OXM

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski wants more hybrid Kinect games like Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, retaining pad control but letting players perform certain actions using gestures. He also thinks hardcore gamers need to swallow their antipathy to Microsoft's motion-sensitive peripheral.

"I think hardcore gamers are terrified by it, to the point where they get fiercely defensive," Bleszinski told OXM in a new interview, readable from tomorrow in issue 80 (unless you're asubscriber, of course). I got to go to the launch of Kinect in New York City, which was amazing, and I was getting my hair cut by my stylist who's this really fun, awesome street-smart party girl. She's like 'So do you guys have any trips coming up?' and I'm like 'Yeah, we're going to go up to New York City for the Kinect launch'.

"And she's like 'Kinect? What's that?' and I'm like 'it's kind of like a Wii, but you don't need a controller' and she puts the scissors down and she says 'Shut the hell up! I want one!' And she's not necessarily going to play Gears or Halo or GTA, but she has money and if you're smart and you're Microsoft you're going to want to get all demographics to play your console."

Bleszinski thinks Microsoft is, however, keen to keep core gamers interested in Kinect. "That said, it looks like Microsoft's really experimenting with how to have more core games for Kinect. Rise of Nightmares, that was an interesting step, Child of Eden and things like that. I think we're going to continue to see games like that - I've always said that I wanted to see the hybrids, you know?

"I want to play Skyrim and cast my spells using my hand or maybe occasionally doing some other strategy things in other types of games using hand gestures or voice and do an integrated Kinect experience that has both, that's the thing that excites me the most."

He had a few eccentric suggestions for From Software's Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, a mech game in which you must periodically drag frantic crew mates back into the cockpit. "They can do a variation of that where you're a Dad driving the kids to school and you've got to drag them in so they don't fall out the window, that'd be a cool variation."

The golden rule for Bleszinski with Kinect gaming is that nothing should feel bolted on. Were Epic to develop a Kinect-capable Gears of War, it would have to be designed with motion control in mind from scratch. "We wouldn't put it and tack it in. You'd have to make a game that was the Gears experience that is tailored for Kinect, much like Bungie did all the proper things to break the dual analogue barrier for making a first-person shooter on console.

"If it was Gears and 'now Marcus' head moves because your head moves!' - that would suck, and don't even bother doing it because I am a fan of Kinect but if you do it, do it right."

http://www.oxm.co.uk/36575/bleszinski-talks-up-skyrim-kinect-i-want-to-cast-spells-using-my-hand/

Imagine that.... Kinect....

Anyways , would be interesting to see, its not impossible like most people seem to believe.

I'd rebuy skyrim for 360 if they released a kinect patch for it

Figure out how to move around comfortably first, I'm not interested in Skyrim the on rails experience.
You can do all that stuff he wants in medieval moves, and as a consequence it's all on rails. I had hoped for a Kameo type game with motion controls, but no.
Rise of nightmares doesn't make me feel confident that it will happen any time soon.
It would be useful to assign different spells to different hand gestures, but having to put down the controller constantly is not going to work.

Isn't this like what Peter is doing on Fable TJ?

Fable Journey is an on rail ... uh.... Wizz-them-up spin off,

Maybe they could get the tracking to work to the point of sticking your tongue out equals using a special programmed equivalent of a button.

Figure out how to move around comfortably first?use controller

Kinect game dosen't mean you can only use Kinect to play

We'll need a new split controller first then, a nunchuck to hold in each hand. How else can you move and turn around quickly and use your hands to cast spells? That would probably be too difficult to do, make gestures while using a thumbstick.

Use 1 nunchuck and only cast with your right hand while you are restricted to 3rd person view with no camera control?

Use 1 nunchuck and headtracking for turning and looking up and down and have your right hand free? Seems annoying to me to constantly have to watch the screen from the corner of your eyes.

Or switch to a fight arena final fantasy style, meaning you have to put down the controller and stand up for each fight and be restricted to dodging and side stepping.

None of these sound very practical to me for a game as long as Skyrim. It will work when you are stationary (shooting spells, bows) but I do quite a bit of moving around while fighting.