Natal It’s Cracked Up To Be?
by Rob
It may look like a miniscule air purifier but at least it's more robust than the flimsy specimen slide you get with the Wii
2010 is now upon us, and in the past couple of weeks we have already had some great announcements for the upcoming year. We have been told that the next Zelda Wii title will be hitting the shelves before the year is out, and we have also been told that this Christmas will bring the infamous project Natal. So will this be a nice little treat for me to find under the tree?
Well for the impressively low price of £50 this maybe, just maybe worth the cash. It has been rumoured that on launch the device will have a bundle of 14 games. Well if this is true then I will be looking forward the Christmas period.
As I sat back and thought about it, will this be another gaming fad that won’t last the honeymoon period? Or will it actually take off and bring a new element to gaming as we know it?
Now I am one of these picky gamers who feels right at home with a controller in my hands, the traditional but effective way of gaming has always appealed to me and if any of you out there know me, you will know I have this “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it attitude” to life. The Wii for me is kind of on the border line with it, true it still has the controller but instead of traditionally pressing buttons, you are waving it around like some sort of crazy baseball player, oh the stories I have heard about Wii remotes going through TV screens still make me chuckle.
For those of you out there who aren’t familiar with Project Natal, let me give you a brief explanation. Project Natal is a device that will plug into your Xbox 360, comprising of a black box with a camera, and a special motion sensor which in turn scans your body, letting you play games totally hands free, just by moving your body. Not only that, but the device also promises a new level of customization to your gaming, say you have a really cool skateboard deck at home and you want it in Tony Hawk, apparently you can scan in your deck and hey presto, it is there on the game for you to use. Also, it will make clothes shopping easier as well, where you can, in some way, virtually try on the clothes that have caught your eye.
The combination of something shiny and black adhered to a shiny black Samsung is enough to make me want it. Whether it gets used or not is another matter.
To me this sounds too huge for a November 2010 release date, I mean has our technology advanced that much? If so, then why aren’t PCs and Macs doing it now with their webcams? I mean c’mon, Apple would have jumped on that shiny technology band wagon ages ago. Does Microsoft have exclusive rights to this technology? Or are they just going to bring out a half-arsed thing which is just akin to a glorified PlayStation EyeToy?
Take Milo as a shining example. Lionhead have come up with a game for Natal which centers around a boy called Milo and basically he talks to you, and you can fully interact with him. He is pretty much a friend you can buy from a store. Peter Molyneux and the Lionhead team have promised that you can pretty much interact with this character in almost any way possible, you can give him objects which Natal will scan in, and he can read your emotions and basically get to know you inside out. I don’t know about you, but I think this type of technology would take years to make, maybe ten at least, you have to program every single outcome, emotion and interaction and to be honest I’m dreading that most of the time Milo is not going to understand you and get bored. It was confirmed at this year’s E3 extravaganza in LA, and true, it won’t be coming out with Natal at its supposed launch, but if it was announced at E3 then it has to come out in a year or two…right?
The adorable little Eye Pet shows you what you could end up looking like after playing Super SFIV with Natal
The only thing that gives Natal a glint of hope is Playstation 3’s EyePet. This relatively new game that has hit the market uses the PS3 eye camera to film the gamer while the EyePet is on the screen, meaning that what you see in the screen is your living room with the monkey/dog thing inside it. Pretty cool, in my opinion. After looking at the potential of this game and doing a little bit of research, I can say I have a little bit more hope about Natal. Even though EyePet is basically a glorified EyeToy like I said earlier, it does mean Natal can up its game.
So for me I am very much sitting on the fence for this project. A part of me is hoping that Natal has the capability of blowing its competition out of the water, but then again I like my games with controllers, being physically able to push buttons is a thing that I enjoy because, without a doubt a button command 99.999999 times out of a hundred will do what you want, whereas hands-free gaming can be less reliable in my opinion. I suppose I am gonna have to wait ’til Christmas to find out.
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Part of me thinks that Natal could be SO damn cool, but there’s another part of me that is dreading the point where it becomes less of a choice to use Natal and more of a necessity. I think about playing Burnout Paradise and assume that you can still sit on the sofa and just have that “steering wheel” mime control the car, which isn’t really that embarrassing, but how would you accelerate and brake? How would you let the sensors know that you were going for a barrel roll or a flat spin? Jackie Chan I ain’t, and so if pulling off a barrel roll means flipping yourself over several times in mid air… I’ve already failed.
Elder Scrolls V or Two Worlds II though… if I could take my sword from the wall and swing it all over the place like an idiot, hacking people to pieces on screen… I may be up for a bit of that
What I sincerely hope though, is that we’re given a choice. Always. If I want to sit back on my sofa and just relax while I’m playing a game, then I want that option to do so. Similarly, if there are friends round and we want to make complete arses of ourselves playing Super SFIV and jump all over the place like idiots… then that choice is also there.
Does anyone else think that technology is perhaps running away with itself unnecessarily??
like you i’m also sceptical of natal, on the surface its the stuff of science fiction but i’m not keen on the idea of flapping my arms about and taking cover behind the coffie table in gears of war 3. Part of me hopes it’ll work and part of me hopes they will keep it seprate from the core of the xbox so i wont have to use it. (i’m that lazy) you cant blame microsoft for wanting a chunk of the wii buisness.
I fall into the category of “I like the idea but not for really playing games that way”. Hands up whom after watching Minority Report wanted to use their computer in a similar way, I know I did – and that’s what I like about Natal, it’s not just for playing games and making yourself look daft at the same time but it’s a communications tool. While I cannot see myself booting up a game and thirty minutes later collapsing in an unfit heap on the floor, I can see myself sat down and using my hand to navigate through various menus, it’s just a simple thing but simple things please and amuse me.
Natal to me signals the potential growth the industry can achieve, like the Wii it’s another carrot on a fishing pole to entice non gamers into our world, and of course from Microsoft’s point of view, shifting some of the Wii user base across to the Xbox family.
I’m with the ‘could give less of a shit’ crowd on this one. I hate the thought of Xbox going anywhere down the Wii route of stupid arm waving and making yourself look like an utter arse just to play a game. I don’t want to be making wanking gestures to shake someone’s hand or faff around to open a chest or chuck a ball for the dog in Fable 3 or anything else. I want to kick back in my chair and mash at a controller. I want to relax, not collapse on a heap on the floor like Ben says. So far, Xbox has been the sensible ship, steering a healthy middle course between Wii and Playstation 3…why they have to change course now is irritating
Nice piece Rob 
Funny how the gamers here are not completely sold on the idea of Project Natal. I am neither. I foresee a flop the likes of that Kevin Costner film, Waterworld. Or more appropriately, something in the region of the Sega CD. Or the Mega 32X.
Thanks For The Comments Guys
Natal for me is just gonna be another one of those things that will probably die out in about 6 months. Would be cool to control you Xbox minority report style like ben said, but I just feel like its gonna be as buggy as hell.
and besides holding an imaginary steering wheel for maybe a 3 hour burnout sesh would knacker your arms after a while
First up, anything that Peter Molyneux says is, by definition at the very least a stretching of the truth, if not an outright and blatant lie. So I know he says that Milo will do all this bollocks but hello? remember all the pre-release hype for Fable II? It was gonna be just like the real world with all the choice and consequence and everything. Except of course it wasn’t. I keep expecting Peter Molyneux to be wheeled out at E3 or something with gaffer tape wrapped firmly round his mouth to stop the ridiculousness….
That aside, I am afraid that I agree (mostly) with Lorna. Why on earth do we need this? Don’t get me wrong, I actually quite like my Wii (although I don’t use it very often) but I don’t see why M$ needs to do this. People say that they are chasing the wii market but the writing is ery clearly on the wall there for all to see – the wii has the lowest attachment rate of ANY of the current gen machines (including the woefully underperforming PSP) so surely a corp as big as M$ can see that emulating it is a waste of time? Then again, look at the dashboard update, avatars etc. This is in effect just the latest case in a long line of M$ imitating Ninty’s lead.
If people wanna play jumpy jumpy sweaty sweaty games they will buy a wii, or if they are normal and have less disposable income than braincells they will grab a football/tennis racquet/cricket bat/whatever and go outside and play a real sport rather than a faux digital representation. If people want to play ‘proper’ games they will buy a 360 or PS3. No one in the casual market is going to spend £200-£300 to play a handful of ‘wii rip off’ games on a console that they will likely only use when guests come round, especially in the current economic climate. My money is on this having been in development for several years, and by now they’re so committed to it that they figure what the hey, lets just release it anyways. When a company (in any industry) gets to that stage, its time to worry about their product.
Project Natal means playing games without the need of a controller. Someday we might get to the stage were we can also play games without the need for the tv or console either, maybe even venture outside. I’m sticking to my console thank you very much. Although, the thought comes to mind that Natal may be a good thing. The sooner we look into this technology and work out all the problems and develop the necessary AI, the sooner I can have my holodeck.
Like everyone else, I bought a Wii, and yet it rarely gets played. The fact that I have a Zelda game unplayed for it is astonishing for me. I prefer to sit back and relax while playing thou, not having to flail my arms around and be more involved. Lazy? Why yes I am, and that suits me because I want to relax, not workout.
When I first got my Xbox Live Vision camera I also played the no controller requried game TotemBall available on XBLA. I have played that maybe 2 or 3 times and then never went back to it. Maybe Natal will be a great advancement in technology for motion controlled interactivity, but I can’t see me getting too involved, but you never know.