NATAL Attraction

Its no secret that I have been less than excited about the prospects that Project NATAL (Microsoft's motion control venture) has for the gaming world. Living in Seattle, I know a few people who work in the XBOX 360 departments and I often find myself at odds with the little dreamy things they conjure up in the echo chamber that Microsoft Corporate can be. (FYI. Microsoft really wants to move to an all digital download model for its games so get ready to fight that good fight in the next decade.)

Besides thinking that I'm just an out of touch bastard with my love for “games I can put on my shelf” and “controllers”, I can quite assure you that they are good and tired of my bitching. This “bitching” however doesn't come from nowhere. I see a trend, a pattern, here if you will. This song has been sung before and I already know how it ends. Now, I'm certainly never one to underestimate my ability to be wrong. But let me show you right here, right now, how I am very, very right. (as usual).

The Ghost of Rob the Robot.

Peripherals have been offered in one form or another since the Atari but it wasn't until 1985,when Nintendo came on the scene and immediately tried to blow the doors off of Useless Town with Rob the Robot. The R.O.B (Robotic Operating Buddy) was a small robot that worked off of infrared flashes that would be sent from the television, using some of the same technology that allowed common Light Zappers to work. He was primarily used in a few games including Gyromite, which was an original launch title with this system, but I can tell you that I probably used him once. After which he was forever relegated to being a Mech-Enemy for my army of Gi-Joes and later taken apart when I put together a home-made Proton Pack. (I was an only child with lots of time).

While the NES went on to be legendary, R.O.B was an abject failure and was soon forgotten about as people found him way too temperamental to use and ultimately unnecessary. The only thing R.O.B ever did was add a little extra “wow” factor to the NES and help propel it to the front of the console race.

But the sense that the public needed “something extra” never really died from the minds of developers. That extra kick got people thinking. No. R.O.B wasn't the end. R.O.B was the beginning.

The Powerglove Connection.

[caption id="attachment_3019" align="aligncenter" width="318" caption="Yes. You're correct. It IS bad."][/caption]

Four years later Nintendo well ahead of the game. But be it far from Nintendo to not try and fix something working perfectly well. I'm all for innovation but I'm also a big believer in good ideas. In my opinion the Powerglove is the pure essence of a bad idea taken to its fullest conclusion. The Powerglove allowed us to suck at games we were previously good at. It destroyed the controls of games that previously had good controls. It made us look like even bigger dorks when we were already doing a pretty good job of doing that ourselves without any outside help. It was also a complete and utter failure in almost every possible way. Over 100,000 units were sold in the United States, and then people tried to use it.

All bad ideas start somewhere. This, my friends, is ground zero.

I want you all to do me a little favor. Watch the commercial below and pay special attention to the second game that they show being played.

Recognize it? Let me help. That's a little gem called Super Glove Ball and was a release game for the Powerglove and fashioned as part of the Power Glove Gaming Series.

Now take a look at the E3 demo of NATAL from last year. Please ignore the douche at the beginning, Fast forward to around the 2:80 mark for what I'm talking about.

Did you see? Let me help.

Congratulations Microsoft. You just re-created Super Glove Ball. 24 Years, and millions of dollars, later. But I'm not surprised. You see, Super Glove Ball was created by a company called Rareware which later just became Rare Ltd.

Rare Ltd. was acquired by Microsoft in 2002 for 375 million dollars.

Are your eyes open now? Do you see?

Motion Control = 3D
Motion control is to video games what 3D is to cinema. Its an interesting trick that usually does not add very much to the experience. In fact I would argue that larger portion of 3D movies suck more than regular movies because the creators tend to make a movie FOR the 3D rather than allow the 3D to simply compliment the movie. 3D can be fun (Beowulf) when they aren't sticking something in our faces every five seconds (Friday the 13^th 3D).

Its much the same in gaming. Smart use of motion control can do a lot to subtly influence the gaming experience (Heavy Rain) or it can almost completely ruin the experience (Piano scenes in Fatal Frame 4). And I fully expect that for every No More Heroes we will have 100 boxes of shovel-ware done in the sake of simply pushing the newest gaming fad.

-Joseph-