Kinecting with your Family

Kinecting with your family

One of the newest and more interesting forays into motion gaming is Microsoft’s Kinect. Eschewing controller’s altogether and instead putting your body and movement at the forefront of this new innovative product. Kinect is very similar to Sony’s eye toy in that it uses a sophisticated camera system to track your movements and place your body in the game world. Unlike the eye toy however instead of taking the video feed of yourself and your room behind you. Kinect takes your body movement and transfers it to your avatar on screen. So if you jump on screen your avatar will jump as well.

          Kinect in and of itself is not a very robust fitness coach or trainer. This can be easily remedied using 3^rd party software of course. The most substantial software offering for fitness purposes I feel is Ubisofts newest franchise your shape. While not only visually stylish as you can see from the embedded video it is also technically very strong when compared to a Wii offering. Your shape has many different modes and activities that one can pursue using the game such as kickboxing and Tai Chi or Yoga, along with mini games such as target practice.

    You'll burn calories while having fun, either with a personal trainer, taking classes or through family-friendly mini games. As you exercise, you'll receive specific feedback on your every move, so you know you're getting the most out of it. That's because your workouts are created for you based on your specific fitness level and the goals you're setting for yourself. And, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved responds to your moves with fun, surprising, interactive visuals that keep you motivated and engaged.

Your shape, while off hand is the main fitness focused game is not the only way for you or your family to use Kinect to stay in shape. Kinect, is still in and of itself a videogame device and peripheral, because of this games and entertainment is (hopefully will always be) the main focus of the system. As such there are many games that are coming out at launch for the system. Such as Kinect adventures, Kinectables, Star Wars Kinect, Kinect sports, such software is sure to be unrefined more caused by being launch titles for a new system then being poorly designed. However, they are also sure to be interesting in concept if nothing else along with being enjoyable and burning some calories while you wave your arms around and pretend to hold a light saber. Kinectables is a very interesting and wildly innovative game; it is very reminiscent of Peter Molyneux game concept of Milo. Milo was a game concept debuted at an earlier E3 and the game is made and centered on interacting with a game character. It was centered around using your voice to affect and interact with the character on screen. While it was never really shown past concept videos and mock interactions on-stage it left a veritable deep impression among gamers and journalists. While still existing in some form or another whether in development still or not focus has since been shifted to make Kinectables the new showcase game at least in many journalists’ eyes. Kinectables the new showcase game very rightfully so when considering the audience seems to be striving to enamor. A game in which you take care of and interact with an exotic pet such as a tiger is a more interesting pet game compared to Nintendogs. Assuming of course that face biting is not some unknown game element involved. Although, I personally would not be saddened by such a feature and would thus review the game with an automatic 10. The game was debuted to the public at this year’s E3 along of course with Kinect itself. As shown in the adorable presentation shown in the video the game requires someone, who may or may not be an adorable little girl, to speak to the pet and give it instructions. You can interact with the animal mock physically but moving your arms and hands. Also, according to the presentation the game will be able to sense whether or not you’re within the camera view and interacts on that level as well.

12 years of waiting, six years of development

Yes, that’s right twelve years after the debut title from Blizzard entertainment Starcraft 2: wings of liberty, has finally been released. It's been in development for six years now with months of beta testing and balancing under its belt, it's finally time for Blizzard to let loose their baby on the hungrily waiting PC gamer masses. While fans have been waiting twelve years for the sequel to the critically acclaimed RTS we are going to have to wait until the next two expansions to release in later years to fully experience this monumental game. Blizzard entertainment is famously known for not giving games a release date and instead only letting everyone know that it will be given a date of release when it is ready. Few game developers out there are able to afford such autonomy from their publishers; Blizzard however is far from your average developer however. Blizzard was known for their highly balanced RTS (Real Time Strategy) games in the 90’s, it has lately been known more for their breakout MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has a remarkable 8 million+ players, while that might seem small to some you must take into account that each of these players pay a monthly fee to play this game online. This game not only makes their developer Blizzard a lot of money but they are also owned by the publisher Activision, this game makes the developer quite a lot of money every quarter. World of Warcraft would have to make them both a pretty penny considering that Blizzard early said that since the game launched they have spent over 100 million dollars just for maintaining the game for all these years. If this massive game that has been going for many years has cost Blizzard over 100 million dollars how much is this game that has been in development for six years cost them? Unfortunately Blizzard refuses to talk about such a figure, maybe after the game launches they will become less tight lipped about the amount.


Now if you remember earlier I said that this is not the full game, this is true in one sense but not entirely. The original Starcraft game had three campaigns which spanned three wholly different species each campaign had ten missions apiece and each mission lasted anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or two depending on the way it’s played. Wings of Liberty however is one species campaign but the campaign has around thirty missions inside of it along with various ways to play through it. In total all missions together can put you over twenty hours of gameplay once through depending on how you play. Like I said this is only one species the Terrans or Humans as such the others will come out later down the line and require you to purchase an expansion pack. Each one of the Expansion packs will be as long as the base starcraft 2 game Wings of Liberty. This game has been awaited ravenously by the hungry PC gaming masses waiting for Blizzards newest game, of which they have only released a few with three different franchises. Blizzards game quality stands for itself each game is rigorously tested for issues and bugs, it’s scoured for balance issues and when they think it’s nearing completion they open it up for closed Beta testing. In this phase they basically scour through their database of gamers with certain PC specs and allow them to play through this game and try and break it any way they can think of. Blizzards fanbase is such that when a bug or issue is found it’s immediately reported in detail on their forum or through email and to Blizzards credit, it’s fixed rather quickly and patched. In fact Blizzard is such a stickler for making their games as close to perfect as possible they still issue game fixing patches for Starcraft 11 years after it’s released. Whether this is because of their inherent love for their games and perfectionism, or because Starcraft is still so entrenched in South Korea I don’t know.

Here is hoping that this game will be almost as big of a hit as the original Starcraft was and that launched PC gaming tournaments and tv shows in South Korea that is still on to this day.

Video games have no place at the big boy table.

I don't know about you guys, but I would rather change someones opinion on games than to tell him he's wrong and has no idea what he's talking about. As a writer and editor *along with my love for philosophical discussions* I think talking to someone who is as entrenched in media, and art by extension, as he himself is would be amazing to discuss what makes art and if video games can play off of the intricacies of it's his sordid history and mechanics to become such.

Much like a lot of paintings and films sometimes it takes someone who knows the history of the medium to actually understand why something is so remarkable and well put together.

You can't just walk up to a van gogh and expect to understand what really makes it good. For such insight you really need to understand why this piece of work was so refreshing and well done in the medium.

You just can't go and play bioshock and expect those that don't understand mechanics in video games to see why gameplay has such a critical part to play in it. You can't just expect Ebert to sit down with bioshock and know that going through a video game normally either gives you freedom or plants you on a linear path. Then to come to a game where you can explore every inch of the level and gives you a sense of freedom in this space. To only find out that you really had no choice on what you did because much like game development you become so used to being told how to work a game so you don't question anything when a character is helping you understand a new environment.

These things are very indicative of our medium that there are some things that you cannot do outside of video games and get the same resonance. You inhabit your character and rely on knowing that you control all of his actions even if it is self deprecating to his character.

I would write more but I'll have to save that for another or later. 

I know what you’re thinking our games are already realistic.

The problem is that the more photorealistic the graphics get it’s easier to notice what is going wrong. Take as an example stairs; they can look great there is nothing wrong with the models and textures. Well let’s not talk about Alpha Protocol it’s probably not a bad model the textures are just lacking. I would take a screenshot of what I mean, but I’m not going to subject myself to that game again. What I am talking about in terms of stairs is however, the fact that for many games there is only one solid movement animation. Don’t get me wrong I know most games have more than one animation for movement. I’m talking about the fact that they are all made for the player to run on a horizontal axis. There are generally no animations for walking up/down stairs. Even if there is such an animation in the game it doesn’t feel like your character is running / walking up a staircase there is no weight to them, I’ll talk more about weight later though. There are some games that get these animations feeling and looking right, the first game that comes to my mind is Alan Wake. Now call me crazy *please don’t I can’t take the pressure* but you have no idea how much time I spent in Alan Wake just running up and down the stairs and marveling at the animations. Alright, as soon as I wrote that I began to feel crazy let’s forget I ever said such a thing. This animation is a make or break for me in terms of immersing myself in the game. I don’t care how nice the graphics are but if I walk down some stairs and it looks like he/she is floating above it, it reminds me that I am in a game and not inhabiting the character. Alright so the first paragraph was all about stairs, things can only get more interesting from here right? Right?

Alright now it’s time to talk about rock physics and yes I’m serious. If they are going to try and make the game realistic, yet walking along you can move a generously sized chunk of rock just by bumping into it with your feet, there seems to be some kind of gravity problem. Either that or your character must have spent all his time in the gym on his legs, they must be huge. This is a problem for me and I especially noticed how much it bothered me, when I saw gameplay in Crysis 2 where chunks of a building exploded off of the side of it and then bounced harmlessly on the cement or car. Needless to say I cringed at that moment. Lucasarts has created the euphoria system to give everything the ability to realistically react to opposing force glass, wood, and metal are all wonderfully realized put a rock in front of someone and it will stay the exact same rock no breaking apart in the least. Now I understand this is probably not that big of a deal for you in games. As I’ve already said I’m probably just crazy.

Speaking of crazy I want to touch on one topic very lightly because I know it’s a heavier handed topic for another day. The animation of shooting or getting shot is a very tricky thing to pull off when the player character can shoot any body part they want. This becomes a problem because I don’t want to see the same animation when I shoot some in the balls compared to when I shoot them in the face. Yes I know that everyone seems to use ragdoll physics, that’s fine it’s a good physics model but when they die and then float to the ground and land with no weight to them. Not to mention that after they fall they have the same problem that rocks do in the fact that they are essentially weightless. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked across a room after my genocide of people that aren’t me, and had a dead body get caught on me and I panic and just started shooting at it and peeing myself. It was on Dead Space don’t look at me like that. This has become more and more of a problem when everything is looking more realistic.

That’s quite enough of that discussion it was starting to become tedious, well more tedious then I usually am I guess. Now, I want to talk about a characters weight, no I’m not calling anyone fat except for the Volus their fat and everyone should hate them. What I am talking about however is feeling a characters weight in the world. If I’m playing as Master Chief I want to feel like I’m am heavier than the marines running around if they stand on a dead piece of wood I should break down into it. I want to feel the strength that a genetically engineered super soldier has. Show him breaking things just by trying to grab it. As it stands there are few games that really show the weight of the protagonist let alone NPC’s. This is a problem if you want me to feel a connection with a game, let alone the character I inhabit. The best game I can come up with a very weight conscious character is Uncharted 2. The beginning train sequence where you climb up the side or inside of the train gives me a feeling that the character actually inhabits this world. He can’t climb up everything because the object may not be able to hold his weight.

These things are essential *to me at least* to get me immersed into a game, world, character, and story. Don’t get me wrong I still fall in love with games but they tend to be few and far between as of late. It’s the realism in certain games that makes the games great. While, fucking this up can prove disastrous to any game trying to immerse you in its world and characters.

This article was written by Craig Lynn

You can follow him on twitter

or you can email him at clynn110@email.itt-tech.edu

Take me seriously bro!

        We have games where, a physicist is able to take down an invasion from another dimension, where a genetically engineered super soldier can win a war single handedly,  and a game where a clone of a perfect soldier's arm grafted onto his enemy and is slowly taking control of his body as he tries to create his own nation of only soldiers and no one wants to nuke them. This is the medium we play around in, the one where we scream to high heaven that we want our older brother mediums to take us seriously. While we make, pew pew noises and play with our action figures and I will still be a proponent that our medium should be taken seriously.

       Our medium is the only one, you know besides the pick your own adventure books which I loath because I always die, that gives us consequences to our decisions. Yet, when you really think about the plot and what you are doing in it, it's amazing that the choices and the consequences mean anything to us at all. Why should it matter to us whether or not batman kills someone, when the character's nemesis is a crazy clown. It doesn't make sense to me when someone goes out of the way to tell me about the plot of a game. So many of our games really have ridiculous plots that if it was brought about in any other medium people would not pay attention to it.

       Yet, we will still constantly defend our genetically engineered super soldiers. Is it because of the experience that we enjoy wills us to defend what we like even though it's not all that great? Take my favorite games for example, I will always defend the plot of Halo, Assassins Creed, or anything created by Bioware. Please, don't make me discuss my massive love and respect for Bioware. It's like I am constantly having a nerd affair with Bioware and their games, thats enough of a discussion about that however.

      What games will you always and forever defend no matter how bad and incoherent they are? Metal Gear Solid does not count, cause I don't think anyone really understands what is happening.

How can we make mature games?

 

Making mature games has been a task that the industry of ours seeks to understand with a constant pace.

There have been several games that have been seeking that glory filled valley of mature games, from Custer's Revenge to Heavy Rain. The have tried many ways to make mature games for gamers that are getting older. There is even a rating for mature games and a rating for games aimed at adults. The only problem is that AO games have become synonymous with porn video games, games such as Rapelay. Is the problem with the distinctions between the mature games and the games that get put under the banner of the AO games which invariably get put behind the retailers desk, or more common just refused outright to be sold, or even played on the consoles of the time.

Custer's Revenge was a porn game nothing really else, the point of the game was to get from one side of the screen to the other side of the screen so that you could rape the Native American woman tied to a post. That was the entire game just do that over and over, not exactly what I would call going forward for the industry. Makes you glad that our industry has matured since those days doesn't it? If only however we matured more, while the game graphics and structure and story have advanced we are still children trying to figure out how to properly use our industry to say what we want to say.

Take the game Privates if you will, it's a Xbox live arcade title being created by Zombie Cow. When asked why they created a game built around such a sexual topic.

"It was built to promote safe sex messages, and was written to follow sex education guidelines in the British government's National Curriculum."

While this may have been their intention all along you cannot deny that it is very questionable for children to play and while it may have been created to promote safe sex, making a game that children will be hard fought to be able to buy it lessens the impact somewhat.

Another such game that is trying hard to bust into the area of mature game content is Heavy Rain, a game centered around a story about child kidnapping and what one father will do to try and save his son. The story is a very mature one in an industry almost centered around space marines and nerd wish-fulfillment ala Half-Life. Games that want the player to feel strong and powerful against opponents that they normally wouldn't be able to face, being able to save the world, or the princess, in the process. These are not mature games in the sense that the older gamer generation wants the games to become. These are games that revile in blood, gore, and sex games that want to be taken seriously by other mediums while allowing you to kill hordes upon hordes of enemies in minutes.

Do not get me wrong, those games are some of my favorite video games, however these are not mature games not in the sense that movies have mature movies. Heavy Rain on the other hand gives a very mature setting and story along with a nice set of consequences for your actions. I believe this is how the medium will become able to really use the term mature game. What really makes these games mature is the story, the sense of vulnerability in your character, and consequences to your actions. Such games do not even need to be constricted to Heavy Rains formula, take Mass Effects game play, it's all about the action when something happens. They want you to move about to shoot when you want to shoot to stop when you want to stop. They want you to inhabit this character and this universe. This is exactly what they are creating for the players, a universe constructed by your decisions and give you the ability to change the galaxy to whatever you want it to be become, or find out that the decisions you chose have more far reaching consequences than what you thought they had when you first decided to kill that Rachni.

This is what I believe the more mature games will soon steer more towards, consequences and story telling will soon become more popular and not just in RPG games. Here is hoping that soon mature games won't necessarily mean there are tits and someone's head is getting ripped off.

Note to self create an illustration involving a dinosaur and rawrnosaurous