Maybe I’m speaking for the minority here, but I have to get this off my chest: Project Natal is sorta “meh,” no? I attended Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Awards for a few minutes last night, and they had on display Project Natal. It was that paint-throwing game. Now, I know that’s just a tech demo, but I left feeling a little concerned about its future.
Now, it’s no secret that I’m an old school gamer who’s both afraid and annoyed by excessive change. I never bought a Wii for that very reason: I really don’t fancy flailing around like a fool when all I want to do is play a round or two of Street Fighter or whatever. (Admittedly, the Wii is fine for party situations when you’re all making fools of yourselves, and it’s about atmosphere more than anything else.) And while Natal—which always reminds me of Christmas for some reason—definitely gives off the initial, “Oh, that’s neat!” feeling, I really can’t see myself playing an entire adventure game using it.
At the event was Natal, of which we were not allowed to take photos or video of, and a bunch of other inventions and whatnot that I can’t remember right now. I hung around for a hot 20 minutes, and the Natal demo was the same one that was shown at E3. You know, the one where you move your on-screen avatar to throw paint and whatever. And hey, it worked as advertised: you move your arm this-a-way and your avatar moves right along with you. It’s damn near 1:1.
So again, the tech behind Natal is great. I’m just worried about the implementation.
How many Wii games do you know that made real, clever use of the controller? How many shooters have tried to replicate the precision of a mouse and keyboard by having you move the controller in 3D space? What’s going to make Natal so different? At the very least it’s going to be a little while before we see the project’s Super Mario 64, something so radically different, if not radically better, than what preceded it.
I don’t know, I’m rambling here, and lost my point several sentences ago. I guess I can boil it down to this: Yes, hooray for Natal and the underlying technology, because, yeah, it’s pretty damn amazing, I’m just having a hard time seeing it develop into anything more than a glorified tech demo. How would you play a Halo or Tekken with it?
I want to see someone playing Final Fantasy XI on it. It’s been awhile but I remember running forever in that game, granted I would often just lazily hit the follow command and hitch a ride, but I enjoy the image of some gamer trudging in place in front of Natal trying to get to the Valkurm Dunes.
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Natal is the one good thing M$ has going for it right now, but lets face it… its a “party” game technology, not an everyday, FPS game tech. the controller will still rule for Halo.
However, there is a great way they can implement Natal this into FPS while still making use of the controller. Did you happen to see the episode of house 2 weeks ago with the video game designer?
Aim would be done by actually aiming, while movement, shooting, interaction with items, etc. is done with the controller. That simple, one-dimsional implementation of natal opens up a whole new experience for FPS.
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It is ridiculous to criticize how weird it would be to play Halo with motion controller, like criticizing how you would play Halo on a Steering wheel.
All controllers are design for playing specific game. I would rather play shooting game with a mouse, then a controller.
Everyone enjoy playing different type of games, you might enjoy playing shooting, strategy,racing, flying or fighting. I like to play one person sport game like Tennis, boxing, sword fighting, ping pong etc. I current do not own any console, because these isn’t any true 1:1 motion controller. Definitely not the WII. The wii only sense 3 axis accelleration (that include the WII PLUS). It does sense the actual location of the controller. The advertise it does, but it don’t, it only estimate the location through the acceleration of the motion, so I was disappointed when it first came out.
The PS3 not only has the 3 axis accelerometer, but through using the EYE, it can location the controller through calculating the size of the sphere, so this definitely provide a true 1:1. The controller is definitely not as complex as the Project Natal, and games can easily be ported from the Wii to PS3 with better accuracy and response. I am very excite to see tennis and sword fighting games with their controller
Natal shouldn’t revolutionize games. But it can be a really nice addition. You play RPG and want to cast a spell. So instead of choosing spell from menu you just make a casting gesture with your right hand.
Or you order smth to your squad in a tactical shooter.
Or you play strategy game. So you choose unit by pointing at it with your left hand and give command to it with the gesture of your right hand.
Most of main publishers confirmed to support Natal. They are really enthusiastic:
http://prnatal.com/blog/?p=93
I agree completely with an and PRNatal. Just like the nintendo DS, the new control can enhance a game, it doesnt neccesarily have to replace the controller. Honestly, I could imagine playing house of the dead where crouching makes your character crouch in the game, or looking around change what you look at in game, or the action of putting your hands up in a binocular motion for zoom or making a rifle gesture for snipering (while holding the control in one hand etc…
Just because you have a new interface doesnt mean it has to completely override the original. I think natal is just going to make games more interactive, and if that is the case there will be less fat ass gamers on the planet because they may actually have to get up and move. As a person raised on video games, and a fatty myself, Im thrilled this technology is coming out for my kids sake. If motion based control becomes the norm there will be less problems with kids sitting on their asses all day playing games.
wow, bash is before you even get to play it for real?
I don’t care who makes it, full body motion tracking is the future. Don’t forget a facial and voice recognition!
Yes the controller still has it’s place! And would be great coupled with Natal… but this IS a game changer. PS3/Wii fanboys can continue to waive their sticks…