The Power Glove Revolution.
There is a veritable smorgasbord of potential topics by which to focus today's post; micro-transactions, ads in games, EA in general (honestly one could write a whole series of books on EA's transgressions alone) and just about everything Sony has done in the recent months. But those my friends are easy pickings, the low hanging fruit - gnawed upon by the vast wildlife that is this internet. Instead I will be turning my time towards something else, something further out of the spotlight and perhaps more nefarious than any of the aforementioned affronts committed by the respective companies.
I am going to focus on the console formerly known as the revolution, a console I refuse to acknowledge by any other name. I choose not to dwell on the fact that the console essentially offers nothing more than last-gen power and graphics. I don't even mind (much) that Nintendo has largely forsaken its adult audience for the easy Pokemon and cartoon related sales.
No, instead I will turn my point of focus to the central selling point for this system, the user interface. The controller by which a human can merge with a machine, their actions and motions mimicked by their electronic avatar! It sounds almost too good to believe when stated like that - which by the way, was the point. It does not function as a perfect interface between man and machine, mimicking motion and allowing for dynamic gameplay. No, instead the function is no different than that of a regular controller, and in fact in many cases is worse. In a racing game tilting the controller to the right will result in turning in the game to the right, at the same time using an analog stick and tilting it slightly to the right yields, and I am sure this is a big surprise, turning towards the right. Now, I will admit that in this particular function the tilting method offers a slight improvement to game immersion, however, I contend that this is the best case scenario. More often the case will be that you will use excessive controller movements to simulate what would be accomplished with the simple press of a button assuming a regular setup.
I offer for example one of the premier titles, Mario Strikers, an upcoming Nintendo branded soccer game. In Strikers when a player desires to slide-tackle they will need to shake their controller, compared to other soccer games where the same action would be handled by yet again a simple button press. Another example would be a party game where you have to, again, shake the controller in order to roll dice - an action that would usually be handled with, and I am hoping you can guess.... the press of a button. In short this "new" user interface does little more than over-complicate video game interaction, a feat by which Nintendo is leveraging an entire generation of console and game sales.
Now, if perhaps the console had the processing power to correlate exact movements between the player and the character in the game this could be a novel and worthwhile method of interface. By doing this it would allow players to control the game both more intuitively and with more precision, only then would it be an advancement to gaming as opposed to a sidestep at best.
I am going to focus on the console formerly known as the revolution, a console I refuse to acknowledge by any other name. I choose not to dwell on the fact that the console essentially offers nothing more than last-gen power and graphics. I don't even mind (much) that Nintendo has largely forsaken its adult audience for the easy Pokemon and cartoon related sales.
No, instead I will turn my point of focus to the central selling point for this system, the user interface. The controller by which a human can merge with a machine, their actions and motions mimicked by their electronic avatar! It sounds almost too good to believe when stated like that - which by the way, was the point. It does not function as a perfect interface between man and machine, mimicking motion and allowing for dynamic gameplay. No, instead the function is no different than that of a regular controller, and in fact in many cases is worse. In a racing game tilting the controller to the right will result in turning in the game to the right, at the same time using an analog stick and tilting it slightly to the right yields, and I am sure this is a big surprise, turning towards the right. Now, I will admit that in this particular function the tilting method offers a slight improvement to game immersion, however, I contend that this is the best case scenario. More often the case will be that you will use excessive controller movements to simulate what would be accomplished with the simple press of a button assuming a regular setup.
I offer for example one of the premier titles, Mario Strikers, an upcoming Nintendo branded soccer game. In Strikers when a player desires to slide-tackle they will need to shake their controller, compared to other soccer games where the same action would be handled by yet again a simple button press. Another example would be a party game where you have to, again, shake the controller in order to roll dice - an action that would usually be handled with, and I am hoping you can guess.... the press of a button. In short this "new" user interface does little more than over-complicate video game interaction, a feat by which Nintendo is leveraging an entire generation of console and game sales.
Now, if perhaps the console had the processing power to correlate exact movements between the player and the character in the game this could be a novel and worthwhile method of interface. By doing this it would allow players to control the game both more intuitively and with more precision, only then would it be an advancement to gaming as opposed to a sidestep at best.
posted by inexhist at 10:59 PM
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