Aimless Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Emphasis on "could". These things always conjure up exciting possibilities, but personally I don't think Microsoft have demonstrated anything that extends beyond the 'party game' bracket. The technology is cool, sure, but this is a companion to the traditional controller at best. I'm certainly not saying the tech is worthless — personally I'm interested in the possibilities of multi-touch style games — but at the moment there are far too many questions surrounding even the capabilities of the device, let alone its viability as a games playing device. Hopefully Microsoft will show off a Wii Sports/Play style compilation that really shows off what the thing is capable of.
Jamba Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Oh yeah sure, my point was more that this could lead to more of an expansion compared to the PS3 motion controller which is likely to simply make more games like the Wii ones. As you said, time will tell. I'd love to play a point and click adventure with this. I can also see it having games where they don't really tell you how to do stuff, you just have to figure it out.
McPhee Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Imagine playing Gears of War 3 and holding B to rev up the chain saw. The camera pans in close, tunneling your vision and then you have complete control over the movements of the chainsaw (until you let go of B). They could even allow you to side-step and dodge, bringing in some realy good chainsaw duels. This is the sort of thing i want to see and i do believe it should be possible.
Jamba Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Imagine playing Gears of War 3 and holding B to rev up the chain saw. The camera pans in close, tunneling your vision and then you have complete control over the movements of the chainsaw (until you let go of B). They could even allow you to side-step and dodge, bringing in some realy good chainsaw duels. This is the sort of thing i want to see and i do believe it should be possible. But to me these are the last type of game that should be using it. Gears is fine how it is and I don't think that transposing it onto Natal entirely would work at all. But a possibility that most people are missing is that the voice recognition could be used in conjunction with a lot of classic style games to give commands, change weapon type or even interact with a computer. Even asking an elevator to take me to a certain floor by voice would make me shiver.
Mundi Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 One thing I though about was that you doing a button sequence (Let´s say it´s to unlock a door) on the controller in a third person game and every now and then you have to swat away thing that are flying towards you to keep them away from distracting you. Only problem is punching people next to you.
Will Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Haven't games used voice commands for a while now though? I can see the attraction of Natal but I don't really see what its going to do for games other than being an advanced EyeToy.
McPhee Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 But to me these are the last type of game that should be using it. Gears is fine how it is and I don't think that transposing it onto Natal entirely would work at all. But a possibility that most people are missing is that the voice recognition could be used in conjunction with a lot of classic style games to give commands, change weapon type or even interact with a computer. Even asking an elevator to take me to a certain floor by voice would make me shiver. I didn't say the controls in Gears should be moved entirely to Natal. If it's sat there under the TV though then why not use it in situations where it'd do something fun? I'd like my games to stay on the controller but at the same time the odd bit of motion capture could be really cool.
Jamba Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Haven't games used voice commands for a while now though? I can see the attraction of Natal but I don't really see what its going to do for games other than being an advanced EyeToy. But what's wrong with that? Plenty of people enjoyed the EyeToy on the PS2 but the one on the PS3 has been almost abandoned. MS are looking at using this to interact with the 360 across the board, front end and all, just to make it more accessible to non-gamers. And by advanced EyeToy, you me one with facial recognition, body tracking and voice recognition. That's some pretty heavy software just from the get go.
Will Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Oh there's nothing wrong with it at all. Like many others I loved the original EyeToy games. I just don't see what this is going to do above and beyond that to live up to the hype. For all it's great efforts EyeToy was generally something used a few times as a novelty and then put away never to come out again. I can see this going the same way unfortunately. It's a bold move for Microsoft to put the gamer right in there as the control method, I just don't see that the realworld advantages of it are as big as people might think. I certainly wouldn't want to play a traditional game using this and I'd rather use a remote to play my movies. Sometimes what's already established doesn't need to be improved upon.
Aimless Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 For all it's great efforts EyeToy was generally something used a few times as a novelty and then put away never to come out again. I can see this going the same way unfortunately. Microsoft's advantage here is that it's looking to integrate the device into the front end of the machine, thus encouraging everyday use. You plugged in the EyeToy to play EyeToy games, and then you put it away; Natal is more like the Wii's sensor bar. I'm fairly optimistic about the possibilities of software designed around Natal — bring on the adventure games! — but for 'regular' titles it's almost irrelevant. Not that that's a bad thing, per se, I just feel people are getting a bit too caught up in some of the ideas being thrown around to actually wonder if they're, you know, actually any good. No one likes forced motion controls whether they be on the Wii or using the SIXAXIS, and no ones going to like them with Natal. It's about surpassing the functionality of a controller, not supplanting.
Shino Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 I'd like this for head tracking in FPS, way more practical to look around.
Aimless Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 I'd like this for head tracking in FPS, way more practical to look around. Apart from it can't be one-to-one otherwise you'd end up not looking at the screen. And you'd have to keep your head perfectly still to keep the view steady. And if you got up to have a drink you might end up spinning in circles when you unpause due to your head being in the wrong position.
dwarf Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Yeah I would've liked to de-construct that idea because it is possibly the worst I've heard yet.
Daft Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Natal struggles to see black people? That's pretty funny. Must have been pretty awkward when they found that out.
Gizmo Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Hahaha. All the nerdy white/asian guys that work for MS never thought about that one! Natal to be bundled with white gloves?
dwarf Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Can that actually be fixed easily or is it a serious flaw that will mean it needs to be re-developed ? Pretty funny!
Cube Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Can that actually be fixed easily or is it a serious flaw that will mean it needs to be re-developed ? Pretty funny! I would be surprised if they didn't know about it months ago and that it's something they can't sort out.
dwarf Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Yeah but were they too afraid to tell the great N'Gai before it happened or did they just not know?
Cube Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Yeah but were they too afraid to tell the great N'Gai before it happened or did they just not know? I don't really know. Now I've read an article it could also be that it may have to calibrate it slightly for different players - it does sound as if Tsunoda stood up and N'Gai took over straight away, meaning that the current settings were best suited for the person who set it up. There's really too many possible reasons to make a reasonable choice.
Tellyn Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 "Natal struggles to see black people" Possibly Dante's best headline yet.
McPhee Posted June 9, 2009 Posted June 9, 2009 Can you imagine the Daily Mail headline? 'Microsoft develop Neo-Nazi camera, say it indicates the future!' Apart from it can't be one-to-one otherwise you'd end up not looking at the screen. And you'd have to keep your head perfectly still to keep the view steady. And if you got up to have a drink you might end up spinning in circles when you unpause due to your head being in the wrong position. So you simply scale it at something like 1:2. The getting up to get a drink thing wouldn't be an issue presuming you don't teleport between the kitchen and your Xbox. Natal would see you walk away. It would also see you walk back. It wouldn't be that hard to adjust the positioning accordingly. Keeping your head perfectly still? It's not an issue in TrackIR so i really can't see how it would be an issue here. Presumably they'd just set the sensitivity so that the software doesn't translate small head movements in to on-screen movements. You lot need an imagination and to stop wanting this to fail. It's like every single time there's an idea there's some lame-assed (and usually wrong) reason why it wouldn't work.
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