Jeronimo66 said:
|
No, that's not what I mean. This is called an impressions video, when this is clearly _not_ an impressions video. What you're seeing here is a list of things they were said to say in order to support a product. That's fine, this is a buisness, I just want people to know that you will never see a game out of the majority of these developers using natal. The technical limitations it enforces on game development will make absolutely certain that it is almost completely restricted to the realm of invisible stearing wheels, rail shooters and casual exercise games.
EDIT: To remove any possible bias in this discussion, I feel the same way about the wii and the PSwand. Motion control is actually a step backwards in game design because it invokes limitation on the gameplay in order to meet the needs of the motion device. Control schemes for controllers allow for significantly more feedback from the player.
My issue with natal is that it takes force feedback away all together. no rumble, no feel. I'm just swatting at the air. I have no way of judging my movements with respect to my world, I have no way of feeling weight or accuracy. My movements will be shakey, inaccurate and hard to control. The Wii did this right, that is all we can do with our technology today.
Natal will be nothing more than an advanced PSEye, a technology the rulers of the video game industry abandoned because it was not worth their time, controllers provided a far better gaming experience.
Think about this, natal comes out, how do you interact with your world? You reach out and grab things? Grab what? there's nothing there. How can you possibly make your interactions mimic what is in the world? if you reach down, you wont see the screen, how do you know what you're picking up? there's nothing there. How does it know you've picked anything up? It wont. you simply will use gestures like the wiimote does. Waggle hand down, pick up item on the ground. You're also going to be limited to hallways, small rooms, and your field of range and reach is totally confined. You cannot move in or out of your gameworld to any significant degree without invoking the waggle commands.
You're not interacing with a virtual world, you're replacing pushing up on the dpad with taking a step forward, but you cant keep walking forward because you have no room. My point? you can replace everything Natal does with current technology. The PSeye does all of the tracking, put a DDR pad on the floor to simulate steping into direction, and the PSeye does the replacing you into the world. Want to speak into the game? there's a reason this doesn't work well on ANY device, and WONT work well on Natal, its virtually impossible to match and read the signials of a virtually infinite number of voice wave patterns. It simply will not work, no questions. Will it be managable? well, maybe... but it will be just as frustraiting as it's ever been. Remember, windows is a FAR more profitable and FAR more important buisness for Microsoft, and the voice recognition there will be superior to Natal and is still a hassel to use.
That being said, Natal will be a virtual heaven for games like the ones that have been showcased so far. But think about what it brings to the table. Sit down, stop, and think. If there is no force feedback, how is it going to feel immersive. I put my hands infront of me, and another pair of hands come out on the screen... well, thats neet.. i guess.. no.
Some genres that will work.
Adventure(Hideo Kojima Snatcher remake please?) -- This works, but again, without force feedback will end up being less enjoyable than playing it with a controller or a wiimote.
casual games like ricohete/brick breaker/tennis. This could be really cool, but with movements that fast and our demonstrations as seen so far, this will work worse than it does on the wii. It's just too inaccurate for high speed. The wii replaces any swing as a waggle command and translates it to a movement in game and its still very stuttery and highly inaccurate, imagine it with Natal? Better for sure. but how much better? The PSeye already does this flawlessly. Every demo we've seen of the ricochete being played on natal could be done on pseye on the ps2 (infact it already has been done, and a much more complicated version of the game as it puts a physical you in it.)
Exercise: These will work pretty well, but without force feedback will fail miserably. It needs something to put in your hand. Microsoft will need to package products along with it in order for it to work properly, and then, what's the point? Don't I already have this on my wii? What more can they offer? nothing.
I strongly believe Natal will be a massive failure, but Microsoft is putting huge amounts of money into peoples hands to attempt to make you think differently, But please, think for a moment, compare it to whats out there, Do you really feel it adds another dimension to gameplay?
I'd love to hear peoples opinions. I am a computer engineer and I am currently doing a masters in Artificial Intelligence and how people interact with it so I find natal interesting, but I just don't see it being useful without a controller.
What will make Natal Amazing.
Games being packaged with periferals. Imagine Halo 4 with three types of plastic guns and a set of holding pouches. plastic is cheap, games are already sold way over the proper price, so Halo 4 at 60$ with these would be reasonable. So each gun has a single analog stick on it, thats all it needs, and a trigger. The trigger and the analog stick send signals to the device, you use the analog stick to move and everything else is controlled by your body movements. Want to switch weapons? gotta put it back and pull the other out. want to melee? smash that thing at your enemy. Want to duck? duck. Roll? Roll(if you have the space.) This could be seriously amazing and far out do any of the other motion controls. This is what I hope to see, and this is the only way natal can work for core FPS games.
Basically every core game will require some sort of perifieral in order to function properly.The issue with this?
"controller-free gaming and entertainment experience"
