NextGEN gaming: Move (Motion)

[ProgrammingFun]

This is just an extension of the favorite console thread.

With Sony's Playstation Move and Microsoft's Project Natal entering the Move gaming sector this year, which would you prefer?

[DtY]

I played this mac game a while ago (three or more years ago probably), it was an aeroplane fighting game, but you played by raising your hands in front of the iSight, as though they were on the steering thing in the airplane, then when you rotated them the plane would turn. To fire, you made a tch tch tch sort of sound.

That was pretty cool.

Remember the EyeToy? That was pretty cool, there should have been more games that used that.

Anyway, this stuff just feels like more of the same.

[BigBear]

Game developers want their games to be played, imagine if Modern Warfare involved you actually running on the spot most people wouldn't be able to play the game for more than an hour and not not on a regular basis.

I still don't quite understand how project natal will do turning because once you turn your not facing the camera.

Virtual Reality has been around for a long time and the market even in house hold consoles like Nintendo's virtual Boy.

I don't think developers want to move into virtual reality because it will reduce the time people can play games.

I know project Natal is scheduled to come out before Christmas. I just don't see it happening, as it stands now replace the controller, it may be released with a different use, or I have no insight so it will probably be out on time and with maximum functionality.

[rdrake]

The playstation move is already on the market, it's just called the wiimote.

Somebody had to say it.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Except the Wii motion sensing could have been better. That's the problem with devices like these. If they don't work well enough, the games will suck. That's the other problem. Remember the games that first came out for the Wii?

I don't prefer any of these move devices because they haven't come out yet. The proof is in the pudding as they say. The ideas might be great, but if the device is terrible, I'm not buying it.

[Superskull85]

I would probably prefer the PlayStation Move.

The Wiimote is not that great in my opinion. Unless I held the Wiimote in the right place, I wasn't able to do exactly what I wanted. This is a problem for because of limited positions for the sensor.

Project Natal is good in theory, but because of the free range of movements I don't think there will be many standard combinations of input. Gamers will have to adjust to the freedom of input that Natal offers, and for genres like action and shooters, this will completely change how those games are approached. If in a shooter you have to physically hold up a pretend gun, dodge, throw grenades, etc. this will probably too much for any fast paced gunfight. For action games how would you effectively switch targets without taking your eyes away from the action?

PlayStation Move is in-between these two technologies, and is the motion controller that I think will appeal more to gamers. It has the precision and free range of movement of Natal, but it also has buttons that allow for (what I think will be) better control of the game.

Either way, it will be interesting to see what these new motion controllers bring.

[revangrey]

I would have to pick the "I don't like Move Gaming." option...

When I want to move around I play football; other than that give me a keyboard, or a controller.

[BigBear]

USEC_OFFICER @ Sat Mar 13, 2010 4:58 pm wrote:

Remember the games that first came out for the Wii? I don't prefer any of these move devices because they haven't come out yet. The proof is in the pudding as they say. The

Like Wii Sports that game is one of the best Wii games.

There is always a learning curve for developing games for consoles and it seems that as soon as the games start to reach the consoles potential there is a new console out. Just like the CELL processor for the Ps3. Once we start to see utilities out to make developing for the PS3 easier there will be a PS4.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I was refering to third-party games. But you kinda summed up my argument anyways.

[CodeMonkey2000]

Honestly I don't find either of these appealing. I feel that motion has become a gimmick. I was excited about the wii when it was launched, but now I feel disappointed. I haven't seen anything that really impressive on the wii.

[CodeMonkey2000]

rdrake @ Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:44 am wrote:

The playstation move is already on the market, it's just called the wiimote.

Somebody had to say it.

So was the kinect, it was just called the eyetoy

[RandomLetters]

With VR it's gotta be perfect or it will seem clumsy. If we're playing twitch games the motion sensing would have to be highly precise for us to aim properly. Whoever can do this affordably will win.

Cant wait for RTS games like starcraft to take advantage of this tho. Imagine the APM we could have if we got to use all of our fingers And misclicking would be a lot rarer.

[Cezna]

Natal has my vote, the video I watched for it looked amazing, and Sony's Move seems to be just catching up to the Wii instead of moving forwards, away from physical controllers all together, as Natal is doing.

I only have one apprehension about the idea of "Move Gaming", possibly biased by my experiences with the Wii, which is that there seems to be less ability for a wide variety of simple, one-button type controls like you can have with a controller. To carry out all of the controls you have to do in a game such as (insert your favourite FPS here), there would have to be a very large number of movement's you would have to memorize (which would be difficult even if they were intuitively like the action that is to be performed, such as actually ducking if you want your character to duck, or performing some sort of generic reloading action.

This is why I suspect that, at least at first, movement gaming will stay limited to simple, family-friendly, "pick up and play" type games, similar to Wii sports and maybe some Mario type games.

[CodeMonkey2000]

I highly doubt we will move away from physical controllers. I mean the kinect will be a hit with non-gamers, but not gamers. The kinect seems like it is directed towards non-gamers/wii-users. This is obvious by analyzing what games MS showed off at e3, and how the kinect was presented. Most of the games MS showed off seemed like the same games we saw on the wii, with a full body motion twist. We had things like the MS version of nintendogs, wii-sports etc.

This is the e3 press conference for the kinect:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGZUMazrYQs

It wasn't presented as a gaming accessories, but rather a home entertainment gadget. It looks cool, but it is very evident that gamers aren't the intended audience. And for those of you who said this will be great for RTS's, wtf? Have you even played an RTS? The kinect doesn't seem precise enough to make that plausible. More over, you get so much speed with the mouse when you turn up the sensitivity. Keyboard + mouse is essential for micromanagement in something like starcraft.

Anyway, a side note, remember the eyetoy? I bought one for like $20 for my ps2 a few years ago, and it came with a game called Antigrav.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBNQf_-JWe4

So anyway, here are my thoughts on the game, and its use of the eyetoy. First off the eytoy didn't work well, unless you were in a brightly lit room, and it only did 2d tracking, but this game and device still should give a good feel for what full body/motion gaming is like. When I played it, I thought it was pretty cool. The character movement was pretty responsive, and doing tricks were pretty awesome (once you got a bright room ). It was cool, but it's pretty obvious that this isn't going to replace the controller.

Another thing that is a bit worrying is that fact that Sony decided to go with a wii-mote clone rather than continueing with eyetoy full body motion games. Sony had a great opportunity to say "hey look we started controller less gaming on the ps2, and we still have full faith in it". Why would Sony want to go with wii-mote clone? Here are my crack-pot theories

Having a controller in your hand is much more intuitive. You get immediate feedback on what's going on, since you are physically holding something, and since the ps-wii mote vibrates. Moreover, the sony-lollipop is extremely precise, making it sort of like a mouse. Although in someways this is better than a mouse, and in some ways this is worse. There are accelerometers on the thing, and from the e3 videos, the move is incredibly precise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkHwaXcXumo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe0D60EbcjQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th8_zKa0DKk

From the looks of things, the move is far more precise than my wii-mote. All of this adds to the intuitiveness of the move. Of-course as a side effects of having an intuitive input device, there are a number of older games that will have patches to make use of the move. For example RE5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-OnPqFwL2g

So which of the two new motion devices would I bet on? Probably Sony's move, they've played it safe by copying the wii, the game library is far more reassuring that yes this will be great for gamers. Now I only have a 360, so would I buy the ps3 for move? Nope. In-fact I wouldn't buy the kinect either. I don't feel that motion sensing is the way forward. I would put my money on touch screen. The iphone/ipad is a great example. Gaming on the touch screen is so much more intuitive, and there is a lot more potential for creative interface schemes. For example, the other day my friends and I were on a the bus, we were bored. We decided to play a board game called Settlers of Catan on the iphone. I was a bit surprised by how well they were able to pull off making this game. It was almost like playing the real board game. Another example, I was playing GTA Chinatown on the iphone, and there was a section on the screen that behaves like an analog. he also had a snes emulator, and it just had a picture of the snes controller that you could use. To me this is far superior than motion sensing, you have such a diversity of games on a single platform. Although what would be really awesome is having a playing card app that can connect to nearby iphones/ipads. It would be awesome to just play quick games of euchre or bridge with friends while walking to school or on the bus (I don't know if such an app exists, but it totally should ). Even though I feel the iphone has a lot of flaws and is pricey, you have to admit that this was a fantastic idea, and it's far more impressive than anything I've seen from nintendo, sony and microsoft.

Portable + touch screen = awesome .
I'm not even home enough to play my 360 I have Red Dead Redemption, but I rarely get time to play through it =/

[ProgrammingFun]

CodeMonkey2000 @ Fri Jun 25, 2010 8:35 pm wrote:

...I have Red Dead Redemption...

Disclaimer: Completely off-topic...
I envy you!
Rockstar decided not to release it for the PC.