(NOTE: I am in fact gimpish. I lost my leg to cancer and I’m writing this article to be funny and informative, so I don’t want to hear any whining in the comments about it being insensitive. Grow up.)
One of the biggest stories to come out of E3 this year was the announcement of Project Natal. A motion capture peripheral for the Xbox 360 due out sometime next year. And after looking at the video they showcased during their press conference I’ll admit I was pretty excited. Motion capture, if done right, could be a great step forward in gaming. Unless you’re handicapped that is.
What’s wrong with you people? If you can go virtual skateboarding in a game wouldn’t you think you could learn to do it in real life? Playing a fighting game by flailing your limbs around to simulate punching and kicking looks fun, if you have all of your limbs that is. Same thing with soccer. If you two legged people like to show off so much by playing the game, drag your ass outside with some friends and play the real thing. Gaming is supposed to be an escape, not an exact replica of the real thing.
I’m good at games because I have to be. It’s the only way I can participate in sports (without forking over ridiculous amounts of money for adaptive equipment) like baseball and football. I’ll kick your ass at Madden because that’s my playing field. Period.
So I ask you bipeds, don’t use Natal to virtually do anything you can already do, I’ll cry. And I haven’t done any crying since The Notebook.
If this is the future of gaming then I’m screwed. Unless EA Sports starts developing Wheelchair Jousting 2010. Hint, hint.
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[...] The rest is here: Natal hates the cripples [...]
I somewhat agree with you,Chip . But there is more you can do than play video games. You could always enter your locale potato sack races! : o )
Chippy,
On the flip side, for those that have not completely lost their limbs, Natal can infer what you intended to do based on the motion of the rest of your limbs. Remember Natal can guesstimate your limb placement would have been based on certain constraints.
So for some, Natal loves cripples!!!
@ano: Nice point! Natal type technologies could be used as adaptive and interpretive interfaces. Sweet for the cripples.
This idea is for the future, but if the technology becomes reliable and secure enough, it could even enable things like allowing people without legs to drive as if they could reach the peddles themselves.
The other problem with Natal is that it doesn’t always detect the movement of people with a darker skin complexion, seriously ! lol…and I’m a ‘person of colour’ as they like to say in Amerika and disabled, though I have no problem flailing my arms around, which I do regularly. I love the concept behind Natal, which so far has been pretty much restricted to movies, but the reality is, it was always already possible on the playstation, through the eye toy, for PS2 and PS3. I’d love to see something similar being done for the PS3.
The Playstation Eye is available for PS3 which replaces the EyeToy there’s just not that many games for it.
I agree, I have all my limbs and I’d rather go play soccer or vball for real. When its game time I want stat screens and endless loot not endless flailing!
Though I have to say…. Natal is perfect for interactive pornos. Full body scans, point of view thrusting and threesomes with your girlfriend and all the hottest porno stars.
Wait… you mean there will be no adult rated interactive porno’s? Hey I guess you can’t win them all but, least we get to do homework with little retarded kids and splash interactive water…. ah man this is exactly what I always wanted from next gen gaming…. LAME!
I don’t think Natal is the only company here at fault! they are all a bunch of blood sucking discriminative companies!
Damn TV manufacturers like SamSung, Panasonic and Sony for discriminating against the blind!
Apple the leader and all other MP3 makers in discrimination against the hearing impaired!
All singer who discriminate against the people that can’t hear.
All the painters who discriminate against the blind!
Those shoe makers who discriminate against those who lost their legs during wars.
Mother nature who discriminate against the color blind!
Freaken Lamborghini who discriminate against those who can’t afford $300K – $400K!
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo who discriminate against the blind, people who are missing a hand…
damn them all!
Damn the one who discriminate against those who discriminate the discriminator who never stop discriminating his discriminative discrimination as he pursue the art of discriminativism.
“Apple the leader and all other MP3 makers in discrimination against the hearing impaired!”
http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/hearing.html
:P
Now on the serious side. Sorry to hear that you lost your legs to Cancer. Really I am.
But there is a big difference between making a product intended for the mass intended target audience.
The same can be said about any product. Accusing a company or product of discriminating against some persona with some sort of impairment is a little exaggerated don’t you think?
What about those people who have no hands. Would then be saying Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft hate them because they can’t hold a remote like most people can?
And then suddenly, people know where I’m coming from..
Nice article. Your reasoning makes the best sense to me.
The Wii already proved that any motion-controlled games are a gimmick.
If you ask people what the best Wii games are, they’ll tell you it’s super mario galaxy and zelda. Two games who would’ve been just as good if you would play them with a regular controller.
Wii Sports got old a week after I bought it, I still regret buying my Wii.
At the same time, however, the Wii is a Casual Gamer’s console. Of course games for the Wii are gonna be gimmicky…most companies just throw some crap together, make it cartoony and throw in the motion-control stick-waggling as an after thought.
Motion-controlled games have potential. Developers need to be able to build a game around the control system itself, not implement them as an afterthought (which tends to happen a lot, making motion controls feel tacked on). But it can work if done properly.
Wow this article got a lot more attention than I thought it would. I hope you all realize I was writing this is an extremely sarcastic undertone. The N4G comments made it sound like it was a sad article. It’s not supposed to be. It should be funny but ironic. Natal is pointing gaming in a new direction and I just wanted to poke fun at it all.
But I really do have one leg and all you people who are able to run are total show offs…
See, I can’t help it. Sarcasm is my curse!