Unknown Number: A First Person Talker review – it’s good to talk

metro.co.uk:

Why use a mouse or gamepad when you can talk to a game instead? As this innovative techno-thriller makes clever use of voice recognition.

There’s something about the phrase ‘voice-controlled adventure game’ that has the potential to immediately alienate a large percentage of gamers. Is it a gimmick? Will it work as well as it claims to? The answer to both of those is yes, but also no. It’s a simple concept executed in a much more complex way than it first seems, but not without its hiccups.

Unknown Number sees you taking on the role of ‘Casey’ – although the game acknowledges that that’s not your real name. It seems the voice recognition technology isn’t quite smart enough to implement your actual name into the game, which is one of a small handful of areas where it falls short. As the game begins, you find yourself on the receiving end of a series of calls from, guess what? An unknown number.

You’re introduced to Amanda Reid and Ethan Hammer, who initially don’t realise they’ve misdialled their intended recipient. Casey quickly becomes embroiled in their plans to take down oil manufacturer Sigoil, after they pledged their life to an underground eco-warrior movement run by children. This involves stealing a substantial amount of crypto currency via fraudulent entry to a series of secret vaults aboard an oil rig.

The voice recognition feature is used heavily throughout the entire game, with a series of different puzzles and challenges to be completed in order to gain entry to the vaults. Far from just verbalising answers to questions, these vaults will expect you to match volume, pitch, and patterns perfectly in order to crack the codes, and there isn’t a skip feature if you can’t quite manage it.

One such challenge sees Casey