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So what do you folks think about voice chat in console games?

Me, I think it would be great if people used it to chat about the game... but instead pretty much all I ever hear are people messing with their mic, coughing, sneezing, chewing, chewing loud, chewing REALLY loud, kid brothers screaming, moms yelling, music so loud you can't even hear what it is over the static, 13 year old white as rice suburban kids talking like gang members, other kids talking about girls acting like they know what they're talking about, kids complaining about school, parents, life and telling you you're cheating because you killed em.

So, I keep voices muted 24/7

How about you? Do you use voice chat? Is it useful, or just an annoying waste of bandwidth?

I always play with my headset on, but I keep my mic muted unless I want to actually speak.

People who have broken mics, who are playing music, or who are just annoying I mute. I don't tend to encounter them as much as I used to - you always get more of them in some games than others, and at some times during the day as well.

I enjoy using voice chat when online with friends in a party, though it would be nice if it flagged up who was talking in the corner of the screen or something so you knew who was speaking

SilverMK2 wrote:I always play with my headset on, but I keep my mic muted unless I want to actually speak.

People who have broken mics, who are playing music, or who are just annoying I mute. I don't tend to encounter them as much as I used to - you always get more of them in some games than others, and at some times during the day as well.

I enjoy using voice chat when online with friends in a party, though it would be nice if it flagged up who was talking in the corner of the screen or something so you knew who was speaking

Or if you could have some kind of function that popped out of the screen and kicked people who, for some reason left their mics open and talked really loud about stupid things to people in the room, in the jibblies.

But I guess that's why we can set it to private party!

Solution to this is private parties, or play with people you like. Mute the rest.... saw'ted.

It does depend on the game though. I found the original Gears of War to be a relatively friendly place when i first signed up to live. Worst offenders are Halo and CoD by far, Gears of War 2 is FULL of asshats too.

Not sure what it's like on PS3 though, I don't use my mic when I'm on.

I only talk to people I know or are in my clan and so know my IRL friends...

I think the problem for me is I've been playing back ops a lot, and all the kiddies are playing it too :( Wasn't as much of a problem in MW2 or Killzone. And I think what bugs me most was those games had a a mute all function or you could just lower voice volume to 0, but in black ops you have to mute everyone separately :(

When I was in the Beta for XboxLive back in the day I remember using voice chat a bunch... I thought it was pretty neat. But once it went live I barely used it at all. I think what turned me off to it was the asshattery that would ensue with FPS... If I had more sports games I might utilize it then since one of the games I played during the Beta was a football game; the one on one I think I could handle better.

I play mostly AC Brotherhood online, and a voices pop up a couple times. Its always 14-18 year old guys swearing like there's no tomorrow.

As annoying as it is, I find it extremely satisfying to kill that person repeteadly and hear them shout "f***, not this guy again!"

On a more serious note, I think people using mics should only be using them if they're actually talking to one of their buddies. In a random game against anybody whose online at the moment, they shouldn't have thos mics on. Not to mention you can't understand what they're saying half the time

Yeah I had XBL when it was in beta, I wasn't a fan of the headsets then either but I did think it was cool since it was new and no other game systems did that

I think just in general I don't like voice chat for games, even when I used to play WOW, guilds made you have to have Ventrilo or whatever and I hated it. Never got a mic I just loaded it to listen to them tell me how to kill bosses and I typed whatever I needed to say. I guess it would be different if I was playing with someone I knew well, but no one I know plays what I play, oh well

See I found that the constant stream of abuse really wasn't a good thing with the PS3 in the living room. So it's muted. Constantly.

Its a useful tool in games where strategy and tactics are important, I used voice chat software extensively while playing guildwars in a team as all the keyboard buttons were mapped and the time it takes to type and read a message is time you should be focusing on the fight at hand.

Though on games like call of duty voice chat is just another medium of abuse.

I keep the headset plugged in but put it aside after Gears of War onwards, where racial slurs were thrown around like no tomorrow by squeaky kids, I've lost that last bit of faith. I mean dang, they swear like sailors.

Usually mute everyone unless I'm in a party. Even if the randoms are being polite, I usually just don't care enough to listen. I'm here to shoot aliens man, not to be your best friend

When I first got the 360 I used to play with my headset all the time, especially if I was playing with friends. Recently though I dont bother, Im fed up with all the complaining and people just trying to annoy others. Its a shame because you 'miss out' on the social side.

Don't even use a mic anymore 90% of the conversation is just people calling each other gay.

I always use the headset when I'm on Live. You do end up with the occasional annoying jerk, but they're easy enough to mute. And, you do sometimes end up in a group that is really competent and teamwork does wonders.

Of course, I tend to avoid FPS and play co-op games, so it's typically a different crowd of gamers.

Like what everybody said, but what really annoys me are the voice changers. Why do we need them? Are the players in a witness protection program or something?