When you think of how the camera-based Natal technology could be applied to a racing game, the whole steering in the air bit probably pops to mind, Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt has been thinking outside the car, if you will. He has some pretty nifty ideas on how the Natal tech could have players doing something other than air driving in his Forza Motorsport series of racing games.
"What gets me excited about Natal is getting people involved with cars - touching cars, opening doors, smashing cars, taking parts out, that visceral feeling of moving and playing inside a car," he told Xbox World 360 magazine.
Greenawalt says that he wants to get the controller "out of the way" and get people more excited about cars, so he says that this totally fits within the vision he's always had for the Forza series.
All of the ideas he has sound interesting, but I'm still not clear on how you'd even accelerate or break in a Natal-based racing game.
[via CVG]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
3:20 PM on 09.08.2009
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Details like this aren't important! This is the future of gaming!!
Details like this aren't important! This is the future of gaming!!
He seems to think Natal will generate a car model in you living room that you can touch, open and smash... The fact that it CAN'T do any of these things beyond the imaginary make believe MOST of us quit at the age of six or so is the reason why this won't translate to MOST gamers at all.
I really hate to continue to be negative about Natal (because it looks like it could be an interesting technology, but all the ideas I've heard from Devs, sound pretty stupid...and the examples I've seen in use are even more stupid. Please, someone prove me wrong and I'll embrace the future of gaming....
Because videogame controllers are an insurmountable roadblock that automatically prevents people from being excited about cars. But waving your arms around as if you are holding an imaginary wheel? Then people just go crazy over cars!
I just thought of something: What would happen if someone walked in front of the Natal sensor while you were driving? Wouldn't the race car careen out of control? That's not going to make a ton of people mad...
Couldn't agree more. Add head tracking based viewport to every FPS and TPS and I'll be very very happy. Halo: Reach is the perfect show of game for that technology. Controller in hand, natal för perfect headtracking in 3d. Can't go wrong then.
Turn head left, display moves left. Tv now pointed at right ear. Head tracking is useless without a face mounted display.
I do agree however that camera control should had been nailed by now. Having to choose beetwen face buttons and camera controls annoys me badly. I remember the first time I fought the horseman boss in Ninja Gaiden, with my right hand laid out arcade-like, with my thumb in the stick and my other fingers in the face buttons, and think "WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY MAKE ME DO THAT????"
You turn your head to look right. You are now no longer looking at the screen, and therefore look like an idiot while dying. It could work well for leaning and peeking from behind cover, but I don't see much of a use otherwise.
Visceral feeling? Waving my hands in the air is nothing even CLOSE to a visceral feeling. In fact if anything it's a step back from a game pad - at least then I have a physical connection to the game.
*foot backward* brakes
I know, it's silly but I guess it works.
The Wii-mote didn't have half of this press barage this far before release, and it made motion controls standard first. Natal is just a copycat that's getting double the press - probably because microsoft loves showing it off, and I bet they ask the developers to show off the fancy camera as well.
So, what types of core games will I be able to play with Natal? I can play wagglefests on the Wii if I wanted that, and I could play those wagglefests sitting. So the core games for Natal are very important to me.
NATAL is the dumbest idea ever.
I know that's what they had for when they demoed it with Burnout but it wouldn't work well at all. You're only getting the functionality of digital buttons, with clumsy execution. You could say it's a step backwards in terms of precision. (sorry)