Voice chat is both a blessing and a curse for the gaming community the world over. When used properly it can give a team a definite edge by allowing greater coordination. On the flip side, when misused and abused it can have people ticked off fairly easily (I’m referring to all those Xbox Live and Team Fortress 2 trolls!) and ruin the experience for many. The only way to ensure that you keep all those unwanted bathroom singers and other agents of piercing ear pain at bay is to have privatized voice chat. On that note, let me start by giving you the lowdown on a few available options for in-game voice chat...
Many games these days come with inbuilt voice chat support, such as Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and World of Warcraft. While the ease of setting up voice chat in such games is high – all you usually have to do is hop to the settings menu, change a few things and you’re good to go – their flexibility and utility is usually limited. For instance, in games like TF2, more often than not, you’ll have quite a few people you don’t know in your team. If you wish to coordinate with just a small group of friends on the server, there’s no easy way of doing so. In such cases the best you can do is mute all the other players on your list, but that won’t do the job too well either. Voice chat programs are generally a better idea in such cases.



