (birdwatching, rockclimbing, orchestras, swimming, reading and horseriding were my favourites in my childhood) but gaming was the one that really resonated with me. It’s very interesting that I had a complete spectrum of creative and active hobbies for years but gaming is the primary one I chose.

I wouldn’t say I hide the fact that I play video games, I’m certainly not brash or vocal about it either, it’s simply a normal source of inspiration in my mind, and as difficult as this is to hear, keeping your interests a secret from people for fear of what they’ll think of you isn’t going to change anything. The only way there’s going to be any radical change in the way playing games are perceived by people is if more people admit to it and are more open about how games form a normal part of their well-rounded lives.

The merits of gaming are only going to be realised if it becomes part of our a normal day-to-day conversations. As we share what we did the previous weekend in a similar way to which we’d talk about books we’d read, places we’d been or TV shows we’d watched.

That’s not to say that your pastime should solely define who you are either, but changing the way you behave simply due to the negative reaction of others isn’t the way to go either. No one should stop themselves from playing or discussing games in public due to the fear of (often silent) negative perceptions from others. This sort of thing really isn’t inspiring confidence in our hobby, especially if it’s own supporters won’t behave as they’d like to in public.

There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of fun now and again. By playing games we take moments to take us out of the day to day to dabble with the sublime or the ridiculous. There’s a wide spectrum of games to choose from, but those perceptions by non-gamers are spun out of a minority of violent and repetative games that don’t totally reflect the true array of titles that inspire us. Games like Rayman Origins should be a constant reminder of why we want bigger and better things for gamings recognition in the wider world.

Our gaming time is whimsy, and by it’s own nature constructive a use of our time (and that’s a universal desire that doesn’t make gamers selfish). Above all, our gaming time is totally ours. Don’t let anyone try to take that time away from you.

A boss worm leaps out of the water.Exploring the murky, dark water.