:034:
Smash Hero
Link to original post: [drupal=1692]My thoughts about Natal and "Milo".[/drupal]
I'll admit. I'm excited about Natal, despite not owning or planning on owning an Xbox 360. There's just stuff that bothers me. At this point, the reason for having an Xbox is basically "to play good games", right? Anybody would say that. And usually for a good game, you need a lot of action. You following me? How will they translate this to doing these actions in real life?
Allow me to explain - let's say you're playing an action adventure. You're being chased, run! You have to run your legs off, jump over buildings for a solid 20 minutes. In a normal video game, this should bring up a slight sweat if the action is really good. Doing this in real life is COMPLETELY different. This will set off both gamers and developers. Gaming will become a tiring event, which is not something we generally enjoy, except for small bursts of gameplay. However, this either makes for a boring game or... minigames.
Then, we have "Milo", the brand new thang by Peter Molyneux. First of all, can we remember Fable? The promises that we never saw returned in-game? Okay. Let's move on now.
"Milo" is a computer program simulating a young boy that reacts to your speech, movement and emotions. It's hard to explain exactly what it is, so watch the video about it. It looks amazing, and a great advancement in the use of artificial intelligence in video games... But, once again, it's a simulation. "Milo" will use Natal to give you a realistic person to interact with. But, because it's a computer simulation it will fall short.Let's say that Peter Molyneux will announce that Milo has 1000 different 'days' with different events happening to him. You might say, "Wow! That's a lot!" and you'd be right. However, how old are you? I'm 18 years old, and a quick calculation will tell me that I've lived approximately 6570 days. That's six times as much as Milo's pre-set situations. Remember that Milo is a program - it will simply react to information shown by it and output data. It can NOT create an experience truly unique, since all of the reactions (even if there are more than a thousand) are one and the same.
Also, how will Milo react to obscure situations that it can not recognize as a computer? For instance, if I tell Milo that I'm drawing something, he might ask what I'm drawing. I can show him using Natal, but what will he say? As a program, he will most likely scan the drawing for line, use of color and composition, going through a quick database of already seen pictures. But what if the picture is abstract, and with that 'unrecognizable'? "Sorry, I can't understand this picture?" I fear that Milo will create a false realism that will quickly begin to irritate you (as you compare the events that happen with Milo to things that happen to you in real life).
Back to Natal, what else is there? I quickly drew a comparison to the Eyetoy and the Wii. The Eyetoy was pretty much only good for minigames. The Wii has both minigames and nicely controllable games, such as Mario Galaxy. These types of games don't tire you out due to minimal usage of the shake function, you can just sit down and relax. The periodic shaking is practically unnoticeable. But what with Natal? Will it register finger movements? Will you sit in front of the tv waving your hands around, all the time? It's hard for me to invision how to play a nice, long-winded game like a shooter or action adventure with Natal.
Still, I'm excited. I'm excited to see people coming up with this, challenging developers to use new ends, new technology and to try things out. I may be skeptical, but I hope to be proven wrong and finally have a really good reason to get myself one of those 360's. All I can think about is that "this really is the 21st century". It almost feels like something out of a sci-fi movie... Which is probably a good thing, as long as we don't get invaded.
I'll admit. I'm excited about Natal, despite not owning or planning on owning an Xbox 360. There's just stuff that bothers me. At this point, the reason for having an Xbox is basically "to play good games", right? Anybody would say that. And usually for a good game, you need a lot of action. You following me? How will they translate this to doing these actions in real life?
Allow me to explain - let's say you're playing an action adventure. You're being chased, run! You have to run your legs off, jump over buildings for a solid 20 minutes. In a normal video game, this should bring up a slight sweat if the action is really good. Doing this in real life is COMPLETELY different. This will set off both gamers and developers. Gaming will become a tiring event, which is not something we generally enjoy, except for small bursts of gameplay. However, this either makes for a boring game or... minigames.
Then, we have "Milo", the brand new thang by Peter Molyneux. First of all, can we remember Fable? The promises that we never saw returned in-game? Okay. Let's move on now.
"Milo" is a computer program simulating a young boy that reacts to your speech, movement and emotions. It's hard to explain exactly what it is, so watch the video about it. It looks amazing, and a great advancement in the use of artificial intelligence in video games... But, once again, it's a simulation. "Milo" will use Natal to give you a realistic person to interact with. But, because it's a computer simulation it will fall short.Let's say that Peter Molyneux will announce that Milo has 1000 different 'days' with different events happening to him. You might say, "Wow! That's a lot!" and you'd be right. However, how old are you? I'm 18 years old, and a quick calculation will tell me that I've lived approximately 6570 days. That's six times as much as Milo's pre-set situations. Remember that Milo is a program - it will simply react to information shown by it and output data. It can NOT create an experience truly unique, since all of the reactions (even if there are more than a thousand) are one and the same.
Also, how will Milo react to obscure situations that it can not recognize as a computer? For instance, if I tell Milo that I'm drawing something, he might ask what I'm drawing. I can show him using Natal, but what will he say? As a program, he will most likely scan the drawing for line, use of color and composition, going through a quick database of already seen pictures. But what if the picture is abstract, and with that 'unrecognizable'? "Sorry, I can't understand this picture?" I fear that Milo will create a false realism that will quickly begin to irritate you (as you compare the events that happen with Milo to things that happen to you in real life).
Back to Natal, what else is there? I quickly drew a comparison to the Eyetoy and the Wii. The Eyetoy was pretty much only good for minigames. The Wii has both minigames and nicely controllable games, such as Mario Galaxy. These types of games don't tire you out due to minimal usage of the shake function, you can just sit down and relax. The periodic shaking is practically unnoticeable. But what with Natal? Will it register finger movements? Will you sit in front of the tv waving your hands around, all the time? It's hard for me to invision how to play a nice, long-winded game like a shooter or action adventure with Natal.
Still, I'm excited. I'm excited to see people coming up with this, challenging developers to use new ends, new technology and to try things out. I may be skeptical, but I hope to be proven wrong and finally have a really good reason to get myself one of those 360's. All I can think about is that "this really is the 21st century". It almost feels like something out of a sci-fi movie... Which is probably a good thing, as long as we don't get invaded.