Also note that while Star Trek: TNG had virtual reality for their games (holodeck) they still interacted with buttons and a physical surface/interface to control important things like steering the ship and whatever the hell else Cmdr. Data was doing at his seat.
One could say the Captains had the ultimate virtual reality. They spoke out loud what they wanted to do and their slaves/officers did it for them.
Also 50% of the time their games tried to kill them.
MS has great success at building first-party game development, whether from the ground up or absorbing external studios through acquisitions, enabling them to continue to be successful.
Yeah...that's totally sarcastic. MS first-party sucks, beyond a small handful of titles/IP. More often than not, they kill what they acquire.
Wow, I missed your spoiler until quoting you. I was going to cite Ensemble, RARE, FASA, and ACES, as top-notch developers Microsoft acquired and effectively destroyed... I now cite them in support of your statement.
I also love what Microsoft has done with the Myth series. *cough*
I personally love Halo, but I don't forget the days when Bungie was capable of more than churning out a new version of the same game in a new engine each year.
If that Kameo 2 video on YouTube is legit, it'd figure. I was really looking forward to a sequel, but not if that was the direction they were headed in.
Oh well. After B&K: Nuts and Bolts, I really couldn't care less what Rare does.
The more I look at the Wii and Natal, the more it seems like they're just trying to replicate the mouse on consoles. I wish they'd stop fixing what isn't broken and make some new, decent games.
I think there will have to be a coming division in the games industry between the people who want this kind of stuff and the people who want to sit on their butts pressing a big red button and watching an "interactive movie"
- That's a good point, and not without precedent. History teaches us that there are people that will stubbornly stick with the old technology, but it will be a minority, and an increasingly small minority. I'm sure there were people sure the Model-T was just fan who vastly preferred riding horses, who continued to do so until they died, while they were laughed at by the kids riding in cars. There's still people who don't like email, or computers for that matter! My own grandfather was a traditional-style hand carpenter when the first power-tools started coming out, and he wouldn't touch them. It's okay. The next generation always gets with the program.
The more I look at the Wii and Natal, the more it seems like they're just trying to replicate the mouse on consoles. I wish they'd stop fixing what isn't broken and make some new, decent games.
- You don't understand the technology at all then. While the Wii's implementation is fairly poor, go to Best Buy and try out the Wii-motion+ demo they have in the form of Wii Sports Resort, try the sword-fighting game. You will then experience something you've never experienced in a game before, true 1:1 positional motion capture, something an ultimate 2D mouse is completely incapable of replicating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rangoth
Seriously has ANYONE played a SINGLE game and said "Man this is good....but if it had motion sensing it would be GREAT!"
NO! Screw Natal.
- Of course, you're right and you're wrong. You're looking at games made within the former controller+buttons paradigm and you have to realize they are designed within the confines of that paradigm. I wrote recently about some work I'd done 15 years ago trying to envision a game where you could accomplish realistic sword-fighting in game, and I tried to make it fit into the controller paradigm, but it was ultimately impossible. But with a Wiimote+ it would be possible.
When you switch paradigms, new types of games become possible. Games you can't even imagine right now, and games that cannot be accomplished with a controller. That's the promise of motion-controls. And I think we haven't seen any enduring motion control classic because the Wiimote just wasn't capable of 1:1 precision, but all that's going to change with this next generation.
On an even more general level, you can analogize a controller as being an extremely abstract representation of control input. In it's most basic level it is little more than an on/off switch. Then, things got more interesting when Nintendo implemented the analog joystick. Suddenly it wasn't just on and off. Programmers used to have to write complicated algorithms controlling the rate at which pushing the left-cross would cause a character to speed up over time, etc., so you could 'fake' analog control. With an analog joystick that went out the window and everything felt much better, control increased, and games that couldn't be accomplished with a cross became possible: Mario 64.
The analog joystick represents the height of 2d control, to take things into 3D you need positional motion capture. The wiimote is about 2.5D, but the motion+ is full on 1:1.
If we compare controllers to graphics, we can say that the NES controller was like 8-bit graphics. The SNES\Genesis controller was like 16 bit graphics. The N64/PSX controller was like N64 graphics. And the Wiimote is like Gamecube/Xbox1 graphics. But the Motion+ controller is like 360/PS3 graphics. And the next iteration is just going to get even better and more real all around. It's about realism. Controller realism has had the effect of increasing the number of tracked degrees of freedom. From one, to two, to three, to where the Wiimote and all 1:1 controller have to track 3 directional, 3 axial/rotational, and 1 absolute degree of freedom. Or something like that. After 1:1 mo-cap, there's nothing left to improve on when it comes to input realism!
Only MS has the conceit of taking the concept so far as to remove the controller entirely! I think it's a premature move, but they're clearly drawing the same evolutionary calculus that I have in this post. Only time will tell if taking things that far proves efficacious.
That looks like everything I wouldn't expect from a Kameo sequel. I love PoP style platforming but there are plenty of games like that out there now.
Very true. I really did enjoy Kameo though it wasn't perfect. For a launch title it was beautiful and I felt it was a solid adventure game. The nice artistic locations really pulled me in.
I've really enjoyed every Rare game on the Xbox 360 with the exception of Kameo (the art was kind of grimey and I just didn't care about playing as different monsters). Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts continues to be great fun. I'm not sure why these games weren't more commercially successful. . . I think it might be the fact that the Xbox 360 doesn't have a very large kiddo install base and the kids that do own one would rather be playing Guitar Hero or mature games they aren't supposed to have access to but do anyway. . . like Halo. I think most parents are fine with it even if they don't permit GTA IV or Saint's Row 2.
Anyway, I'm fairly excited about Natal if it is done well. Honestly I'm MORE interested in it as something that adds features to traditional games than I am in it for the party/gimmick games that the new controls will inspire (as was done with the Wii. . . those are all ultimately very shallow).
I've really enjoyed every Rare game on the Xbox 360 with the exception of Kameo (the art was kind of grimey and I just didn't care about playing as different monsters).
If you didn't get a kick out of whaling on Orcs with Pummel Weed, then you have no soul. And I don't know what you're talking about saying the graphics were grimey--barring the odd castle level, Kameo's worlds were every bit as bright and vibrant as those in WoW. Overall, I really enjoyed the game.
That being said, there were a couple of the monster forms that were poorly designed and/or useless. Also, once you get Thermite, he's pretty much the form you stay in by default until you either need to make a long range shot with Chilla or solve a puzzle to progress which requires one of the other forms. Snare and Rubble were practically worthless when you weren't having to use them to solve a puzzle, and the controls for Deep Blue were just awful.
Still--I think Kameo is a steal at $7 (how much I saw it for at Game Crazy last night), and well worth spending 5 hours or so to play through at least once.
Another sadly unappreciated Rare game that I really enjoyed is Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Kiddie game, yes--but very challenging in the later levels, and with some really fun boss fights. I've always regretted trading that game back in after I beat it (along with Psychonauts). But that was back in the day when Rhino had their "trade in two used $25 games and get any brand new game free" policy that I just couldn't resist.
__________________ There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and "to spec" gameplay footage.
- Benjamin Disraeli (paraphrased)
Well I'm glad they canned all these things, I would of been excited for a new Perfect Dark, but the last offering was so sub par it killed it for me. Now, if they are strictly working on Natal projects, well I'm also a little disappointed. But hopefully shelving all their other IPs will free them up for the only thing I want to hear coming out from RARE in the next while, a new Killer Instinct.
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I Hear Death Is The Only Cure For Stupidity... Would You Like To Be Smarter?
Kameo did have some amazing graphics. It was one of the first games I saw that implemented that pseudo 3D trick on the bricks involving height maps and occlusion--I forget the term for it. Just a gorgeous effect.
And I don't know what you're talking about saying the graphics were grimey--barring the odd castle level, Kameo's worlds were every bit as bright and vibrant as those in WoW. Overall, I really enjoyed the game.
