Caption Rant

[Scott45]

Ok,
a few details first.. I'm deaf, not completely but read lips to supplement what little hearing I have left, been that way since I was 6 years old.


As a Loooong time gamer at 43 I've played Space Wars brand new at the local pizza parlor as a kid and still playing everything that catches my fancy these days, right now I'm playing LEGO Batman which I find hilarious for some reason.

But a lot of Companies are leaving out captions now including the LEGO Batman, granted it's fun and understandable even if I can't follow the dialog but Resident Evil 4 and a bunch of other games NEED a caption option to follow the story. If I wanted to just blow things away I'd play DOOM again, why waste the money on something I only get part of the full experience on? I love the Resident Evil games but while playing the Game Cube make over of RE 1 was left wondering WTF? every time the character grabbed the Walkie Talkie and started jabbering away. Assassin's Creed?, same thing.......


I remember when CD Rom drives first game out and all the FMV content was added to "enhance" the game, the majority of them still had captions so I didn't miss much, but when Lucas Arts now releases The Force Unleashed and I have to buy the novel to know what the hell is going on sucks major rocks........

Hopefully some of the major Designers and Tech reps of the gaming companies will see this here. I mean if they can make a game like Guitar Hero where you can actually turn the sound off and play on visual cues, a music game for lord's sake they can add the captions to a game. The Film Industry has had captioning to all major video releases since '84 maybe I need to petition my state Senator to propose a bill to MAKE them caption the damn things.

[BHvrd]

Everything that can be captioned should be....yes.

As far as LEGO Batman goes there is nothing to caption is there? They just make funny noises and giggles and stuff.

I've only played the demo but I gathered from it that they only grunt and groan like LEGO Star Wars. Btw I love the demo, it seems better than LEGO Star Wars to me, more focused, cool moves and such. LEGO Indy....bah, dunno what they was thinkin there.

[Jorpho]

I wasn't aware the LEGO games had dialog at all. I thought it was all silent, like The Han Solo Affair (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTmuROV842w).

Certainly, I wasn't aware a lack of captions was a problem in general; every FMV clip I've seen posted on Youtube lately seems to have captions. Sometimes they're great just because the voice work is difficult to make out - and since you can't pause or rewind, if you really want to know what that one garbled word is, your only option may be to play through some horrible sequence yet again just so you can watch the cutscene again.

[Aussie2B]

I agree wholeheartedly. Captions should always be available in games that have any voice acting beyond simple sound effects. Not just for those who are deaf, but for hearing players too. While I can't complain too much compared to your situation, I get frustrated myself if the dialogue isn't clear enough to make out, or if they speak so fast that I miss something.

Developers need to consider all types of gamers in general. A lot of gamers are color blind, yet many don't take that into consideration. I remember hearing a lot of people complaining about Chrono Cross because they had no way to tell the element of one character from the next since a colored ball was the only indication. Yet other games that are seemingly all about color, like Puzzle Bobble, put different designs in the background so you don't have to completely rely on the color.

Even big series make these mistakes. Hearing gamers love the traditional audio cues in Zelda that help with figuring out if a puzzle has been solved, but deaf gamers are out of luck. The games are certainly playable without those audio clues, but it is a disadvantage to not be able to hear them.

[roushimsx]

Hopping on the "I love captions" bandwagon. Whenever possible, I enable those suckers. It's especially nice when companies like Valve do such a stellar job of captioning both the dialog and major sounds. Hell, they even caption the developer commentaries.

Shame id couldn't be bothered to caption the dialog in Doom 3 and that a third party had to create a mod for it.

[Poofta!]

i too wish any game with dialog had captions, i often miss words here and there and love captions, i always have them enabled, even when i watch movies.

[XYXZYZ]

I like them because I can read the dialog faster than the actors talk, so I can get through the story faster by reading the captions and hitting the A button when I''m finished.

[boatofcar]

I'm actually surprised there isn't some kind of ADA legislation mandating captioning in all games that have dialogue. Isn't there some kind of similar law with DVDs?

[The 1 2 P]

This group is doing their part to help: http://gamescc.rbkdesign.com/about_gamescc.php

[eugenek]

I'm actually surprised there isn't some kind of ADA legislation mandating captioning in all games that have dialogue. Isn't there some kind of similar law with DVDs?

The ADA is only applicable to public goods, services, and accommodations.