Voice Commander Reviews

  • triplewitchingtriplewitching57,892
    20 Nov 2014 23 Nov 2014
    17 0 2
    Retro style shooters. Some people love them, some people can’t stand them. While this game is not going to change anyone’s mind on the subject, it does put the Kinect/microphone to good use (finally), and it is available for the low, low price of free, but is it worth your time ?


    Voice commander plays like a combination of Missile Command and Geometry Wars. The planet Earth is in the center of the screen, and you have to protect it, with your Geometry Wars-esque 2D space ship, which you control directly with the controller, and Earth’s fixed and mobile defenses, which you control with your voice, to stop waves of enemies that come in from all sides.


    Graphically it is a less colorful version of Geometry Wars, with the enemy ships being just various shaped outlines, all of the same color, which changes each wave. There is nothing graphically special about this game, except the numbers of enemies that can be on screen at one time, which can get over a hundred on the higher waves, also similar to Geometry Wars.


    Sound effects are various MIDI tunes, similar to games from the 16 bit era, and the voice of Vox, Earth’s orbital defense system, which has a perky female voice, and informs you of various events in the game, and chides you, if you are not doing well. From a gameplay perspective, the talking space station makes it more natural for you to talk to the game, because its talking back to you the whole time. The enemy mothership also talks to you and taunts you, but it comes off a bit corny, since it has very cliche villain lines, and a strangely distorted voice.


    Gameplay is also similar to Geometry wars, if you have played that game, or any twin-stick shooter, you will be right at home here. The twist is that the game is one long planetary escort mission. Most of the enemies ignore your ship, and just rush Earth directly, and you can freely move through most enemies and their attacks, but it can be tricky to protect the far side of the planet, as you cannot shoot through Earth, or fly through it, so you need the voice defenses to cover your back. These defenses come in the form of turrets mounted to the four sides of the planet, and a mobile defense system called Vox, which functions like a durable larger version of your ship, and auto targets any enemies that approach it. Vox can be moved around the earth by voice, and has special attacks also triggered by voice. Earth itself has its own attacks, which you also trigger with your voice. These attacks work like ‘Bombs’ in most shooter games, wiping out large numbers of enemies. The big difference with the voice attacks of Earth and Vox is that most of them can kill your own ship in one hit, so you have to shoot them at a quadrant away from your own, and not fly into your own minefield or the area of effect of your gravity bomb, which is easy to forget about in the heat of battle. The turrets and special attacks regenerate over time, and can be stored up in a reserve at the top of the screen, so knowing when to hold them and when to spam them is a major part of the strategy of the game.


    Because of the fixed defenses, and regenerating special attacks, the game is slower and more planning-oriented than a pure twitch shooter. The turrets and the space station add a tower defense element to the game, and you have time between attacks to re-position your defenses, and lay Vox mines on the playfield. Also, the enemies follow the same patterns for each level, so you can memorize what type of ships are coming in each wave, and prepare for them.


    There are a few minor design flaws that pop up in the game. Like Geometry Wars 1, you always start at level 1, once you know what you are doing, the initial waves are insultingly small, so you can get bored waiting for the real swarms to come at the higher levels, once you get good at the game. The text at the bottom of the screen can overwrite the circular edge of the playfield and be hard to read. You can't get powerups off the circular edge of the playfield, so you can miss out if you shoot the enemies too soon. The mothership can bullet-sponge an insane number of your base-level shots, so if you do not have enough of your special attacks charged and ready, you can get into an unwinnable situation, especially when multiple motherships show up.


    How accurate are the voice commands ? Well, about the same as the Kinect in general, it works about 90 % of the time. This can be very bad, however, as you depend on the voice defenses at the higher levels, and you can get wiped out if they go down for 10 seconds. Another problem is the Kinect/microphone has trouble with commands that sound the same. The most trouble was with the Shockwave attack, and the Start Wave command. The problem is, Start Wave only works out of combat, and Shockwave is an area of effect attack, so when you get the wrong one in the heat of battle, or when the attack is over, its really annoying, as the wrong one is completely useless and wasted. Another voice problem is if the Kinect/mic only gets half of a command, because it locks all voice commands, and waits for clarification. If you do not see that all your voice weapons and attacks are locked by this, you cannot enter any other commands until you finish the last command, which can leave you very dead, if things are swarming and you don’t see what is happening. Also, Kinect/mic sometimes sends the attack to the wrong quadrant, or fires the wrong attack. This can be either annoying or fatal, depending on the attack you are using (Gravity Bomb instantly kills your ship, if you are on the same side of the map when it goes off ! ) Voice commands are a different and interesting concept, but they are just not good enough for hard-core gaming, which is also my feeling on the Kinect as a gaming peripheral in general.


    This game has up to eight player co-op, but I didn't test it, because I have no extra controllers, and no friends willing to play this type of game. I imagine, because anyone can trigger the voice attacks at the same time with Kinect, this would lead to lots of friendly fire incidents, which might prove more humorous than frustrating, because your ship regenerates fairly fast, and only the Earth’s HP matter for the game.


    A major oversight of the game is the lack of in-game instructions. You have the incomplete tutorial, and the pause screen tells you what the controller buttons do, but you have to figure the rest out yourself. This is a theme in modern games, to do away with the manual and just have the player learn by doing, but its really annoying to discover standard attacks you didn't know you had, or what turrets have what type of attack.


    Achievement-wise, I would say the game is moderately challenging, but nothing too hard. I would say 5 out of 10 on difficulty, if you played other games like Geometry Wars. The hardest thing about them is physically using your voice to get the grindy ones, like building 500 of each turret, and killing 100,000 enemies. IMO, the best way to earn them and stay healthy is to play one serious game a day, then drop it. I played three level 30 + games in a row one night, and then my throat was sore the next day, so you want to avoid that. I feel the current rather high TA ratios (this is my highest ratio game by far) are from lots of players starting it because its free, lots of people dropping it because of the graphics, and the fact that you can’t really grind the achievements without losing your voice. I consider myself an average gamer at this type of game, and I have played the game for 15 hours, and earned 20 of 25 achievements, including all the skill-based achievements, so its very do-able. I could see myself completing this, if I don’t get bored of playing before killing 100,000 enemies (I would estimate this achievement at requiring around 100 serious games, and this is the only achievement no one has for now)


    If you like the genre, I think its fun and worth playing. I enjoyed that planning your defenses is rewarded as much as your twitch skills, however, this is NOT a game you will want to play continuously for any length of time, do to the required speaking element.
    3.0
    Showing both comments.
    planting42I have to agree with only wanting to play if for short periods of time. It seemed that this Kinect also has issues after about 2 hours of solid play. Those half commands have lost wave 40 too many times now. Damn you Mothership! I'll get you laugh
    Posted by planting42 on 22 Nov 14 at 10:18
    Big EllNice review. It's worth pointing out that local co-op is a blast. It is VERY worth pointing out that any signed in accounts get the achievements! I hope to have more than 2 players next time for some real mayhem!
    Posted by Big Ell on 01 Dec 14 at 23:23
Hide ads