TGS 2010: Phantom Dust Director Making Project Draco for Kinect

Yukio Futatsugi, the man behind Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2, as well my personal favorite Xbox exclusive, Phantom Dust, is apparently still at Mircrosoft Game Studios Japan and working on... a Kinect game. While it's certainly hard to be upset that a great game designer is still making games, I'm a little frustrated that his talents are being wasted on a peripheral I couldn't care less about. Here's the trailer:

The game is currently called Project Draco, and as it's described, it sounds like Panzer Dragoon with dragon raising elements. And yeah, it's a Kinect game. Futatsugi claims they want to “capture the feeling of flight” with this game. Hopefully this doesn't mean waving your arms around like an idiot, because I expect more out of flying. If the gameplay is similar to other Panzer Dragoon titles, the good news is the genre is already effectively running on a Kinect. Child of Eden is also a rail shooter for the Kinect, and from what I hear of early demo impressions, it plays great. It would have to be simplified a bit, and maybe use voice commands for speeding up, slowing down, and turning, but it shouldn't be hard to capture the essence of a Panzer Dragoon game given the control limitations of the Kinect.

With Project Draco, Suda's Codename D, Mizagichi's Child of Eden, the new Steel Battalion, and a couple of horror titles, including Haunt developed by the team behind PaRappa the Rappa, all being developed for the Kinect, I might have to invest in one of these damned cameras I had no previous interest in. Thanks Japan.

I do find it interesting that there are still no “traditional” games announced yet for the Kinect. Has there been any game shown where the player has full control over the movement of an avatar? I know we can jump around like children, but is there a way to move around an environment freely? All game I've seen have some sort of auto-movement. When are we going to see the controller games that use some Kinect features? I'm starting to wonder if these games really even exist – a shame.