Please I ask the stupid fanboy posters to leave immediately. If you have nothing constructive to say. Leave. None of this paid off BS you keep posting. Project Natal : A skeptics worse Nightmare.
27th May 2010
Natal: a swinging (and kicking and jumping) sucess
There has been so much buzz around Microsoft Project Natal for the Xbox 360; a piece of kit that essentially turns an already impressive games console into a whole new gaming and entertainment experience by adding an advanced camera that captures your entire body and translates the movements into an on-screen avatar.
It's easy to take this for granted when you first start playing with Natal: if you're used to gaming with the Wiimote then you'll be thinking 'ho-hum, the little person on screen is mimicking me' but throwing away the controller and letting the game play you is a totally different experience.
It was strange to stand in front of a TV screen - no controls, no sensors, just me - and have an avatar on screen that mimicked my body movements pretty accurately, complete with swivel of shoulder and turn of hip.
The only problem with Natal pre-release is that there is only one demo game where your avatar whacks balls against a wall and tries to smash as many as possible. This didn't really keep me entertained but it wasn't meant to; it was simply designed to show that the technology does what it is supposed to do.
Slammin'
Again, another thing that consumers won't experience is this version. I was told that it was not the final build and I could tell, because although it picked up my body movements quite well it didn't really pick up my arm as I swung for the ball. I have a feeling they're still working on calibrating velocity, and I'm looking forward to this because a piece of technology that can pick up and translate speed as well as position in 3D space into on-screen action is pretty awesome.
As I said to one of the Natal demonstrators, Boris Becker's arm wouldn't even have registered (yes, my tennis analogies are completely out of date) but it was really cool using something other than your hand to play a game.
Because it picks up your entire body, you can kick, slap and even head butt things and as I found out if you simply stand there it smacks into you, but you can move things out of the way if you slam your body sideways or even swivel your hips or shoulders. I was reliably informed that it picks up 42 distinct points on your body.
Plus it seemed to be happy to pick up two players side by side but didn't detect the person standing behind us. And we tried a bit of tag-teaming but this didn't phase the Natal sensors, it seamlessly picked up the new person and the first one jumped out.
The kids are all right
As I watched the rest of the adults begin with Natal by swishing their arms about a bit and slowly warming up to kicking the ball, I realised that the only prohibiting factors were shame, self-consciousness and fear of ridicule amongst peers. Much the same as with the Wii on launch.
Children are not burdened by this and are also willing to try something new. As one of the journalists I was speaking to said as we watched one kid playing Natal, "He has no fear".
We watched in awe as he jumped about energetically, head butting balls, kicking high in the air and looking as though he was having the time of his life. As much as adults will love Natal, kids will live Natal. Their avatar will become a second skin and we grownups should jump in with both feet, too.
You got game?
There are so many games I could see Natal working with. We already know that EA, Ubisoft and MTV Games are official partners and Peter Molyneux of Lionhead Studios hinted that Fable III would have Natal capabilities, plus they already demoed their Milo character with Natal at E3 2009.
We'll find out what big titles are coming down the line at E3 2010 and I'm hoping there will be a Stars Wars one. Imagine fighting with light sabres, doing a classic Darth Vader chokehold or slamming your opponent into the nearest wall with a force push!
Of course, with EA on board, you can see how well it will work with soccer games and the like. Sports will be big on this and there is the River Rush game, but I'm more interested in what it can do for other games, particularly if it will be integrated into classic franchises like Halo, Medal of Honor.
What else can it do?
Even if you're not the gaming type, having Natal on your Xbox 360 makes it pretty futuristic. After switching on your console it detects your presence and you can navigate through your games, movies and music by swiping your hand and choosing one to play by grabbing it. So yes, couch potatoes can also enjoy Natal. In fact, it will make them even lazier ... but in a fun and interactive way.
Verdict
I'm looking forward to the final build and I do think how cool this will be down to the games available, but what can I say? I want one. Badly. Sucks to be Wii.
Photo: Microsoft Project Natal for the Xbox 360
http://www.gadgetrepublic.com/news/item/2083/gaming/project-natal-first-impressions/
And NEXT:
To be definitively convinced by Project Natal’s face value revolutionary tact would be a huge mistake. Sure, watching a Microsoft representative gleefully bash red balls on a distinctively green soaked 360 E3 stage with no controller probably looks good, but these public displays of Natal love should not be enough to convince you whether or not you think Natal is all it’s supposed to be and more. To be won over by or to ‘Jump In’ with Natal from what we’ve seen thus far just isn’t enough to persuade us all that Natal is the paradigm shifting gaming evolution Microsoft and Peter Molyneux keeps telling us it is. The only prevailing emotion or sentiment that one should rely on, until we play it at least, is skepticism and skepticism alone.
Yesterday, two TGL skeptics (pragmatic one’s mind you) attended a behind closed doors first look at Microsoft’s Project Natal in Dublin. Weighed down by a surfeit of questions and a glut of instinctive and habitual doubts, we skeptical types were treated to about 15 minutes of Natal time and honestly we can tell you that Natal, even from this small insight, is every skeptic’s nightmare. Within seconds of standing before the device for the very first time, we skeptical types were left reeling in shame for any inclinations of ‘doubt’ or ‘skepticism’ we had about Natal to this point. Natal is the real deal, plays like a dream and proves us skeptics irrevocably wrong. This dream is every skeptic’s nightmare because it proves us all to be very mistaken.
It’s at this point that I’d like to add that 15 minutes with Natal still isn’t enough time to gauge just how much of a dream the actual device is. I would be doing myself and everyone else for that matter an injustice by suggesting that by virtue of my 15 minutes with the device, that I’ve had the ‘complete’ Natal experience. I have not. 15 minutes just isn’t enough time. But, I can tell you that those 15 minutes were really fantastic and really gave us at TGL a sense of just how special Natal could be.
Upon arriving at the venue, we were greeted by Alex Waller a Microsoft Natal representative who was more than a little enthused to let us actually get in front of the device and experience Natal for the very first time. After a couple of minutes of ground rules i.e. no questions on price, launch, games etc (all the questions you’d want to ask) it was time to play. Microsoft are saving all their big Natal announcements for E3 we were informed. Before us stood a 50 odd inch Panasonic HD TV, an Xbox 360 Debug Console in White and on a small knee high table, the Project Natal camera peripheral. The device was white, as in the colour of standard arcade 360s and appeared to be a slightly altered and refined shape to the original images of Natal that we are used to seeing from E3 and CES.
After a short introduction, Alex literally took to the peripheral and we were introduced to Ricochet, that red ball bashing game the MS reps played live on stage at E3 last year. We were informed that this version of Ricochet is much closer to the final retail version we can expect when Natal is released and that the game has been significantly tweaked since last we saw it. And so our experience with Natal began. How else do I describe what we saw other than to say that Alex lifted up his hand and waved it from left to right to choose between ‘male’ and ‘female’ avatars in the main Ricochet menu. The Natal device instantly picked up Alex and what we were watching seemed like magic. After choosing the male option an avatar was popped into centre screen and red balls started to come towards him who was now standing in a kind of invisible tunnel. Alex started to play and literally started to hit the on screen balls in the same vain to the previous footage of the game you have all seen before. But the difference is seeing someone react and literally hit these balls close up is an altogether different experience than just watching someone do it on YouTube. It’s a powerful experience. Alex’s avatar was incredibly responsive and he was punching, kicking and kneeing red balls at every discernable angle with different distributions of weight with no lag or no delays. Much like the Wii when it first came out, it was nearly as fun to just actually watch Alex jump around and react than it was to watch the on screen gameplay. Only this time, more importantly, Alex isn’t holding a Wii-mote or any kind of a controller.
Alex played two rounds of Ricochet. The goal, though we didn’t go into it, was to simply smash the red balls back down the tunnel to hit what seemed like wooden panels and targets before the timer ran out. It wasn’t long before I had the chance to experience Ricochet myself and my first interaction with Natal was to simply put my hand out in front of me and move the small on screen icon to the right to confirm that I wanted to start a new game. Doing this seemed so strange and yet so natural. Perhaps this is the best way to describe the Natal experience. Everything about it was so natural, so simple and so easy. No buttons, no fixing the angle of the camera, nothing. Just stand and play. Alex told us that if you stand out of range then you’re on screen avatar would start to become invisible and the game would eventually pause itself. For my game of Ricochet I stood about 2 and a half to 3 meters from the camera.
It’s just such a shame that we could only play Ricochet because from what we played, Ricochet, as fun and as responsive as it was, we just could’nt help but feel that there’s so much more that Natal can do. Bashing red balls is a great introduction to the peripheral and although some three years on we’re all still inclined to throw on Wii sports for a spot of tennis or boxing, you can’t help but feel that with technology this good, Natal is much better than Ricochet. Unlike Wii Sports, after three years you may never ever go back to Ricochet. The experience will have probably evolved so much more in that time. That said, Ricochet did give us a great feel for the device and was a more than interesting introduction to the experience. Natal’s little red ball game that could, won us over. Though Ricochet itself is not revolutionary, Natal could very well be. Playing Ricochet was not just playing a hi-def Eye Toy game. There was just so much depth and precision that comparisons with Eye Toy, though a little justified, shouldn’t hold any weight here.
It’s ironic. Before playing Natal we had so many questions and after our 15 minutes and actually playing it, we have so many more questions. Natal is the real deal. But we need to see more. Microsoft needs to prove just how powerful the Natal experience is. That’s what E3 is for. After 15 minutes with Natal, we want more. I’ve never heard of a man suffering from Post Natal depression before now.
http://thegamingliberty.com/index.php/2010/05/27/project-natal-playtest-impressions-a-sceptics-worst-nightmare/
