Narration in Games

[AppleQueso]

I love/hate the weird references to actual buttons on controllers.

"Hey Sonic, press A to jump!" or whatever

[Luke]

I love/hate the weird references to actual buttons on controllers.

"Hey Sonic, press A to jump!" or whatever

God I hate those. Even good games these days do that. Print an instruction manual for crying out loud.

The Duke Nukem series has some memorable lines. I still laugh when I think about the Roman level in Time To Kill where Duke walks up to a Roman stripper and asks "Eh Tu Bootay?".

[AppleQueso]

Metal Gear Solid did a bit of that sort of thing, but it also really made it work.

[Gunstar Green]

I love/hate the weird references to actual buttons on controllers.

"Hey Sonic, press A to jump!" or whatever

That is the absolute worst.

I also hate games where you're in a boss fight and they keep repeating to you the weakness the whole time, something like:

"Shoot the enemy's eye when it opens!" every five seconds.

Yes I know I'm doing it, shut the hell up game. Once is enough. If I didn't hear you the first time or figure out myself that the giant vulnerable eye is the weakness then that's my own damn fault.

[Stark]

I like it when it is unique or interesting. I think Bastion is a very good example of this and LBP as well.

Just read the one about Thief. That is great too, because the main character doesn't interact with a lot of other NPCs (as he doesn't want to be seen). So it's nice to get a view into his thoughts through voiceover.

[Pulsar_t]

Are voice-overs part of narration, or does it have to be a different person? Anyway I'm fine with VOs, such as the one in Legacy of Kain, and characters' internal monologues can shed more detail on their stories. Of course in traditional adventure games narrating the events tends to go with the territory, as their chief raison d'être (ergh that's a mouthful) is telling a story.

[ExedExes]

I also hate games where you're in a boss fight and they keep repeating to you the weakness the whole time, something like:

"Shoot the enemy's eye when it opens!" every five seconds.

I won't be seeing you play Salamander/Life Force anytime soon then

[Key-Glyph]

I also hate games where you're in a boss fight and they keep repeating to you the weakness the whole time, something like:

"Shoot the enemy's eye when it opens!" every five seconds.

Yes I know I'm doing it, shut the hell up game.

This! This this this this this. I've even yelled those exact words while fighting a boss with particularly crappy controls and targeting issues.

As a side note, although Navi has a reputation of being one of the most annoying narrators ever in Ocarina of Time, I did appreciate that her comments were basically limited to one-word exclamations. And not only was the rest of her advice listed off as text (excellent), you could choose to ignore her and not read that text (fabulous). All in all she was relatively unobtrusive, especially compared to some things being listed here.

[J T]

The narration in Bastion is cool because it is triggered by what you are actually doing. It adds some weight to your actions. The narrator did sound more like he belonged in a western though.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I love/hate the weird references to actual buttons on controllers.

"Hey Sonic, press A to jump!" or whatever

I usually dislike those as well...but if I recall correctly, they were done humorously in the Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi games. NPCs would say things like:

"I fell compelled to tell you that pressing the A button will make you jump, but I don't really know what that means or why I am telling it to you..."

Those instructions always got at least a chuckle out of me.