Announcer Chatter

"The nail in the coffin! Booooooom-shakalakalaka! He's heating up! HE'S ON FIRE!"

— Announcer, NBA Jam

Every sports game played in the world always has one man or woman who plays the role of the announcer, whose job is to tell the spectators the scores, which team is entering the field, who the winner is, etc. Some announcers may add their own wit and charm. Video games also have some form of announcers that give short phrases or announce things during the game. While it can enhance the gameplay, if the announcer talks too much, it can become irritating. ^note The chance of there being an in-game option to turn off or at least lower the volume of Announcer Chatter almost always goes down in inverse proportion to how obnoxiously loud and intrusive the commentary is. Generally, announcers in video games announce character names and who the winner is.

Compare Combat Commentator, who talks even more.

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Video Game Examples:

Action Games

• Smash TV had an announcer you would end up fighting in the end, in a rather creepy manner.
• LEGO Dimensions added multiplayer battle arenas in its second year, featuring running commentary by NONE OTHER THAN BRIAN BLESSED.

Fighting

• Frequently found in Capcom fighters, particularly their Street Fighter and crossover titles from the late 90s onward.
  • Street Fighter Alpha 3 has an announcer who sounds extraordinarily happy most of the time and likes to talk a lot, including getting incredibly chatty at the victory screen. Most fighting game fans know his phrases by heart. Triumph or Die! GO FOR IT, MAN!
  • Downplayed with the announcer in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. He is very minimalist in comparison, and is generally more calm and direct than most announcers. Although he does break this for one particular line...
    (the player wins with a Perfect) AAAAAAAAAAALRIGH! DAS KOOL!
  • Capcom vs. SNK 2's announcer (Hiroaki Asai, a Japanese DJ and comedian) talks almost constantly every chance he gets. In addition to the usual pre-fight exclamations ("This battle is about to explode!", "This is gonna be a match to remember!", "Live or let die!", etc.), he's yapping at the high score screen ^(Example)"All records are meant to be broken!", the Groove Select screen ^(Example)"Great! I knew that groove was in your heart!", the character select screen, and the victory screen ^(Example)"Some may say that it was luck that helped this team to advance. That doesn't matter to me, because the bottom line is that this team won! They'd just better keep in mind that luck works in many mysterious ways.", and even adds in his own two cents during certain mid-match events, like if a character gets in an attack right at the start of the round ("Wow! They came out with a sneaky surprise attack at the start of the round!") or successfully pulls off a really powerful attack ("That's what we like to call BIG DAMAGE!"). Or even if the fighters do nothing at all when a match starts ("You can feel the calm before the storm as the round begins"). Naturally, his commentary can't be turned off, and he's also much louder than the average fighting game announcer. The combination of his hamminess and use of English resulted in one of the most memorable performances of this kind among the FGC, right up there with the above Alpha 3 announcer. KEEP ROCKIN', BABY!!
  • From Marvel vs. Capcom: "I almost had a heart attack there!" That said, announcer from MvC2 is actually pretty chill, only really giving his two cents at the victory screen (which is done so rather softly). The previous three announcers were much more pumped for the ensuing battle, with the MSHvSF one actually belting out the names of your Hyper Combos with much aplomb if you won a match with them.
  • Street Fighter IV follows the trend, with an announcer that delivers commentary with every third hit or so. THIS IS GONNA BE ONE HELL OF A SHOW!
  • The announcer in Super Street Fighter IV breathes fiery passion. Among other things, he even drops a Shout-Out to Killer Instinct with ULTRA COMBO FINIIIIIIIIISH!
  • Marvel vs. Capcom 3 not only has one announcer whose lines pay homage to Alpha 3 and CvS2, but but also has a second, optional announcer who runs commentary throughout the match, commenting on how the fighters fare and their strategies akin to the aforementioned Capcom vs. SNK 2 announcer. (While the female announcer was originally thought to be Issun from Ōkami due to their voice, Issun doesn't have any audible speech, merely providing the text for Amaterasu's victory quotes.)
  • Street Fighter 6 features an option for real-time pre-recorded commentary from notable figures within the Fighting Game Community, including (but not limited to) Jeremy "Viscious" Lopez and "Tasty Steve" Scott for play-by-play commentary, and James Chen and Thea Trinidad for color commentary.
• The Real Bout Fatal Fury games have a very enthusiastic, very friendly announcer who you just can't help but adore, especially the Real Bout Special announcer.
  "HEY, HOW'S IT GOIN' DUDE? AND LET'S BEGIN! CHOOSE YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER!"
  "WOW, HE LOOKS TOUGH, AND REALLY ANGRY!"
  "AW COME ON, DON'T GIVE UP! YOU MIGHT WIN THIS TIME!"
• Killer Instinct: C-c-c-c-c-COMBO BREAKER!!!
  • This is the pop culture part of the announcer from Killer Instinct, but not actually the primary purpose: in the first game, the announcer would also announce the actual combos, made even more badass by their idiosyncratic names and getting more and more epic at higher levels. Nothing got the blood pumping like pulling off a seven-hitter with the announcer proclaiming "Master Combo!" before someone nails an unfettered twelve-hit Killer Combo!
  • In chronological order, the combos go as such:
    • Triple Combo.
    • Super Combo.
    • Hyper Combo.
    • Brutal Combo.
    • Master Combo!
    • Blasterrr Combo!
    • AWESOME Combo!
    • MMMMMONSTER COMBO!
    • KIIIIIINNNG COMBO!
    • KILLER COMBO!
    • ULTRAAAAA COMBOOOOO!!!!
    • Ultimate... Combo.
  • The 2013 sequel offers three announcers to choose from (the new announcer, the original announcer and Ultratech boss ARIA) to suit your preferred flavor. It adds even more combo screams, including (in order) Basic, Triple, Quad, Solid, Hyper, Brutal, Master, Blaster, Extreme, Awesome, Monster, Insane, Beastly, King, Crazy, Killer, and Godlike. You can also pull off an ULTRAAA COOOOOOMBOOOOOOOOO!, or get an ULTRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! if you do two or more in sequence.
• Played around with Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat; given that he's the announcer in the second and third games, he says "I win" instead of "(character) wins" when victorious. "It is official; you suck."
• There's an announcer in the Naruto: Clash of Ninja games, but he never talks during the battle. It's also different in every game (Naruto, the Third Hokage, Hayate and finally Genma).
• Super Smash Bros. has an announcer that not only announces character names and who the winner is, but also loudly announces the title of the first two games, mode of play chosen, a countdown when five seconds are left in a match, congratulating the player for beating single player, a bombastic announcement whenever the player fails a challenge (FAILUUURE!), and the classic "Continue?" and "Game Over!" It should be noted that, in every entry, the announcer shares their voice with Master Hand (and, starting in Melee, Crazy Hand), possibly suggesting Master Hand and the announcer are one in the same.
• Soul Series:
  • "Transcending history, and the world, a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold..."
  • This victory strengthened the soul of... [insert winning player controlled character here]!

First Person Shooter

• Blood (1997) had a memorable announcer for the "Bloodbath" gamemode, who also did the voice of Tchernobog. The voice was done by Monolith Productions' then-CEO and featured such immortal lines as "Disemboweled!" "Anal justice!" and "Rectal redemption"
• Some server-side Counter-Strike mods are designed to play the UT announcer sounds.
• Halo has an announcer for multiplayer as well. General announcements such as gametype (Slayer, Capture the flag, King of the Hill, to name but three) exist, and thankfully they only repeat for individual players who might join in mid-game, but other announcements, such as which team has the flag, will play for everyone. Repeatedly. Equally annoying are the kill statements. Thankfully enough the announcer voice is rather good, so the fiftieth time you hear "Killtacular" is just as good as the first time you hear "Running Riot." Latter games added alternate announcers; one of the female ones enjoys the carnage a little too much.
• MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries has Solaris announcer Duncan Fisher, a former Solaris champion that would talk while you fight through the Mech dueling circuit, often talking about things other than the fight, like a scandal where a famous pilot threw a match, or on the talent pool this year, and would follow you as moved from the Light Mech catagory to Solaris Champion.
  • The team behind the Mechwarrior: Living Legends TC for Crysis Wars actually managed to get the voice actor of Duncan Fisher to record new lines for the Solaris Arena gamemode.
• Modern Warfare matches have a different announcer for each team: Gaz for SAS, Griggs for USMC, etc. all of whom call out incoming killstreak rewards and time limits.
• In Project Blackout, a disembodied voice announces all of your headshots, chain kills, etc.
• Team Fortress 2 has the slightly psychotic female announcer, The Adminstrator, who runs both sides. When a checkpoint is captured, she's more encouraging to the successful attackers and scornful to the failing defenders, and, if the round ends in a tie, dismisses both sides with a frustrated "You failed!!". She doesn't keep her contempt for both teams a secret and it's hardly surprising that she has the same voice actress as GLaDOS from Portal (and the Combine Overwatch in Half-Life 2).
• TimeSplitters Future Perfect announces how a kill was carried out (Lobotomy!!).
• Tribes has one of these. "Team Inferno... SCORES!" "15 seconds... five, four, three, match begins, now."
• The announcer from Unreal Tournament has plenty of phrases:
  • For kill streaks, in multiples of five: "Killing spree!" "Rampage!" "Dominating!" "Unstoppable!" "Godlike!!" and, depending on the game, "Wicked Sick!" and "MASSACRE!!"
  • For kills in rapid succession, there's the progression of "Double Kill", "Multi Kill", "Ultra Kill", "Mega Kill" (post-UT'99), "M-M-M-Monster Kill", "Ludicrous Kill", "Holy shit!"
  • "Head shot!" after the player scores a headshot.
  • "Denied!" whenever a Redeemer gets shot down or a flag retrieved a few feet from the capture zone.
  • Score X kills with one weapon, get an award title, i.e. "Rocket Scientist!" for 15+ kills with the Rocket Launcher in Unreal Tournament III.
  • The announcer also yells "Holy Shit" as well. They'll do it in CTF games if you're the flag carrier and die just a foot away from your flag/capture point.
• Quake:
  • Quake III: Arena would announce "Humiliation!" when a player scored a kill with the melee weapon to both the killer and the dead player.
  • Quake Live adds a "Denied!" message for when you miss picking up the Quad Damage powerup within a step or two of an opponent picking it up. Which typically results in you dying a (sparkly-) gibbed death.
• Nexuiz and Xonotic have announcements for kill streaks, time left, frags left and air shots.

Hack and Slash

• The arcade dungeon-crawler Gauntlet may have been the first game with an announcer, featuring ongoing commentary tailored to the player's actions. The disembodied voice praised and criticized the player's actions, offered hints and advice, and sometimes challenged the player ("Let's see you get out of here!"). Some of its catch phrases, like "Wizard Needs Food Badly" have become part of the pop culture lexicon.
• MadWorld has two announcers, and one of them is Bender! And the other is Whose Line star, Greg Proops! Naturally, their characters serve as comic relief throughout the game as card-carrying pervert Howard "Buckshot" Holmes and Kreese Kreeley, a former competitor and fellow Testosterone Poisoning victim. The two comment on everything that goes on in the in-game sport of Deathwatch, and drop subtle hints for what you're supposed to do in the level and situation that you're in. Being the type of game that it is, the commentary usually Crosses the Line Twice. Example:
  (Against the Kojack boss)
  Howard: Jack is ramming himself against Kojack!
  Kreese: So basically, Jack is ramming himself against himself. We are watching the violent masturbation ever.
  Howard: Hmhm...this is nothing.

  Howard: You know what that title means — Bloodbath Challenge time!
  Kreese: I'm really embarrassed to admit that I can't read.
  Howard: Really? That's pathetic.
  Kreese: I blame our schools!
  • They also help lampshade video game breaks from reality:
  Howard: I still don't understand why a city has giant sawblades in the middle of the streets.
  Kreese: Are you a city engineer?
  Howard: No, I'm not a city...
  Kreese: Well then, SHUT THE FUCK UP! They don't come up here and tell you how to be a commentator!
  • They even provide commentary over the credits ("commentary" meaning "insulting every single member of the developers").
  Howard: The animators are the guys who bring the action to life!
  Kreese: You mean they're the guys who get NO action their whole LIFE!
  Howard: Yeah, what did I say?

  Howard: After everything I've seen, I think the designers should be fired!
  Kreese: All part of their grand design!
  • Even better when you consider that Proops is/was the voice of children's TV show character Bob the Builder.

MOBA

• Defense of the Ancients and Dota 2 started the tradition of always having an announcer narrate the games in the MOBA genre. The original map started out with Unreal's announcer calling out kill streaks (Killing spree! > Rampage! > Dominating!...) and kills in rapid succession (Double kill! > Triple kill! > M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL! > HOLY SHIT!); when Valve took over the game, they added other well known voices of theirs such as GLaDOS or the announcer from Team Fortress 2.
• Heroes Evolved: While most of the following MOBA tends to use the model set by League of Legends, this game actually re-uses the chatter set from Defense of the Ancients (so we get to hear HOLY SHIT! again). The differences are that the announcer is female and less bombastic due to not re-using Unreal's voices.
• League of Legends, descended from Defense of the Ancients, featured an usually female announcer narrating the game (male in a couple regions such as Korea or Latin America), only a bit different: four kills in rapid succession are a "QUADRA KILL!", and slaughtering the entire enemy team is a "PENTAKILL!!!". The same announcer also tells important events such as destroyed turrets and destroyed inhibitors, although the Rift Herald, the Dragons and Baron Nashor are not called out but instead signaled by characteristic screams (they are explicitly called out in spectator mode though).
  • The game also has different announcers tied to seasonal events. The Bilgewater summer event in 2015 brought a pirate announcer, and the month after the release of the much-anticipated Aurelion Sol had Aurelion himself call out turret and inhibitor takedowns. The second set of Star Guardian skins gave us Star Guardian Ahri announcer ('Your turret has been destroyed. Don't worry, I didn't like that turret anyway.'), and the return of the Butcher's Bridge map had new champion Pyke perform announcer duty ('Minions have spawned! Those guys don't bleed... Ain't natural'). During the 2018 Odyssey event, Odyssey Kayn and his Enemy Within Rhaast took over commentary - occasionally pausing to argue with each other.
  Rhaast: You have been slain!
  Kayn: And now your brother has to become a space pirate.
  Rhaast: Oh, not this again.

  Kayn^*When the player had been on a killing streak: Shut down! Flew too close to the Sun?
  Rhaast: Sometimes I wish you would fly into the Sun.
• Smite: The announcers mostly follow the model set by League of Legends with a variation: Since the setting is a battle between gods, there are some lines that are changed to accommodate the setting (changing "LEGENDARY!" to "IMMORTAL!").

Party Games

• The announcer in Fuzion Frenzy 2 is notorious for chattering non-stop. One can press the A button at least ten times before any minigame starts or after any minigame ends and the announcer still wouldn't be finished commenting. Even within a game, he has the compelling need to eradicate silence with incessant commentary on every player's current status. This was one of the many factors that caused fans of the original to consider this a case of Sequel Itis.
  DJ Varcanno: "Player 1's in first right now!"
  "Was that a lot of damage, Player 2?"
  "The battle's not over yet!"
  "Seems like people go missing every year on Eternite! It's like the Bermuda Triangle of outer space!"
• Mario Party 8 has a talking hat host who makes lots of nonsensical noises in lieu of actually matching the text. He talks so much, though, that the hat even comments on how much is being said.

Platformers

• Cosmo and Wanda fill this role in The Fairly OddParents: Breakin' da Rules and Shadow Showdown, pointing out wish stars, commenting on things central to completing the level, and occasionally mocking you when you die. There's also dedicated button for calling your fairies, prompting them to comment on things in the level, or something relating to the story of either game.
• In Jak X: Combat Racing, Pecker and G.T. Blitz provide commentary on your races.
• Ratchet & Clank has these in spades, due to Gladiator Subquests being a staple of the series.
  • Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal have unnamed announcers for the Megacorp Games and Annihilation Nation respectively.
    Annihilation Nation announcer: Wow! Note to self: NEVER mess with a Trigger-Happy Lombax!
  • As the schtick of Ratchet: Deadlocked is that it's a In-Universe reality program, the entire game is commentated by Vox anchors Dallas and Juanita, who have a particular fondness for jeering Ratchet.
    Dallas Wanamaker: Frankly, I'm amazed the little sucker is still alive! How about you, Juanita?
    Juanita Alvaro: The Lombax does display an amazing ability to escape with his miserable hide intact, Dallas. So disappointing.
  • Captain Qwark shows in Tools of Destruction, working as a Double Agent for the heroes as the announcer of the Imperial Fight Festival.
  • A Crack in Time and Into the Nexus have tournaments hosted and commentated by their respective warrior races the Agorians and the Thugs-4-Less.
  • Rift Apart has the Slaughterplex hosted by Zurkon Jr., the bloodthirsty and perpetually screaming son of the series' Mr. Zurkon weapon.
• Sonic Colors:
  • Eggman does this for background chatter in-game, over the park's PA system. Alternates between taunting Sonic and parodying common amusement park sayings.
  • There's also an actual announcer who announces when you get combos during tricks ("Good! Great! Awesome! etc.") and whenever you get a Wisp power-up (Spike! Rocket! Frenzy!). This announcer was reused in the Planet Wisp stage in Sonic Generations.
• Super Monkey Ball, especially from Super Monkey Ball 2 and onwards, as the most insane announcers you'll ever hear. The guy is constantly yelling in the hammiest way possibly. And sometimes speaks broken English. It's amazing.

Racing Games

• Sprint Vector. The racing show's hosts, Mr. Entertainment and Princess Shran, keep up a steady stream of dialog in every competitive race. They talk about the player's performance, offer Leaning on the Fourth Wall commentary about racing mechanics, and gush about corporate sponsors. None of this changes if Shran or Mr. E are also racing.
• Hydro Thunder. "Fire the booster! Fire the booster now! Booster at max! Booster at 50%! Booster running low! Hit the ramp! Traffic up ahead! You're in 3rd place! You're in 2nd place! No, seriously, fire the booster! Detour up ahead! Watch yourself! Hit that other ramp! Get that icon which refills your booster, which is really important! Right turn up ahead! Left turn up ahead! No wait, a right turn then a left turn!"
• In ModNation Racers, Biff Tradwell and Gary Reasons fill this role as commentators. Generally though, their conversations are limited to their personal lives and you only outside of career mode cutscenes hear them speak immediately before and immediately after each race (During the race, you only hear the player character's crew chief). One of Biff's post-race lines lampshades this by saying that he fell asleep midway through, with one of Gary's pre-race lines saying that Biff usually takes a nap during the actual race. Biff also doesn't seem to care one way or the other about his job, evidenced in lines at the end of the race where he ponders ways to get his own show, expresses happiness at the fact that he is on overtime pay as a result of said race, and laments the fact that despite being one of the commentators he doesn't get a copy of the broadcast free of charge.
• The Monster Truck Madness series has 'Army' Armstrong, who comments on everything from trucks jockeying for position to spectacular crashes to trucks driving on water.
• Need for Speed
  • The early games had an announcer that would read aloud the countdown to start the race ("3... 2... 1... GO!"), announce your current position whenever you overtook an opponent, and announce on which position you ended the race.
  • Crewmembers in Need for Speed: Carbon often fulfil this role; making a comment about how they and the player will win the race before the start, telling the player when they take first place, commenting if the police arrive mid-race, and finally another comment about the player or themselves winning the race (or even complaining if they lose the race).
  • Need for Speed: ProStreet has the race announcer going on and on about Ryan Cooper (the player character) with undiminished enthusiasm from the first to the last race. It went to the point a few people were venting their anger on forums after having to listen to the race commentator chatter on and on.
• This is the main complaint done to Loudmouth Larry's comments by fans of Rock n' Roll Racing.
• Ridge Racer 64 has a terrible, over-enthusiastic announcer saying what's going on during the race. Thankfully, he doesn't chatters too much. Ridge Racer Type 4, meanwhile, has a calmer, much better announcer with a deep echo added to his voice. Rage Racer's announcer is Reiko Nagase herself.
• Destruction Derby offers a commentator with maybe 30 things to say, mostly focusing on the car carnage. Two of the memorable lines are "It's like rush hour in LA!" and (in the hot-potato Bomb Mode) "Get rid of that bomb!"
• The Formula One series on PlayStation always included announcer chatter, provided by the legendary Murray Walker from 96-2001. Formula One 97 turns this up to ten with an alternative American announcer only available in Arcade Mode, who channels the Ridge Racer announcer. Crash into another car and you'll probably be greeted with "HEEEEEEEEEY! LOOK WHERE YOU'RE GOOOOOOIIIINNN'!!"

Role-Playing Games

• Played straight in Dark Sun: Shattered Lands... at first. The game starts with the main characters in an arena fighting to the death. The announcer is an arrogant jerk who taunts and belittles the party constantly — except for when an enemy or a player character dies in combat, which is probably the only way to weasel a compliment out of him. Later, after the party escapes and ends up in the wilderness, you can encounter the announcer and threaten him to get some good items, then kill him to get more goodies.
  Announcer: Ooh, good hit!
• In Dragon Quest VIII, and in particular in the UK English dub, Morrie's Monster Arena features a verbose announcer who announces each team "In the blue corner we have... OUR HERO'S MONSTER TEAM!!!" and "In the red corner WE HAVE... THE SLIME FAMILY!!!" and introduces each fight with a not-so-witty stock phrase, typically ending in "ITS A HIGH MIGHT FIGHT THAT'S BOUND TO EXCITE! Let's get it on!" Round three starts out with "The moment you've all been waiting for!"
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion contains an arena in the Imperial City in which a player character can become a contestant and fight a series of battles. Despite the game having a fantasy setting that is generally medieval in nature, every fight is preceded by an announcer giving a brief speech about the contestants, followed by the phrase "Let the battle... begin!"
  • That's just making use of the talent, since Wes Johnson is the Washington Capitals' PA announcer, working in America's Imperial City, no less.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, you have the chance to earn some credits in the duelling arena, where you can fight with no chance of death. The announcer, speaking to your audience, describes both you, going by the handle "Mysterious Stranger", and your opponent like it's a professional wrestling match, hyping you in the first two duels as having "No history, no past, and no name!" He seems to be enjoying himself each time, but he really, really enjoys announcing the one and only deathmatch.
• The Last Story's main city has a combat arena with a pair of announcers, who have special sets of lines for one particular set of battles in addition to the more generic chatter. After the main character is known to be the favorite of the city's leader, your enemies throw their fights, leading the announcers to gripe and complain about it.

Rhythm Games

• DanceDanceRevolution has an announcer announce combo benchmarks, and combo breaks when he gets to ya. Then there's the general chatter he says during gameplay. The newest version of the game has one talk almost all the time over and over. Did we mention that the announcer sounds like a Mexican gangster?
  • And then there's the announcer for the DDR emulator Dance with Intensity, a bizarro-world version of the real thing. For example, where the 'real' announcer would say "You're like sunshine on a cloudy day!" the DwI announcer will say "You're like sunshine on my Raisin Bran!"
  • The announcer can also get real abusive if you're about to fail in the "Hottest Party" games. As if we weren't under enough pressure from doing bad...
  • "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"
  • Dance Dance Revolution X got a new announcer, who was much more restrained
  • Other Bemani games (besides Dance ManiaX) generally keep the announcer in the menus.
  • In most of the games after a certain point, you can turn off the Announcer's commentary (sometimes called "praise" in the options menu), but he'll still call out combos. In 2010 Dance Dance Revolution (Hottest Party 4 in some areas), this option was removed. Plus it seems like he comments every third arrow.
• The DJMAX series is generally good about keeping the announcer restricted to menus. But then came DJMAX Trilogy. If you have Live Mode enabled, songs will have a cool reverb effect when you achieve x3 Fever or more...but you'll also have the announcer shout your combo at set milestones ("100 Combo extend!", etc.), and make comments every time you activate a Fever gauge:
  "You the best DJ!"
  "Amazing! Is it possible?!"
  "Oh God! Can't stop!"

Simulation Games

• Theme Hospital has a snarky receptionist who, aside from calling staff to areas where they are needed, makes darkly comic jokes ("Messrs Burke & Hare to the rear exit, please!"), and even calls the player out for using cheat codes ("Hospital administrator is cheating!").
• Theme Hospital's Spiritual Successor Two Point Hospital brings back the chattering receptionist, and adds in a couple of radio DJs as well.
  • Two Point Campus, a sequel to Two Point Hospital, brings back the same DJs and receptionist. Some of their jokes are call backs to Hospital, like the receptionist telling the Doctor to return to the hospital or apologizing for the litter someone else dropped, only to realize it was actually hers.
  Announcer Lady in Two Point Hospital: We're sorry for the litter, that you dropped, on our floor.
  Same Announcer in Two Point Campus: We're sorry for the litter, that you... oh sorry that's mine

Sports Games

• NBA Jam was one of the earliest examples of this trope, with Tim Kitzrow doing his best Marv Albert impression. It was so popular that some of the lines ("BOOM-shakalaka!" "HE'S ON FIRE!") are popular within sports lexicon to this day.
• Blood Bowl has Jim Johnson the vampire and Bob Bifford the ogre commenting on the matches. Mostly in the PC game, but they are lore-wise the most famous duo of commentators, too.
  Bob: Now that looks like a pretty serious injury.
  Jim: Just a flesh wound!
  Bob: Four inches deep?
• Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 featured one of the more effective uses of this trope. To replicate the chatter heard on real TV and radio commentaries in quiet moments of the game, the various two-man commentary teams in BLIC '05 will engage in unscripted dialogue on general cricketing issues and tactics when there's nothing happening on the field of play.
• Wave Race 64 has one announcer that will always make a commentary in case you blow past the competition, fall behind, or get knocked off your jet ski. Its sequel, Wave Race: Blue Storm, demotes the announcer to just one phrase: "Ladies and gentlemen! Start your engines!" The constant chatter now goes to your character's coach and like in the previous game, will always comment when you fall off, pass a buoy the right or wrong way, and tells you when you have turbo power. Also in Blue Storm, there's an Easter Egg that went undiscovered for nine years. What is it? Basically, "Your Coach Is An Asshole" Mode. Absolutely hilarious.
• Some of the replaceable lines can get interesting in later Professional Wrestling games that try to reproduce the announcers' dialogue, including 'witty' banter. A few can get it horribly wrong, as some reviews for SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 indicated—typically, in a niche game like this, it helps to actually, you know, get the maneuvers named correctly.
  • Smackdown Vs. Raw '09 is a little better with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler, but worse with Michael Cole, who will oftentimes do nothing but repeat one category of move (calling any kind of kick "a vicious stomp," for example) or just plain mis-call moves. More cynical fans will consider this a subversion, as Michael Cole tends to be rather terrible in reality.
  • It got worse in 2010: not only do the commentators say the same thing five times in a minute (and lack much of the enthusiasm of a live event) one time there was a comment on a move from Snitsky. Snitsky isn't even in the game. As good as the other advancements are it's disappointing that some areas were just dialed in with no effort.
  • Smackdown Vs. RAW 2011 —at least the PS2 edition— is similarly bad about this, like how slapping on a leg lock will prompt comments about you applying pressure to the elbow or about how Vance Archer is going for the pin in a submission match he's not even participating in. Better yet, it has an option to disable Lawler and Cole's commentary that doesn't always work. In certain match types, they still yap at full loudness even with the voice volume turned completely down.
  • And WWE 14 has commentary that is not only terribly unenthusiastic, every second line is repeated over and over to the point of switching it off altogether.
• NBA 2K series feature a very advanced one where the announcers can discuss the players on the floor( they have lines even for obscure role players) and the coaches, how the season progresses for the team, how the last season turned out for them, what is the strengths of the team etc.
• UFC Undisputed has proper commentary from Mike Goldberg and Joel Roegan as they go into detail about the fighters, their strengths and weaknesses, how they are performing, and get rather caught up in each contest, from excitement at each submission to concern over a bad cut or possible stoppage.
• The Fight Night series has them, as it's about professional boxing. However, they highly over-exaggerate how powerful attacks are and aren't aware that health regenerates too quickly for anything but haymakers or constant pressure to do anything but be a minor inconvenience.

Shoot Em Up

• In Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, the inane Japanese running commentary on the gameplay, courtesy of Joji Yanami, is the titular gimmick—jikkyou oshaberi loosely translates as "live chatter."
• The Thunder Force series has an announcer call out the item you obtain.
  • Thunder Force AC, an arcade port of the console game Thunder Force III, extends this: in addition to the usual weapon-calling, there's a second, male announcer (for reading out the stage number and announcing the end of a stage), and the usual female announcer says the name of the stage.
  • Thunder Force VI's announcer reads out the stage name and warns you of approaching bosses...in Tangut.

Strategy

• The Mahjong Fight Club series has a female announcer who tallies up yaku (hand points) for winning hands, announces the parameters and tells you what wind position you are at the start of each hand, and speaks in the menus — she's silent during actual gameplay.
• Meanwhile, MJ4, a similar Mahjong game, has a male Large-Ham Announcer who comments on the game. Each player can only hear announcer comments about his/her own hand, and any game status that all four players would know. Which is a very good thing, as if the other players heard the announcer excitedly yelling "YAKUMAN TENPAI DA!" talking about your hand, they'd know you have a big hand, which would severely hamper you chances of actually winning with your big hand.
• Pokémon Stadium has an announcer voice that says which Pokémon came out, current standings, etc. The announcer also has a habit of getting very excited and becoming overenthusiastic when the action gets tense (such as "TAKEN DOWN WITH ONE HIT!"). There is an option to turn the announcer off.
  • The announcer never shuts up if you stall your turn due to taking a break or whatever. He'll spew lines like "What's the matter, trainer?" and the like over and over again until you take your turn.
  • Strangely enough, the announcer is absent when you fight Mewtwo after clearing the entire stadium challenges and Gym Leader Castle.
  • It's even worse in Pokémon Battle Revolution. The announcer constructs sentences out of Mons' names, attacks and stock phrases, but the gaps between pieces and changes in inflection make it painfully obvious the voice actor read each piece separately without the director notifying him how they fit together.

Third Person Shooter

• s4league: "CRITICAL-CRI-CRI-CRITICAL!" "Amazing! Is it Possible!?" "Excellent! You the max!"
  • On a side note some of the quotes were probably taken from DJ Max.
• The Monday Night Combat games bring us Mickey Cantor (who calls the game from prison and is hated so much that he's been subjected to six assassination attempts, two of which were succesful) and (in the sequel) his replacements Chip Valvano (who drifts off to sea on the backs of losing team members after matches) and GG Stacks (who's had seventy-three marriages and counting, four of which he divorced in the same morning). All three are completely insane, of course.
  • Stacks runs with the "insane" part during Blitz (which he participates in so he can take his personal problems out on you), who goes from playing the Straight Man to screaming into the mic as you destroy his robots.
    Stacks: ""And your moneyball is back up! Nice job! Son of a bitch, Jesus, Fasdaskdjsafkaskfj!!"
    Stacks: "They don't understand! THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
• Foamstars has an announcer who begins every match with, "Now's your once in a lifetime chance to get down with the foamstars! So, let's party bubble style!" and ends each match with "the party's over!" He doesn't have a variety of things to say during gameplay, but does announce each kill from your team with "[character name], nice chill!"

Wide Open Sandboxes

• The original Grand Theft Auto 1 & 2 had a parody game-show announcer to voice pick-ups, bonuses, special feats, and the player's death. Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 had an announcer with a rowdy Cockney accent.
• Dead Rising 2's Terror Is Reality has TK as the host introducing the games, but then has two other commentators who actually comment during the games themselves, including a very funny ex-player as the color commentator.
• Saints Row: The Third has Zach and Bobby provide color commentary for games of Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax and the Genkibowl DLC, and during Murderbrawl XXXI in the final Luchadores mission. Both return in Saints Row IV to commentate on one of the mini-games, Professor Genki's Mind Over Murder.

MMO

• Star Wars: The Old Republic Has Baron Deathmark doing the announcements for Huttball. Such announcements include reminders of the rules before the match starts, who's winning versus who's losing, taunting the losing team, and reminding the players that while cannibalism hasn't been done before, that doesn't mean the Player Characters can't or shouldn't do it.

Miscellaneous Games

• Irritating Stick for the PlayStation is one of a number of Licensed Games based on the Japanese Game Show Ucchan Nanchan no Honoo no Challenger. The PlayStation version is the only one localized with an English announcer; thankfully, there is an option to turn his voice off.
• Pac-Man Vs. features Charles Martinet as an announcer, doing an impression of his iconic Mario voice. Throughout the game, Mario comments on various happenings throughout the game, such as when Pac-Man eats a Power Pellet, when Bonus Fruits appear, and when a ghost catches Pac-Man.
• Power Shovel for the PlayStation is presented like a Japanese Game Show, complete with enthusiastic announcer reactions to the player's performance.
• SCP: Secret Laboratory: During a round, C.A.S.S.I.E. will announce spawning MTF units, deaths of SCPs, activated Generators, the activation/cancellation/re-activation of the Alpha Warhead and the status of the Decontamination Process via a text-to-speech system. Said TTS system can be used to make custom announcements.

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Non-Video Game Examples:

Fanfic

• How Friendship Accidentally Saved Magical Britain: When canonical Hogwarts Quidditch commentator Lee Jordan accidentally swallows one of the Weasley twins' experimental candies and loses his voice just before a Quidditch game, Elestren Parkinson fills in for him as announcer and turns out to be shockingly good at it, her commentating style being a mirror of Lee's only biased in favor of Slytherin. (She also calls Fred and George Tweedledee and Tweedledum.) Once Lee recovers, the two do the announcing together for the rest of their time at Hogwarts, with their respective biases balancing each other out and their banter enhancing the entertainment value of the matches.
• In the Harry Potter/Twilight crossover series The Wisdom Seeker, after the Cullens start at Hogwarts Emmett becomes the new Quidditch commentator, making a wide range of unconventional observations.

Film

• Throughout The Warriors, the radio DJ keeps up a running commentary on the events of the film, including taunting the Warriors for getting themselves into trouble. She provides the same service during the video game adaptation - after every mission, stand by the radio for a moment and she'll recap what's gone down. (If you die, she mocks you for it, as well.)

Literature

• In the first five books of the Harry Potter series, Lee Jordan provided this for the Hogwarts Quidditch matches, notable for his pro-Gryffindor, anti-Slytherin bias; after his graduation, Luna Lovegood took the role at least for one game in Harry's sixth year. (Thanks to her... distinctive outlook on life, hilarity ensued.)
  Ron: I hope Luna always commentates from now on.

Live-Action Television

• In an episode of Happy Endings, Penny, Dave and Alex are playing indoor baseball and David is both pitching and announcing, in a fairly obtrusive Howard Cosell announcer voice.
  Dave: It's a balmy eight degrees outside while inside we're at the top of the 99th inning during the longest winter ever, and this announcer's one more snow flurry away from harming himself aaand others!
  Penny: Shut up and pitch!
• Used as the basis for occasional jokes on Mystery Science Theater 3000—typically to highlight how clunky or boring some of the "experiments" are.

Pinball

• The Williams Electronics pinball Theatre of Magic has an off-screen announcer who excitedly provides commentary and announces each illusion throughout the game.
  Announcer: That ball is full of magic!
• Pat Lawlor's games tend to have this, be it a single commentator (Rudy from FunHouse (1990)), a pair of them (Red and Ted from Red & Ted's Road Show, Bud and Buzz from No Good Gofers), or a whole cast of them.
• Steve Ritchie's No Fear: Dangerous Sports has constant banter between the Announcer and Skull the Bone Head.
• Gunther the Gopher in Gottlieb's Tee'd Off constantly does this to distract the player.
• Used extensively in Indianapolis 500, thanks to Real Life motorsports commentators and announcers Paul Page, Bobby Unser, and Tom Carnegie.
• Similarly, NASCAR features Real Life NBC sportscaster Allen Bestwick announcing the gameplay — accompanied by an assortment of rowdy fans.
• Ol' One-Eye provides assorted quips and jokes in Bone Busters
• NBA Fastbreak features Tim Kitzrow as the announcer, essentially reprising his role from NBA Jam.

Western Animation

• The DuckTales (2017) episode "Missing Links of Moonshire" had a subplot about Huey and Launchpad commentating on the titular golf game in order to earn a Junior Woodchuck's badge. They keep this up even when they've been magically transported to a Pocket Dimension where they need to keep playing or get trapped forever.
  Scrooge: Is the commentary still necessary?!
  Huey: (still using calm commentator voice) It helps me feel in control during a frankly insane situation.
  Launchpad: I like talking this way 'cause it makes everything sound important. Baloney trampoline.
• The Probending announcer in The Legend of Korra does play by play for the Probending matches, and late in the season keeps speaking in the same exact tone and cadence when he's being attacked by a terrorist. A season later, he's not even at the mic, but in the audience, when another attack happens during Bolin's film premiere, and calls out play-by-play on the fight as if it was a match.
• Subject of a brief gag in one Simpsons Treehouse of Horror special:
  Announcer: The kick is up... It's looking good! The ball is turning into a fat, bald guy! And it's no good! And you know what we say every time something strange happens—it's good that Bart did that! It's very good!

Other

• In Real Life, this sometimes happens near the end of a blowout. For example, near the end of a Wisconsin-Michigan St. game on ESPN had Captain Obvious himself, Brent Musburger and Steve Lavin killing the final two minutes rambling about everything from YouTube (including a brief mention of sideline reporter and resident Ms. Fanservice Erin Andrews) to Sylvester Stallone using human growth hormone for one of the Rocky films (causing an audible groan from Musberger, who had a Newscaster Cameo in the second movie).
• In StarCraft II, the first five minutes of each game tend to be uneventful, unless a player is trying a particularly daring strategy. As such, the announcers for the World Championship Series will often go off on random tangents during this time, whether it be gossiping about the players, comparing flight itineraries, or discussing time-travel movies.
• At UFC 249, hosted without fans due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the announcers commenting ringside were clearly audible to the fighters themselves. Greg Hardy admitted that he overheard the analysis from commentator Daniel Cormier, adjusted his strategy accordingly, and won the fight.

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