Microsoft unveils new controller - Amazing

[Joseph Ward]

Atarrrrrrri!!!

haha! Good one Brook! You Arrgh right!

[Andrew Kimery]

In the other article, it was very interesting reading Spielberg's take on it. That up until now we haven't been able to cry at a video game, to be emotionally involved in the same way we can be moved by a film's narrative. It certainly puts into perspective the possibilities of emersion within a game using such technology.

Paul

Yeah, I've gotta disagree w/what Spielberg said as well. There have been a number of games where I've felt emotionally connected to what was going on onscreen. Like w/movies, it's not how good it looks visually but how compelling the story is that pulls people in emotionally.

so what's the catch? I mean what happens if you don't play along with Milo and start trying to take him in other directions with what you're saying. Can he react to that?

Peter Molyneux has always been pushing the forefront of AI in games and this is basically his next step so while I'm sure there will be limits to how Milo can respond I think he's going to be as interactive as possible given the confines of game development resources (money, processing power, file size limits, etc.,.) Milo is going to be more along the lines of an advanced virtual pet then a game. Kinda like an updated version of Seaman for the DreamCast.


-Andrew

[Christian Edwards]

Atarrrrrrri!!!

thats funny :)

[Alan Skinner]

Atarrrrrrri!!!

I am disinclined to acquiesce to your bad jokes!

[Andrew Walker]

Wow, I'm thinking about this with first-person shooters. If you had a large enough room to play a game where the controls had you run to cover and play the level like that. I could see that being amazing not only for gaming but for training.

[Andy Jarosz]

Yeah, but I don't wanna have a conversation with my Xbox. I wanna start fragging people and swearing into a headset. This seems perfect for an awesome HAL 9000, but not so good perhaps for game consoles.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. Wanna fish instead?"

[Jeff Kilgroe]

so what's the catch? I mean what happens if you don't play along with Milo and start trying to take him in other directions with what you're saying. Can he react to that?

That was my first question. And I'm assuming that the level of interaction and responses are finite and based on a matrix of pre-programmed actions, emotions and responses. In other words, if you stray outside the confines of the game world, then the software won't have an appropriate response other than to try and draw you back into its world in some way.

That said, the interface and level of interaction is very impressive. I can envision tons of applications for this technology, most of them not game-related.

[Peter Mosiman]

... and a little frightening. :couch:

very!

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Even if it was like Mass Effect and were given a teleprompter I think it might be interesting.

Honestly I've become emotionally attached to characters and places before in games. If anything interactivity makes games less emotional so I don't really see any immediate effects on the art of storytelling.

1) Don't have the character to stupid tasks. You don't see Luke Skywalker out doing his nightly chores collecting 30 transformers. There is a reason it's not showed in movies. It slows the story and gets in the way.
2) Don't have a 4 hour battle. Again. Movies have 30 minute action sequences and that's often pushing audience sustainability.
3) Don't make the player go back in time. If you train your player to continually replay something they'll completely forget context and it'll become a puzzle. An unemotional left brained mechanism to be defeated.
4) Create places people would want to explore. Having an amazing setting that is someplace you might want to wander around on vacation is the goal.
5) Keep the player moving to the next plot point to find out what happens next. 4 hours of "go to the next room". Could just as easily be 4 hours of playing the same room. There needs to be a page turning sequence of events.
6) Make your game shorter. 40 hours isn't necessary. Movies do just fine with 2. 5-6 hours is all you can get out of your story.

Maybe around #1,000 would I put "be able to physically control your character". This will be great for party games and other fun silly things like that which I would definitely buy it for but... after playing a great game for an hour or two I no longer have any conception of a controller in my head. The classic story is I was playing a game and someone walked up behind me and started talking and I turned around my game character instinctively to speak to them. It's the same with Bicycles, skis, cars and even shoes we tune out all of the things around us and can reach a zenlike state where the brain starts using the devices as an extension of the body. I would be far more interested in eye tracking and 3D glasses than hand tracking.

[Kholi Hicks]

IDK about that, I was pretty blown away with Metal Gear Solid (PSOne), FFXIII, and Star Control 2 (one of the best games ever made, IMO). The depth of the story of those games was incredible for the time, considering that up until then, the plots of the most popular video games were 'goomba-jump-koopa-jump-Bowser-jump-jump-jump-end'.

What?

MGS was cool, Star Control...Okay...

But FFXIII? Come on now. RPG's have had incredible storylines since the dawn of the genre. The real peak for console gaming depth came when SNES hit. Titles like Final Fantasy Six (3 in US) set the bar for things to come and my personal favorite...

Chrono Trigger. There hasn't been a game based on time Travel YET that can come close to what Chrono Trigger's storyline offered.

How about Final Fantasy 7? Squaresoft's star franchise? The plot of that game was so thick you had to play through it twice to understand a quarter of it. And each time you rolled through it, it was a good 40 Hours of playtime at minimum, or you'd get your ass handed to you by Safer Sephiroth.

Gotta go back further, man. SNES's RPG plot-lines are incredible and were what truly began to define the "story" within a game.