Look Ma!…No Controller!
If E3 2009 can be summed up in a single phrase that phrase would be “motion control”. With the Wii, Nintendo managed to capture that elusive casual audience that has largely been ignored by major game companies and game developers. Consequently, by pulling in that casual audience Nintendo has effectively, for better or worse, created a whole new market for games. The Wii managed to get everyone in on the act, all the while making them look like complete and utter morons–its innovative motion controls is making gaming more accessible to millions of would be gamers. Now that’s great for the Pong and Pac-Man crowd, but a lot of hardcore gamers aren’t completely sold on the idea. But with Microsoft and Sony entering the ring, motion controls may gain more appeal with that primary gaming audience.
To many Nintendo fanboys, Nintendo has failed to deliver the goods with the Wii. The greatest complaint that Mario-loving, Zelda-worshipping Nintendophiles have with the console is the sheer lack of great games. Sure, there’s Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and surprise third-party offerings like No More Heroes and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, but for the most part the system has been severely lacking in great titles. Instead Nintendo’s library is flooded with lackluster titles targeted at that casual audience. This seems to have become their bread and butter, what keeps them afloat. However, with its competitors reaching for a piece of the same pie, Nintendo may have to step up its game.
At E3 they showed future Wii titles (most notably Metroid Prime: Other M) as well as their Wii Motion Plus, which aims to deliver the type of one-to-one motion controls that were promised, but not delivered, prior to the release of the Wii. What’s interesting is that Sony showed off a similar one-to-one motion control. Although it was still an early prototype, it seemed to be Sony’s Wii Motion Plus. I’ll admit, my time with the Wii has been limited, but what little I did experience left me feeling underwhelmed, mainly because the titles I played weren’t my cup of tea. (I didn’t really care for the motion controls in Resident Evil and found Wii Sports and Links Crossbow Training to be diversions with little long-lasting appeal.) The prospect of playing more, for lack of a better term, “hardcore games”, of which systems like the Xbox 360 and PS3 typically host, kind of warmed me to the idea of motion controls. The demonstration shown at their E3 press conference conjured up fantasies of using precision motion controls to play games like MGS4, God of War, or Killzone. Though I still think that I wouldn’t be completely comfortable with the geekout that is required in motion control play.
Microsofts unveiling of their project Natal, all presentation hiccups aside, also seemed promising. Using motion and voice recognition to not only play games but to navigate the Xbox 360 interface looked really intuitive and cool. Its showing on the Jimmy Fallon Show recently, however, again got me to thinking, “It better be more fun than it looks! If I’m going to look that ridiculous it better not feel like a glorified mime simulator!” I guess the idea of full body recognition isn’t what really excites me about Natal, but rather the prospect of it working in tandem with the voice recognition and its scanning capabilities. The Milo (Mylo?) demo is what really got me worked up about it. The gaming possibilities are thrilling to imagine. Of course, we are probably a long way from the type of interaction that demo showed, but its still awesome to think that something even remotely close to that can be achieved in this console generation. Hopefully developers don’t treat this technology as opportunities to tack on gimicky scenarios in their games. I want to see a whole game that utilizes this technology as its main gameplay mechanic.
Overall, I’m excited about where games are going and hope that competition in the motion control arena doesn’t mean more games based on High School Musical and similar garbage, but instead that game developers will work harder to offer innovative and fun experiences that utilizes this technology. With that said I don’t think that this is the end of the traditional gamepad. Some games are still best experienced with input from simple button presses.
The Last Guardian!!! Game of show! Game of show!
