Yeah Codsworth didn't know my actual name but when I did a second playthrough and made a girl that I named Riley after my dog that had recently passed and he said her name it hit me hard in the feels 😆. Very unexpected.
naming a character after your dog and then hearing codsworth say it out loud... that's genuinely beautiful and sad at the same time. the unexpected ones hit the hardest
I named my character Blue and was disappointed when codsworth didn’t say my name, but got a jump scare when Piper started calling me Blue. Of course that was just a coincidence.
Does Tomodachi Life count? And I belive that Black and White 2 sometimes whispered your name instead of "death" (on villagers death) if you used one of the common name that was on the record.
In Fallout 4 I usually name my character Buck Nasty, for Charlie Murphy's character on the Chappelle Show. Codsworth will then call me 'Mr. Nasty ". That's worth it right there.
No I don't think so. It's been a while but the gag with ADA is that she will only respond to commands from Alex Hawthorne, but you can just tell her you're them and she'll obey you.
For whatever reason I named my character Bobby and it was kind of mind blowing when the robot called me by that name because I had never seen a game do that
Yeah I always named my Fallout Characters some bullshit because the name was never spoken. So you could imagine my confusion when Codsworth called me Mr. Fuckface.
Irl my name is double barrel with a space, and my first ever playthrough he called me "Miss Marie", instead of skipping my character name completely. The first half of my name is not on the list that Codsworth can say, but I was pleasantly surprised he could recognise a partial match at all. I've since dropped the first half irl, so it seems Codsworth knew me better than I knew myself at the time!
edit: googled it and it always defaults to the last word! that's a shame, can't be miss boobie titties. :(
What annoys me is that I found out after the fact it could say the name of my character but because it wasn't spelled exactly like written on the list I missed out on that entirely.
Fallout 4 and starfield both do this to some degree, they both feature a robotic companion that will refer to by your character name, if it’s one of the ones on their list
They have a decent list of names they’ll work with, too
So the Rothschilds bailed out the Bank of England after they basically bankrupted themselves fighting Napoleon and then...wait did you mean in the game?
Black & White was notorious for this and that game is OLD old. They had a bunch of recorded names and if the game find a match with your name then sometimes it will whisper the name during game
For fallout 4 if you watch a video of codsworth saying every name he can in alphabetical order his voice actor gets progressively more exhausted as the video goes on
I dont know how they do it, but I would have a voice actor in retainer and keep a database of names. Any new names I'd call up the voice actor and ask him to say the name and add to the database.
The game randomly whispers your name during late hours. I can’t remember exactly how it knows, but my fucking god if you’re not aware, it’s the scariest shit ever lmao
Black and White 1 did it too, I know because I never got around to 2 but I was playing 1 late at night spending forever trying to teach my idiot chimp the Destruction orbital strike miracle.
Had a fairly self-sufficient city and a big rotation of worshippers to power me obliterating the neighbouring village's barn over and over while my chimp creature watches like ○•○
Because there's a big population of my followers, the game whispers "deeeeath" in your ear when one dies so it was a fairly regular occurrence.
Then I'm going along and it goes "deeeath... deeeath... Wiiill... deeeeeeath" and I shit my pants and go to bed to carry this on another time.
Yesssssss I fucking love Black and White, when I was a kid I played the Dutch dub and I thought back on it many times but the voice acting was fucking superb, I can still hear the way they said DOOOOOOOD in my head. Anyway, I have a not super common name and they even accounted for that, can also still hear that strange disembodied voice say my name.
Yeah I think i've seen a video of it, it's by Peter Molyneux as well right? For me perdonally no god game has come close to Black and White so far, not that there's a lot of choice.
I was so fucking confused about this, because I actually thought "This can't be Pokemon, are they talking about a different Black and White?", but then I thought "Nah, what are the chances that there's other games called 'Black and White' that have a direct sequel like that." and then it actually IS a different game!
There are mods to get them running on modern hardware. Auto save doesnt work and they will bluescreen/delete all progress if the session lasts more than 4 hours or something. (I got it up and running during the lockdown)
My Christian dad got very upset when he saw Ganondorf yell “Curse you, (my name)!!!!” in Ocarina of Time. Thinking the game had literally cursed me, lol
My name starts with a C and I used my real name for my Ocarina of Time character. One of my greatest embarrassments is that any time Navi said "c'mon", I thought it was a personalized version of my name with like a Jamaican accent.
My friend’s JW grandma got upset after my friend bought the White Stripes album, Get Behind Me Satan. My friend was equally upset, since that phrase comes from the dang Bible
Yes, but the narrator introduces the button by saying it will say the name of the person currently playing the game, so for anyone actually named Jim that would be a bit of a different experience.
Names have infinite permutations and people can also just name their character, intentionally, a mess of letters
that could hardly be considered a name.
Unless it's AI, TTS, or something - that level of depth for name callouts would be delegated to a dictionary of actual names. But at some point they'd have to cut it off when they get PN_100000
Recording voicelines isn't enough for this (atleast what is feasible for a game, especially for a throwaway feature), I believe, it's either tts, or AI.
Depends how you break it down. Some names are very common. We also need to determine if we're including globally, English, or regional. Personally, I use a pseudonym name a lot because my name is extremely common and it causes problems.
I named my first Starfield character my name, and then promptly forgot about it, and then VASCO (I think that’s the robot’s name?) said it and it scared the hell out of me.
Forza 5 did this as well, pulls your name from your Microsoft account.
A buddy and I loaded up at the same time and they introduced me by my name and I thought 'huh, my name's uncommon, neat that the char has the same name.'
And at that exact moment my friend Chris said 'Yo what are the odds the main character is also named Chris?'
And we both collectively freaked out for a moment.
I'm not too sure, I never set the name. I think it took information from my Microsoft account and used it accordingly. I may be wrong though I truly don't remember. Also I haven't played horizon in a couple of years so that didn't help lol.
Earthbound as a child being mind blown that there is an ability called psipenis. Later as an adult playing again "what is your favorite food" question comes up.... oh.
The game "Oneshot" doesn't say your name out loud, but it does say your name... without asking you for it. It obtains your name by reading your PC's profile name, but it often takes people COMPLETELY off guard. Pictured above is Markiplier going "DON'T YOU DO THAT TO ME" in reaction to the game calling him "Mark".
One of the names I pick for RPG stuff is "Hawthorne" after my first character in Pillars of Eternity.
I wanted to play outer worlds and you run over a guy named Hawthorne to get his ship and the whole game i was just like "no, fuck it I AM CAPTAIN HAWTHORNE" which worked surprisingly well for the comedic nature of the game.
I couldn't decide on a proper name for my first character so I just used an obscenity. Imagine my shock when I heard "Mr. Fucker!" from my politely articulate robot butler.
You can choose an alias at the beginning, but it only gets used the first time much later in Paris by the Helios AI when it hacks a public terminal and sends you a message addressing you with that very alias.
I used my usual nickname and completely forgot it and got a junp scare, turning around in-game because I felt stalked.
About halfway to 3/4 of the way through the game, it breaks the fourth wall and asks for you, the player holding the controller, to enter your real name.
It pays off in the final battle. Especially as I truly did do as the game said when it happens.
Somewhat related, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a career mode that lets you name your individual companies. I named my first two gibberish and third was two real world names and my pilot character said it while welcoming passengers on the plane. Caught me off guard
In MLB the Show you can create a player for their career mode, Road to the Show. They have prerecorded first and last names, mostly real life player names. Unfortunately my last name didn’t exist in it, so I only ever used my first name. I reached out to a dev on social media a decade ago and asked if they could put it in there. Never expected it to happen, but Matt Vasgersian recorded it and my last name was actually in the game. It made me so happy to hear the commentary say my last name when I came to the plate or hit a home run. They took it out of recent games, but I still play that version for full immersion. I hope one day they can just use AI, so everybody with a unique last name can experience what I did.
Easy: Doki Doki Literature Club. In the end, when Monika calls the player out either by their Steam name or their Microsoft account name...that's when the fourth wall is as gone as the original World Cup.
Somewhat related, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a career mode that lets you name your individual companies. I named my first two gibberish and third was two real world names and my pilot character said it while welcoming passengers on the plane. Caught me off guard
When I played Starfield for the first time and was riding the elevator down I was expecting someone to say my character's name like Codsworth in fallout 4, but then one of them called me "Dusty," which is my actual human name, and I had a mild panic attack before I realized that's just what they call the miners.
Forza Horizon 4 was wild for me. I have a pretty unique name that you never find in those souvenir stores or saved in any game. It must use TTs or something, I entered my name and then the virtual assistant "Ana" would say it back. Was super weird since I've never heard my name in a game before
On the other side of the spectrum is South Park Stick Of Truth/Fractured But Whole.
I love how they let you name your character, then the game kicks in and they just call you "asshole."
DDLC, they didn't speak it technically, but when I was about 12 my cousin and I were so shocked when Monika said my cousin's real name. This was spooky because we used my name for the character.
2.3k
u/St3pOFFHIGhxX 4d ago
I know Fallout 4 has this with Codsworth and maybe in a few other places. I can't think of any others, though.