Following our interview with Left 4 Dead 2 writer Chet Faliszek, we had a chance to just talk about the industry at large, and touch upon a few interesting points. You already got to read about Chet's views on morality in videogames, and Doug Lombardi's take on used sales. Chet also shared his views on the industry's push toward motion control, Microsoft's Project Natal in particular.
"Have you seen Natal? We got to check it out here, and it's actually really cool," he says. "Like, there's someone running around, jumping around and someone else walks up and it instantly recognizes this other person, splits them off and [they do] their own thing. There's a lot of coolness around it, but I'm not sure about the game that comes with that, and I'm not sure, personally, how much I wanna move around. I'm a lazy, lazy man. I don't want to move. I don't want to be fatigued playing a game.
"I think Wii hit it out of the park with the titles that it shipped with. I bought two Wiis, and they're both [for visiting] family, and playing. I can't seem to box them up and carry them, so I had to buy two. [Wii's launch titles] are perfect games for that ... I haven't found much else that's compelling. I want to see the compelling game first."
That's the big question, really. Will Project Natal pave the way for compelling, interesting games, or will developers do with it what they did the Wii, and simply churn out shovelware that completely disrespects the technology and does the system a disservice? Something tells me that we're going to see a lot of crap borne out of Natal. One can hope against hope, though.
Contest:
1:20 PM on 08.05.2009
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I'm working on my Master-Thesis and I have trouble sorting my thoughts and maintaining all the links of the different topics and so on, while still putting it in the order of a fucking text. You know, with start and end-point...
Well I have glued all my wall with post-it's, to sort it out and that's when it hit me. I want NATAL and a fucking beamer! That would be my perfect working-space. I could just grab the text in my actual word document and rearrange it on the go.
But for games? meh.....
GO MAKE a compelling fucking game for it. Quit waiting for someone else to do it.
I'd like to say without good games it's just going to fail, but obviously the Wii has disproved that. ZING!
Move your body!
Every every body!
..that Eiffel 65 song is all I hear in my head when reading about Natal now.
If you wanna move your mind
Just move your body
And it really really makes me smile.
thatll be the day everyone shuts up
The grass cutting simulator in that one Simpsons episode was incredibly prophetic.
I'm with Valve. Yeah, the technology is sweet, but is this going to be useful for anything other than party games? I mean, Natal is nothing but EyeToy 2.0. The idea still has a lot of potential, but will any developers be able to tap into that? I'll probably buy it either way, but I wonder.
i just like being able to sit on my couch and game w/my standard controller. hell, if i wanted to move i'd go outside and play real games/sports/skateboard etc.
so no thank natal or sony motion. forced in six-axis controls in early ps3 games were so pointless and annoying.
however, once they can get VR to work so that you control your movement and actions via brainwave/patterns vs actual motion then i'll change my mind. hehe.
Wish folks would get it through their heads that Natal can be used with a controller and that you wont have to dance around your living room for every game that makes use of it.
I didn't really give a shit about Natal before, but now I hope it is a huge success so the haters will finally stfu.
First you try to negotiate the deal using Natal's voice recognition, but if that fails, you take control over a SWAT team. Movement and shooting are handled through the use of a standard controller, but supplemented with Natal functionality for head tracking, maybe ducking into cover, hand gesturing to other members of your team, throwing flashbangs, putting on handcuffs... You could even shout to subdue the suspects, things like that.
There are game design opportunities out there just waiting to be exploited.
Now I'm no massive fan of Natal (or anythging motion control - but they're not making it for me exclusively), but this is the statement of a total prick. Microsoft have it well within their scope to create something decent with this technology otherwise they wouldn't be pursuing it. Dickhead.
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That's the big question, really. Will Project Natal pave the way for compelling, interesting games, or will developers do with it what they did the Wii, and simply churn out shovelware that completely disrespects the technology and does the system a disservice? Something tells me that we're going to see a lot of crap borne out of Natal. One can hope against hope, though.
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