Yeah total UE3 engine garbage, lololololol


Also why would you turn your head to look around corners. You wouldn't be looking at the tv any longer

Scaled motion. Look up TrackIR on Youtube.

I saw a news about project natal today, "Spielberg Confirms He's Working on Project Natal Games" The information from http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/19898/Spielberg-Confirms-Hes-Working-on-Project-Natal-Games/

celebs playing natal.
http://www.vg247.com/2009/06/06/watch-celebrities-...

Just so you know, I read somewhere this week, that Project Natal does proper 3D head tracking without the need for goggles or a headset, making it possible to do 3D games (like the new 3D movies and games), without the need for purchasing the expensive $200 3D goggles to make it work. Furthermore, it may be possible via software patches over Xbox LIVE, to update the 3D feature into existing Xbox 360 games. I don't know about everyone else, but if any of the bits about 3D games are true as a result of using Project Natal, I am already sold.

What I find the most disturbing as I read through this thread, is the lack of imagination on the part of some of the posters here (not an insult, just purely an observation). So many keep saying there is no good use for this in a videogame, and I say, it all depends on the type of game and whether the developer has any shred of imagination or not.

Milo (which is not a tech demo, but part of an actual game called Milo & Kate, which Lionhead is developing for the Project Natal launch), holds the key to one of the greatest innovations in game development since SEGA released Virtua Racing with flat-shaded polygons back in 1992.

Milo is no doubt a scripted character, as there is no such thing as real AI. But half the point about videogame development, has been about the illusion - from the very beginning. Game hardware, does not, nor likely ever will have the raw horsepower needed to compete a lot of things we see in other facets of entertainment. Learning to create convincing enough illusions has always been the bread and butter of the game industry. After all, what is a normal map or a bump map? Those are not 3D textures. They are purely a 2D construct designed to give the illusion that they exist in 3D. And guess what? The average gamer could never have told you lighting and shadowing effects created to make those textures look like they have depth were indeed not in 3D.

Milo does the same thing (at last) for NPCs and interaction with NPCs. Using the (state of the art, mind you) tech built into Project Natal, the instruments are in place to finally deliver the illusion of a living personality in the machine. Of course Milo is not a real AI, he is just as scripted as any other AI in any other video game ever made. However, you could not tell that by watching the video or even talking to him in the aegis of Milo's game world.

And this is what is really sweet. We can finally have entire games (think Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls 5, Heavy Rain 2, Shenmue 3, Fallout 4, Indigo Prophecy 2, or any other game where constant and varied interaction with NPCs drives the game forward) which are populated from end to end, with totally believable NPCs. And not only just totally believable NPCs, but totally believable NPCs that interact with you the player, in the most natural and intuitive manner possible. This is not just merely an evolution in game design, this is a paradigm shift just as important, if not moreso than the one which shifted games from 2D to 3D.

As was pointed out above on this thread, you can still play these games the normal way we have always played them - with our controller in hand. But now we get the added benefit of being able to fully interact with the NPCs we come across on our quests. Of course like with Milo, there are limitations to exactly how far you can push this in a game. But at the same time, you would not walk up to a NPC in the Elder Scrolls series, and ask them questions about the Lakers game last week. So using the lame excuse that you can punch holes in Milo by asking it a question it does not have the answer for, does not really hold water in stating that Project Natal bringing lifelike NPCs to gaming is the future of gaming. In the world of Cyrodil, you would not expect anyone to know who the Lakers were. So asking an NPC that question, would be stupid on your part. On the other hand, so long as that NPC can give me the gist on the demons spilling out of the nearest Oblivion portal and laying waste to the nearby village, and do so in a very convincing and believable manner (ala Milo), then it is truly a huge step forward, and wanting to go back to when NPCs only had 3 or 4 static answers in their dialog trees (which is where we are at right now), is foolish.

I just spent 200 hours in the Capital Wastelands of Fallout 3, and every NPC I came across only had between 1 to 6 static replies on their dialog trees. Fallout 3 is still a very fun game, but how much more fun would it have been if I could have actually held a semi-real conversation about events that happen in the Capital Wasteland concerning my next quest, with all those NPCs?

What will be even more dynamic, is when those NPCs are programmed to start leading those conversations, and not just serve as a verbal signpost on the road to your next quest. We see this all the time in books and film, where character(s) can serve as varying levels of antagonist towards the protagonist (main character), but technology has limited games in how far they can push that dynamic. No more. With Project Natal, even that can be a thing of the past. Not only can NPCs be a driving force in games the way their counterparts are in film and books, but because it is interactive, in time games can learn to do it better than books and film combined. To offer up any number of combination in the antagonist/protagonist social dynamic. Critics keep saying that video games are not art, and can never be art, due to the lack of ability to engage the player they way books and film can engage the viewer. However, with Project Natal, the tools are finally there to change that, and Milo is the 'proof of concept' that it can be done.

I think if people would spend just a few minutes and truly think outside of the box, and stop thinking about all the obious jumping up and down and waving your arms around, you saw in several of the Project Natal demos, and honestly give thought about what Milo represents, you will see that even for hardcore gamers, this is probably the best thing that has happened in a very, very long time.

And here is the shameful part in all this. I showed the Milo video to my 60+ year old mother, who is not a gamer, not even on Wii, and even she got it. The first thing out of her mouth once she had time to come to terms with what it was she was seeing, and how convincing an illusion that Milo was in his own world, was that they could finally make "movies" with this, where the player is the main character, and the script changes based on which characters the player meets and how the conversation between the player and the character went. In her scenario, she used detective/cop dramas like CSI as her primary example. You are the crime scene investigator. You look for the clues, you sift through the evidence, you grill the suspects and shakedown the informants, until you solve how the murder happened and arrested the perp at the end. You could even horse around with your coworkers in the game, along the way to solving the murder. All the drama of a television procedural, but with the player at the center. She imagined that up on her own, over the span of a half hour conversation. And unlike most of you, she did not seem to have any qualms about using Project Natal's motion controls for tasks like sifting through the evidence and investigating the crime scene, as it seemed to her, like the most natural way you'd go about tackling those tasks. At the end of it all, I did not have the heart to tell her that she had just re-invented a non-sci-fi version of Snatcher and Policenauts (both games she had chided me for spending endless hours on, years ago, back when games were not as socially becoming as they are now), with a modern, pop culture spin.

And this is the part that really seems to disturb me about this entire thread so far (and not just here, but most places that I visit; and it does not matter if they like Natal or hate it) - as gamers, we all collectively should be the first to get what this represents. Yet we spend most of our time worrying if we are going to look stupid flailing our arms around and kicking at mid air. It's like we cannot see the forest for the trees. We cannot get past the idea that it is motion control, long enough to see the true potential underneath. But my 60+ year old mom got right away. That's just not right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-443dE5-gk&feature...

this posted?

seeing is believing, not some tech demo or work in progress

Yea, people were playing ACTUAL games at E3 09 using this thing lol.

Even if it isn't perfected, that's amazing. There's massive amounts of potential for this thing.

oh yeah guess what people were playing halo 3 before it came out behind closed doors at e3 look how that turned out

We didn't SEE anyone playing Halo 3 behind closed doors, we only heard that the chief was controllable when that first amazing trailer was shown. We are actually seeing this stuff here haha.

KIKZO Explains Everything you need to know about Natal.

http://games.kikizo.com/features/microsoft-natal-x...

I have to agree with you.

http://kotaku.com/5287069/natal-launch-will-be-as-...

Heh, i just thought of something cool the natal could be used for. Character customization! Like think of a game like oblivion or something, where you ahve all these sliders to set features, waht if the game could take the 3d data form natal and approximate rough facial features based on your face? And ofc i mean by adjusting sliders and so forth accordingly. That'd be sweet :)

You could 3d render your penis too!

Yes, though i have a feeling that most people would have way too small a wang to want to do that.

Pfft. Speak for yourself...

That'd be hella sweet to be honest. I'm actually quite disappointed more games don't use the vision camera to create characters' face.

I did! I'm reminded more of the one they did for the LBP where they were making penis monsters in the game or the PS3 camera taking shots of all sorts of lewd subject matter.

Eyetoy?