Gluff said:
I think an example of NPCs' dialouge being important is in Arkham City.
Every enemy has voice acting that sounds like they're depressed criminals in a deserted wasteland of a city. They also yell taunts at Batman while fighting and they exchange small lines of dialogue when they don't see Batman. Hell they even have conversations about the situation they are currently in. Sometimes they talk about how they feel about their leader or sometimes they just want to make fun of each other.
These lines of dialogue made the world of Arkham City seem so real and authentic. It made the world feel like an actual Batman setting and it worked so well.
Funny. The NPC dialogue is a mayor reason I never replayed Arkham City. I'm not a comic book reader, so I can't vouch to the faithfulness of replicating the Batman setting. But I don't think the intended effect of the dialogue was to make me wish for Batman to hand Dr Strange the fucking matches and help him burn the whole place to the ground. Halfway through that game my response to the start of another overheard conversation was "Oh goody, are these assholes going to tell me how much they enjoy murder, rape* and torture, or about how much worse their bosses are. Yeah, I figured that out already. How about some dialogue that gives me a reason why I wouldn't want to see them all killed? Cause at this point, what alternatives are there? Between this game and the last one, I think we've pretty much established that putting them in a jail or mental hospital doesn't even stop them from committing mass murder while they're still inside the building, let alone once they get out during Gotham's bi-weekly jailbreak."
*I literally cannot think of a single instance of mook dialogue to or about any female character that didn't include speculating or suggesting having sex with them, with consent being very much not a concern.