I meant in video games, of course. In films there are a ton of examples. I usually go for Ingrid Bergman's accent in the Murder on the Orient Express movie, although that one - while accurate - is slightly exaggerated for effect, I think.
(...) complete with rubbish accents (as a Swede, we don't sound like that here in the Nordics)
If you want a better viking game with much better Nordic sounding accents, Banner Saga is out there. Though there is only like 10 minutes of voice acting per game - but what is there is good! They used an Icelandic VA studio to make sure it's authentic.
The best swedish accent I ever heard was that one blonde knight in Witcher 3 - Blood & Wine. Which is funny as I don't think it makes sense for the setting at all, but accent voice direction in that whole expansion is a complete clusterfuck with zero consistency.
That's unfortunate. Too bad Sony has patented the haptics/adaptive triggers. It's such a good feature, I would kill for an Xbox style form factor controller with triggers like that.
Well, that's the nice thing about using AI for this, she can have unlimited dialogue - as can anyone else in the game. You can talk to anyone and have full conversations with them, and they have a working memory too. Your companions have unique personalities and unique random backstories and even some character development.
Well, I guess Hip is a named character so she will have a fixed, lore-accurate backstory.
Same! I love the form factor of it and it still hasn't given out yet. Only thing that made me even think about wanting to replace it was the haptic/adaptive triggers on the PS5 controller. Don't like the form factor but man those triggers are nice.
I didn't realise you were an Anomaly enjoyer! I love that game too, between the mood and the atmosphere, the hunger/thirst/sleep system along with the FDDA animations and of course Alife I think Anomaly is one of the most immersive games for me.
I've actually been working on a mod lately that uses AI to produce dynamic dialogue for NPCs in Anomaly, which leads to even more immersion.
Interesting, the S&S games have been on my list for a while but I've never gotten around to them. I got Salt and Sacrifice with a Humble Bundle last year but didn't play it because o figured I should play the first game first. Looks like I got the worse one then?
I haven't dug into it deeply so I'm sure there is more in the backend too, but on the visual side it's gotten a slightly modernized redesign and support for Material You. But from a user perspective one thing I've noticed is the actual video player seems significantly smoother and particularly switching between picture-in-picture and fullscreen and back seems a lot smoother (which I do a lot).
Overall it's just like PipePipe but better. As someone who's been using PipePipe for a long time there's really no reason not to go straight to PipePipe-X. You should be able to import your user settings and history straight from NewPipe too.
Immersion is tricky, because it is an incredibly subjective thing. At the end of the day, what immersion means (I think) is that the "veil" separating you from the game is incredibly thin and transparent. Think of it as wearing glasses: if a game is un-immersive the lenses are dirty and scratched. You can still see whatever is in front of you, but you're constantly aware of the fact that you're wearing glasses. An immersive game is like wearing perfectly pristine glasses: you forget you're wearing glasses at all and can just take in what's in front of you.
An immersive game to me is something that successfully manages to both suspend disbelief and sustain the illusion of a living world, letting you mostly forget that it's a pre-programmed game you're interacting with. I always found something like the STALKER games great for this, with their dynamic A-life AI scheduling really selling the whole living world feeling.
From a day of using it I think it's a better experience overall. The player seems a lot smoother, especially transitioning between PiP and fullscreen and back.
I've had less time than I'd hoped, but I have started to play The Last Express. So far it's a really beautiful, fascinating experience - although somewhat daunting.
Unlike a traditional point-and-click adventure, The Last Express plays out in real time: the train you're on is constantly moving and the other passengers are too, doing things around the train and having conversations. This is not just an old fashioned classic adventure game or solving puzzles, but actually puts a major emphasis on time and timing. You find a dead body in a compartment? You gotta deal with it somehow, and when and how you do so seem to actually matter, creating some either fully or partly branching narratives (haven't finished it yet). There is no quick save, but there is a "rewind" function if you've messed something up irrevocably, although there are also apparently also multiple endings depending on how you do things. For a game this old, the game world actually feels much more alive and vibrant than many newer titles. I think the nature of the limited scope of a confined space of a train, combined with the smart use of basically overlayed 2D rotoscoped film clips, allowed them to create this truly immersive experience where it really feels like you're actively participating in a movie playing out in real time, not interacting with static NPCs in a video game.
Finally, I need to pour heaps of praise over the art direction and graphics. Using rotoscoping over live action footage and fully voice acting everything makes this game hold up visually in such a remarkable way for a 1997 release. It's also good phenomenal voice acting - especially for the time - with some really good voice directing. I was incredibly impressed when eavesdropping on a conversation between two women early on, one french and the other English. They would both switch languages occasionally in a natural way, and both use the appropriate accent when speaking their non-native language.
Absolutely recommend this game to anyone who appreciates games as an art form.
I meant in video games, of course. In films there are a ton of examples. I usually go for Ingrid Bergman's accent in the Murder on the Orient Express movie, although that one - while accurate - is slightly exaggerated for effect, I think.