I see this has evolved into a full-scale chat room! Nice!
Thank you ddickinson for this interesting giveaway.

I'm in for the $5.99 prize. Also I'm in for awalterj.
I'm a male. For proof of my gender see this image.

My top 3 favourite game genres are Adventures, Casual and a few RPG games. I used to play a lot of action games years ago but now my time is very limited, so I mostly want games that I can pause and continue at another time.
I always liked Adventures because they don't rush you to finish the level, they usually require mental skills to finish them and have a better scenario than other genres. Some adventures are worth playing just to see the story unfold. And a lot of them have very beautiful sceneries, you can just pause and look around. And then the Casual games (or H.O.) appeared on the game scene. They are usually quick games and require mostly to be observative. I have played lots of them with my wife and I think it's more fun when playing together (2 sets of eyes are better, no?)
I like the RPG genre for a whole lot different reasons. I like the leveling system and the various objects that you collect along the way. I've got a bit of OCD in me and I try to collect every object available in the game.

My top 3 worst game genres must be platform games, beat-em up and less the Arcade genre. Generally every game that requires quick reflexes is not suited for me and I usually suck at them. Hence I don't like them. And I especially hate those games then force you to keep a fast pace, or else you loose. I mean if you struggle to keep pressing those buttons as quickly as you can, what's the point? I've got enough pressure in my real life to put up with such a game. No thanks.

Your third question is the most interesting. I haven't thought about it but it seems I always play as a male character (when given the choice) Not that playing with a female bothers me at all. I have really enjoyed games like Syberia, Still life, Bloodrayne and Dreamfall. It just feels natural to me to play as a male (Also a Lawfull good, or Neutral good for RPG's) I admit that the female characters attire always catch my eye, but I suspect these are designed by men, just to be eye-catching.

And I find absolutely hilarious the idea of female armor that covers only 15% of her body and is as good as a male armor. See this example

I waited all week for this, because only on Saturday I have some time to concentrate and write all this down.

*DOORBELL RINGS*
Ah, the pizza's here! The pizza Ragnar ordered is here and not a moment too soon because these brownies I brought for everyone are making me hungry. *gets up to get the door, starts walking, slips comically on a Stratego piece, catches himself and opens the door to let 'em in*

I thought I might introduce a new question into the discussion. I was wondering how much of an effect voice actors have on choosing the characters, genders - or even the games - you play. For example, female voice 1 in Saints Row: The Third was so compelling that when I recognized her voice in BloodRayne I picked those games up. I wouldn't have, otherwise. So I found myself following a voice much the way one might follow a pop singer's voice from her major output to something early or more obscure that might normally be overlooked.

Have any of you boys and girls found an actor's voice to have such an impact? Has an actor's vocal timbre moved you to choose a particular gender, character or game?

That's a really interesting question. And my answer is no and yes and a little embarrassing ;-)

First of all, really don't know that many games where you can choose your character and it is fully voiced. Mass Effect comes to mind, and there the Jane Shepard is by far more interesting than John (who is not bad, but can't really compete). Still I don't regret my John-playthrough - he was more me, maybe also because his voice wasn't all that memorable. Jane's voice is so impressive, it creates an own character and thus creates distance to the player (at least in my case). I had less the feeling of "being" the character than controlling the character (like with many adventure games, where the PC has a mind of their own).

So no, I would not, in most cases, go for a specific character just for the actor's voice (but I would exclude a character for having a really annoying voice that makes me dislike them).

Which leads me to the embarrassing part, that especially bothers me in action games, action/FP RPGs, games where damage is dealt and received. Ever noticed that a male character's grunting taking i.e. falling damage sound a lot like... you know what...
And I don't like this kind of sound very much. If on the other hand sounds like these are produced by a female character, it doesn't seem to... bother... me that much.
Yes I know what you are thinking, and no, I don't let my female PCs take damage repeatedly to... Okay I did it once or twice in games where I just wanted to make sure that the developers (or rather the voice recording director) were as pubertal as I has suspected *blush*.

weird - another reply with no notification!

will see if i can scrabble together an entry in time...

*gets out ludo set

...well thats me buggered!

* Bump! *

I will be ending the giveaway sometime this evening. Although the prize part of the thread will soon be ending, please feel free to continue the interesting discussions and questions about gaming.

I can't say I have ever been compelled to pick a male character over a female character just because of the voice. Some games have such poor voice acting that I may pick the better of the two voice actors, if only so that I don't have to listen to the poor voice acting. But this has nothing to do with the gender of the character, just the person doing the voice acting. If the female's voice is not unbearable, but still not as good as the male's, then I will usually still play as the female character. I only tend to run into really annoying voice acting that I don't like in single character games anyway, where you don't get a choice of character. I thought that The Whispered World's main character had such an annoying voice, I would have gladly picked any character, man, women or vegetable, if I could have avoided that voice.

Not even if we let you have some pizza and a lap-dace from the transvestite stripper?

Nope. Since I'm not native English, I'm unable to tell if an English voice actor is good or bad ^_^''
So for me voice actor is kind of irrelevant.
The only time I remember uninstalling a game after two minutes of playing, and never poking it again with a stick because of the voice actor, was the Whispered World. The way that guy spoke was physically painful.

Depends on the pizza - I'm very picky as I make a damn delicious pizza myself, if I may say so; what's on offer? (~_^)

As for your second offer - *sigh* I really have to wonder what on earth made you think that I'd be tempted by it, that cheap pearl necklace is so ugly *shakes head* (－‸ლ)

I'm not sure about the pizza, Ragnar ordered them, and as he is a Dwarf, who knows what kind of strange toppings he asked for.

As for the lap-dancer, I'm afraid he was the best one on offer, but if you're so shallow about a cheap pearl necklace, then you will have to have a belly dance from the backup dancer ;-). Enjoy!

Do I really want to click on that link? I bet I don't.

*thinks about it hard, then clicks anyway. lies down to recover from the shock before returning to reply*

I can only assume that you really-really don't want me to enter your GA; I hate yellow, and that yellow costume is even worse than the necklace. ॓_॔

And since there's only Dwarf pizza of questionable toppings on offer, I'm pretty sure that I'll stick to my "Not in", so no point to continue your fishy efforts to allegedly lure me into changing my mind. (☉﹏☉；)

Oh, and if that's the only entertainment content offered, then I'm sorry to say that the boy's party was a failure. I had a much better time at the girls' one. (~_^)


EDIT: bloody sausage fingers

It wasn't my idea to have transvestite strippers, that's all down to you boys. There is also laser-tag and marshmallows, perhaps after a few shots in the eyes from the laser, you won't notice the yellow costume or the necklace. You could always invite a lady stripper, but as some of the boys turned this into a LAN party, they are just sat with their faces glued to their computers, watching the strange world of internet porn.

Edit: Speaking of bloody sausage fingers, I saw something very interesting in a butchers window for Halloween. The picture below is not an actual picture of the ones I saw, but it is very similar.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/7c/6e/42/7c6e426d4966492f1e62231e49291048.jpg

I see you found my fingers, now you understand why I make so many typos. ;-D


Ah now, you want me to go blind as well. Just because I was late to the party and the others don't have good taste. ;-P

Internet pron you say? Should have known this is how things would turn out at a typical_nerd_gamers party.

Sorry, I'm out - this is very alien to my idea of a good party. Going to throw my own private one, most likely will invite the ladies, they know how to have fun. You're welcome to join us after you've sent the boys home. (~_^)

I only saw four fingers in the butcher's window, who knows where the rest of your fingers are :-).

No wish for you to go blind, I just thought it might help you enjoy the transvestite strippers :-).

So, a mix gender party. I trust you will behave like a gentlemen?

Thankfully still attached to my hands, otherwise I wouldn't be able to type anything mildly coherent. Regardless of what I'd want to say, it would look like this:

*types with fists* Sorry, wouldn't work now, you should have given me the laser-tag treatment before providing those links.


I'm taking offence - have I ever been out of line? ( •_•)>(⌐■_■)

That's where you're going wrong, you should be using your feet :-).

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lybigeWrUk1qbeqn2o1_400.jpg

You modern men are way too sensitive *gives Hyper a hug to stop him getting too upset and crying *. You have never been out of line, but then I've never spent the night in a cross gender sleepover with you before. Who knows how carried away you will get after all the popcorn, porn and pillow fights :-). You can't blame a young lady for being careful.

I think it did have a bit of an effect in games like NWN, where you can pick a particular voice, but I usually play without sound these days, so naturally voice actors have no effect.