Stratovox

Stratovox (arcade)  1980

First game to use synthesized voices

Arcade system: Taito Z80 Based

Gameplay Video

Review "All Game Guide" (1998) by Brett Alan Weiss
"The first video game with speech (Help Me!), Stratovox is an obscure title in the slide-and-shoot genre. Players use a pair of buttons to maneuver a ship left and right along the bottom of the screen while pressing the lone fire button to launch missiles at flying, looping clusters of alien invaders. From time to time the aliens will attempt to abduct one of the men positioned in a row along the right side of the screen, and take him across the top of the playfield to the left. Players can save the man by shooting down the saucer before it escapes. When all the men have been captured, or all the player's ships have been destroyed, the game will end. Although it borrows liberally from Space Invaders, Defender and Galaxian, Stratovox is worthwhile for its voice effects and its engaging, challenging gameplay."

Trivia:

1) Plot - "protect astronauts from hostile saucers".
2) Original japanese version of the game (called "Speak & Rescue") features japanese speech, such as "Tasukete!" instead of "Help Me!".

3) Speech Synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech computer or speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech.

4) Other early games with speech is arcade games Berzerk (1980) and New York! New York! (1980).

5) Emulated in: MAME (not fully emulated).