Introduction

Roger that

Over the past few years, multiplayer gaming has been the focus in many different genres. In many cases, the multiplayer aspect of a game superceded the single player mode. Quake III is a pretty good example of this phenomenon, as Quake III's single player mode is essentially a single-player training mode of the multiplayer play. Along with this rise in games that have strong multiplayer elements, we've seen a rise in games, and especially mods of games, that are specifically team or squad-based.

Communication, then, was given a renewed emphasis for these team-based games. How supremely annoying is it when you are playing a game of CTF (Capture the Flag) and you are killed in your base with the enemy flag? On the annoyance scale, than is magnitudes less than trying to describe where you dropped the flag by typing furiously on your keyboard to your teammates, only to watch (while dead) an enemy team member go and take the flag back. How about playing Counterstrike and trying to coordinate an attack and assign roles to your teammates - again, by typing furiously on your keyboard?

What can we do?

Short of playing a game while having someone on the phone, there are not too many options for real-time voice communication available for gamers. Fortunately, several companies saw this need and began to address them. Roger Wilco, by Hearme, is a real-time voice chat application that many of you may be familiar with. Another one of the real-time voice chats was BattleCom, formerly Battlefield Communicator, by ShadowFactor. While popular applications, they most widely used by clans or teams that played together regularly, as they require that both players have the software installed to use the application.

Breaking into the mainstream

Now, we have some indication that the mainstream market is looking towards this same kind of real-time chat technology that you clan and team players have been using for the past few years. About 14 months ago, Battlecom was purchased by Microsoft, the purveyor of all things technologically mainstream. Microsoft's intention was to incorporate support for real-time voice chat into the release version of DirectX 8, which is scheduled to be released by the end of the year.

Preparing themselves for their DirectX 8 release, Microsoft has recently released a new product in their "SideWinder" series of gaming accessories. In the past, most of the SideWinder line has been joysticks, gamepads, and other assorted input devices. The one we are taking a look at today is called Game Voice, and leverages the voice technology that Microsoft plans to include in DirectX 8.