Times have changed since the days of 8-bit gaming, modified are the styles and features games can posses. What used to be a monolithic beast on the NES has changed drastically when it comes down to the PS3, Xbox 360, and even the PS2. The way things are done these days shows that game developers have made great strides from their predecessors and crafted the games we love to play today.
I write this now as I pull myself away from the most recent issues of Game Informer, reading a rather saddening article on how the “gaming” populace seems to have changed. I will admit I feel very sad about hearing that even one person starting to believe that being a gamer isn’t saying much about a person anymore. That’s another blog and discussion for another day though.
Within the past 3 months, the gaming world has been booming with cheers and jeers about Microsofts new love child, Kinect. Within 10 days of its release, over 1 million of the sensor units were sold and has been called “top-selling accessory item in terms of dollar sales on a year-to-date basis”. High praise must account for something right?
I can’t give you a fair answer for that, not just yet anyway but I can say that having tried it for a very small amount of time in a Gamestop store, it’s not too bad. That being said, I have to tell you I didn’t see much that the Wii and possibly the PS3′s Move hadn’t done. Well, of course minus the remote free feature, which is a step in the right direction in my mind. It was avatar based games mostly, Kinect Sports, just like Wii Sports, even though they had other titles offered up (Harry Potter game anyone?) it was and has been limited. It has been boasted to take gaming to the next level in the future, Forza Motor Sports 4 and Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, that do sound like they could step out of the Wii’s comfort zones and showcase what remote free play can do.
My current impression is technically a Feh (on a scale of 1 to 10 it’s like 4-5) only because it feels more like Microsoft is rehashing the past with current audiences. With the announcements of microphone use and facial recognition being used with the avatars and the hands/voice commanded Xbox menus, it gives me hope and ideas for the future of fully immersive gaming experience. It doesn’t raise the impression level to me, it’s cool but not so much that I’m overly impressed.
What does get me excited is the limitless possibilities that Microsoft has set before themselves. The idea that this game peripheral will allow your avatar to transmit your actions into it’s form has something much bigger, much greater sitting at it’s doorstep. Character customization to the next and possibly ultimate level. Imagine Mass Effect 3 comes out and is Kinect supportive, say you want to start from scratch one play through, the character customization menu unfolds on the screen with some many editing options you don’t know what to cho0se. You want the player to be you, you want to be Commander Shepard. Take the Kinect sensor and activate the camera, allow it analyze your entire features, high or low cheekbones, big or small nostrils, hazel or blue eyes. Right down to the smallest detail, let it scan you so you pull yourself into the game. I’d also say let it use your voice for Shepard’s but then voice actors would be out of a job and that epic line of yours might not come out so amazingly. Though you could use it as a calling card in multiplayer gamer, you kill a person and your prerecorded “Yeehaw!” or “Taste the defeat, punk!” plays as you move past his corpse.
Speaking of immersion, the ability to follow facial features could be used to fully immerse any gamer just by simply following their physical reactions to requests or words said in game. Say you have a choice between killing millions of innocent aliens or destroying the person and his team that asked you to do so. Your initial reaction, for bloggers sake, is shock and anger, your character mirrors that gasp, glare and growl just before your options come up, or even then allow the players verbal response take instant action, the voice actor still plays everything out but it pulls more into a seamless story experience. Even so much as lifting your gun to their head or raising your arms in a offended fashion. The possibilities are endless, as I have stated many times over.
Of course these all have their downsides, but what things in life don’t? Stating that game designers would have to reinvent their codes, the way they work and how they program things to suit all these fancy ideas. Well I know that, trust me the thought has arisen to me, but the bigger question is those game companies that are out their looking for just making amazing and fun products, why would they not want to at least try?
I will say that I’ve seen some hacks done that included Modern Warfare gun play, and what I can tell you from that, based on what tech is there, it would need some serious upgrading to make it flow better. It does have the ability, completely has the ability to pull out the more interesting side of certain games, even placing us one step close to so called “virtual reality”.
The world sure has changed since I first started gaming, some things for the bad some for the good. Right now all I can hang onto is that the ideas are out there to be used, not just from me but from many others, to put this “new” tech to spectacular uses. Here’s hope for the future of gaming and for the future or Gamers.
