PROJECT NATAL...A LUDDITE'S OPINION. I got an email just now from Amazon, lovely people, keep meaning to send them a card at Christmas, informing me of the impending arrival of what will, they intimated, change the very fabric of my entire gaming existence and possibly go on to conquer th...Posted by tandemar on Jun 11, 2010 12:09 (Jun 11, 2010 12:09) |
I got an email just now from Amazon, lovely people, keep meaning to send them a card at Christmas, informing me of the impending arrival of what will, they intimated, change the very fabric of my entire gaming existence and possibly go on to conquer the known universe, Project Natal. Until now Natal to me was the Portuguese word for Christmas, which once again brings me to think that I should indeed make more of an effort at such seasonal times to bolster my friendship with those lovely people at Amazon. Especially as they manage to keep me abreast of such life changing events as this.  For those who didn't know, didn't want to know or who were just busy down in the potting shed doing things their husbands, wives or significant other would not normally approve of, Natal is also an area in South Africa, named by Vasco de Gama (Gama - Gamer...tenuous link there.) which contains such fascinating critters as the Sand Frog, the Dwarf Puddle Frog (which is either a very small frog who likes to live in puddles or a frog of indeterminate size who is for reasons best known to itself attracted to very small puddles), the Ghost frog (may he rest in peace, but the image this conjures is quite endearing. Tim Burton would have a field day) and the rather delicious sounding Banana Frog. We here in Liverpool have the Super Lambanana but it doesn't sound quite as wonderful as the banana frog. Anyhoo...back to the matter at hand. Project Natal. As an adjective it means Birth, so no doubt the creators are trying to intimate that the last quarter of a century of gaming is now as dead as the proverbial dodo and they in their infinite wisdom have reinvented the wheel. Progenitors of the TRUE era of game development no doubt. Doing so they are, one imagines ready to lead us lesser mortals towards a new and glittering horizon filled with all manner of hitherto unseen gaming delights. Let's see what's in store shall we? Ah, the demos have Ricochet, a breakout clone. Well we've not seen breakout for a while and Lord knows we were all desperate for this to be dragged out of the ottoman at the end of the gaming deathbed once again weren't we? Paint Party, using both body movements and speech recognition one can become a new Joan Miro or Jackson Pollock. I'm vibrating with excitement and can scarce continue. There's a tennis game, hold on...haven't we covered this with Breakout? Ah well, they're the experts and us lesser beings shall just bow to their genius and carry on regadless. Milo and Kate - Ah, here it is. The totally bogus lump of codswallop that appeared on our pcs last year, attached of course to the glowing chariot of gaming excellence that is Peter Molyneux, the Dark Lord of all that is tedious in games today. If anyone who watched the "demo" of Milo voicing his concern of his human friend Claire's nervous disposition thought for one second that this was real then they should stop reading and go and get their bumps felt.  I expected Derren Brown to jump from behind the screen and debunk it as nothing had been debunked before, yet I was disappointed and indeed we are to believe that the future of gaming is to be taken out of our hands and all our wands, controllers, steering wheels and electrical whatnots are to be cast like chaff to the wind before the godlike wondrousness of the Molyneux feted dingsbums. (german word...means thingummybob) Now don't get me wrong. I am indeed all for advancements in gaming, but when someone; the Dark Lord, actually goes on film and states that the very controllers that he has been designing such games as Black and White (populous clone) and Feeble (sorry Fable) 1 and 2 to include are "barriers" to game creation, then I am more than a tad baffled. Yes, even more than usual. (it's on Youtube, check it. He makes my teeth itch.) Oops...never stopped you getting rich as stink now did it Peter? Anyway...driving games with an invisible steering wheel...hmmm, now how's that going to work? And don't for a second think I'm some kind of numpty there Mr M, I know this is your amazing extension of the Nintendo Power Glove but I think that there will be certain people who would like to actually FEEL the wheel fight against them as they turn into a bend.  I think there might be people out there who want to actually Feel the recoil from their guns in whatever first or third person shooter they are playing. I actually think that this Majority Report style "interaction" will be so soulless that THIS is the barrier to interaction with gaming. I mean...let's be totally facetious here which people who know me will not be one whit surprised at... This LACK of a controller will cause a great loss of revenue to those who manufacture controllers. And while I understand that for party games where thirty-somethings, fuelled with bacardi breezers all gyrating like something possessed in front of the TV it may indeed be somewhat beneficial. But what about the lone gamer? The industry has penalised this character more than somewhat in the last ten years or so, insisting on titles that lean predominantly toward a multiplayer experience. Can Uncle Pete really see 37 year old Gerald from Sheffield, unmarried and still living with his widowed mother, coming home from a hard day at the catfood factory and leaping around his bedroom with Kate and Milo like some Southern Baptist Preacher? Possibly not, one should imagine. Plus...continuing in an increasingly facetious manner, is it just ME who has noticed that their flagship character is named somewhat anagrammatically after the dark Lord himself? MILO...MOLYneux Take the MOLY and rearrange it. MYLO - MILO? I don't think I'm being too much of a conspiracy theorist when one sees how much this industry bends down and puckers up every time Uncle Pete's name is mentioned. But to finish this train of thought; if we are told that the controller is a barrier to our gaming enjoyment, then why don't we dispose of everything? Save yourself a fortune and just stand in your bedroom, living room or wherever. Close your eyes, and imagine you're a spaceman, a cowboy, a policeman, a tattooed heavily muscled and heavily armed gangster with a dubious grasp on the english language. Then just flail around accordingly, diving behind the furniture making pkow pkow (that's gun noises for those slow on the uptake) sounds, clutching at your chest and groaning "y'got me!" as you fall to the floor and darkness takes you from this mortal coil. Sounds infinitely more appealing than standing in the middle of the room looking like the bastard-love-child of Marcel Marceau. And Lord knows, everyone hates mimes. Blimey we're back in the days of David Bowie and his invisible glass box. Actually if you think about it. Isn't what we did as children almost exactly what Petelzebub is suggesting? Only what we did back then was more immersive, more interactive and more entertaining. Here's another suggestion. Go out onto a field, or into a park with a group of friends and swing your foot at a ball. Blimey! It moves. Run after it. Gordon Bennett! It's actually FUN!! Well bugger me with a ragman's trumpet! Fancy that! Read a book and use ONLY your imagination. Better still, don't read a book and just make things up in your head. No need to rely on the sycophantic hobgoblins of the Guildford Triangle and their cliched polygonal creations. Natal will have voice control we are told. The nuances of the human voice are limitless and will cause all manner of problems, never mind the problems that will come from the subtleties of language, slang, colloquialisms etc. We as a nation find it difficult to understand people from maybe 50 miles away. The Scouse accent while difficult to understand to some is positively mary Poppins-like when compared to the tonsil-strangling Geordie accent or anyone North of Hadrians wall. As a Nation we have defined our local identities through our speech, mostly to exclude ourselves from those outside our region. It is our secret language almost and while it can be moderated to enable understanding between the counties it can be used as a barrier. That word again. Are the creators of this technological marvel taking this into consideration? The English Language is the most expressive and totally confusing language on the globe. It has no one set of rules that makes any sense and yet somehow this ragbag of words taken from every era and culture will power our gaming enjoyment. Bollocks. Add the movement of the human body into the equation where precision in gaming enjoyment is involved and the result will not be surprising. How many times have you screamed at "I shot him!!!" "I made that jump!" Games have always contained an element of error in precision, yet somehow Natal will solve this problem, regardless of the infinite variety of body sizes, shapes and abilities in movement in an almost godlike manner. More bollocks. Of course, I may and probably will be proven wrong in certain areas. But I am speaking as a gamer who sees games that, while they drive me to distraction, mostly due to my inept abilities as a gamer and my failing reactions due to the aging process as a way to unwind from the vagaries of life in the comfort of my armchair. I sit, slippers cosy on my feet, freshly brewed cup of tea to one side losing myself in whatever gaming universe I care to visit. I do not see myself flailing around like a baby giraffe while the neighbours peer nervously at me from outside, wondering if I am being attacked by bees or having some form of psychotic episode. Mr Milonew...you can keep your innovations. I am part of a generation who still extolls the virtues of the Spectrum, The C64 and the Amstrad. I am a lone gamer. I play to unwind. I do not wish at my age to risk a heart attack through your technological advances. I can happily sit and game for so many hours that I do at times forget to check the clock, and have found myself gaming far longer than I intended. Who can do this, while spinning like a dervish for more than 15 minutes at a time? I have a tendency to say that THIS form of gaming interaction is a barrier to extended and totally immersive enjoyment. Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe it's not bollocks. Yet I reserve my undeniable right to say that this is my gut reaction to what I have seen to date. I would rather play Populous than writhe like a man possessed to your devilish inventions. Do you decry your development history? Have you been pulling the wool over our eyes, do you not believe in the value of your previous releases in the annals of games history and development? Do you only now believe we can truly enjoy the games of the future by distancing ourselves even further? Or will you say anything for money? Your knighthood's in the post. A virtual one of course. Look...I am putting it into a virtual envelope and attaching a virtual stamp. |
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Jun 13, 2010 10:25:11 (
Jun 13, 2010 09:25
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