Please bear with me, this is the first time I’ve attempted writing a feature like this. It’s certainly not an easy topic to discuss but I have to get started somewhere right? These opinions are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of ButtonMasher. Now onto the cynicism and judgements!

I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, but there’s no way I can actually see Project Natal succeeding. The technology is impressive, I’m not denying that, but to apply it to all things gaming, to replace the controller, it’s just not going to happen. Sure the Wii has proven to be popular, appealing to the young and old alike, but to go without a controller completely is another thing altogether.

So far all they’ve shown us is a brick-breaking mini-game (Ricochet), a paint program, an unwieldy version of Burnout Paradise and Milo. It’s anybody’s guess what that one is. Project Natal promises so much, and in all the demonstrations Microsoft have given journalists, they’ve neglected to show one thing; a full game in development. Surely with all the money thrown behind this they got to develop a first party game showing Natal in all its glory. Perhaps they have but are keeping it under wraps. Or maybe, just maybe they’ve got nothing to show because it just isn’t possible to create such a game.

As the EyeToy developers pointed out, the developers behind Microsoft’s Natal & Sony’s Move have a gargantuan task ahead of them. MacDonald warns of potential pitfalls, such as people getting too tired after rigorous play, and the danger of replicating the Wii but at the same time not leaving enough space for the casual crowd. And also the price charged for the hardware.

Peter Molyneux has been an opponent to the traditional gaming controller for some time now. In 2008, he and Phil Harrison criticized the 360 and PS3 controllers for being too complicated. So it was only appropriate he lead Lionhead in a secret project unveiled at E3 in 2009, along with Project Natal. That project was called Milo, and more than just showing abilities of Project Natal it showed an advanced artificial intelligence. Talk to a little boy, and he can understand your tone of voice and  facial expressions. It’s truly something out of science fiction. But can it really translate to games or is it just another toy like Eyepet?

Now the point I’ve been trying to get to is gameplay. How will gamers actually interact with this thing? Is it going to be as easy as they say it is? Is there too much control? I think that a full 360 degrees of movement is perhaps too much. Hey, now we know why they called it the “Xbox 360”. Those clever buggers at Microsoft were working on Natal all along!

All jokes aside, why are buttons and sticks so wonderful you ask? For starters they give you precision. Simply tilting the stick in one direction enables your character to walk in that one direction. How do they propose this for Natal games? Auto-walk? Walking on the spot? These solutions just don’t sit right with me. With a button press you have instant action. While a body movement (forgetting about lag and all the rest), such as turning a door handle, represents a full on body movement that takes a number of seconds to complete.

People have cited reasons where Natal and the controller could work together but in an extremely limited capacity. With Microsoft spending (most likely) millions on the development for Xbox development as well as PC, I don’t think developers have the money or time to invest in little gimmicks that help the player tilt their head around a corner in a first-person shooter. Though obviously some will try; Molyneux and Lionhead are putting little Natal features into Fable III that are completely optional. When it comes down to it, mini-game compilations are obviously the first thing to come out and will unfortunately dominate the marketplace.

Natal isn’t only a camera however, it has an inbuilt microphone for audio input, which has already proved to be useful for some games so far. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for starters (although it often mucked up my commands), SOCOM and H.A.W.X. And playing online multiplayer without a headset sounds pretty nifty, not to mention more natural, shouting at the TV screen, like it’s a rugby match.

Then we have Sony’s Move which compared to Natal, was a big secret until recently. They’ve only just started proper demonstrations and a marketing campaign. It has an interesting approach using both the PlayStation Eye camera and the motion controller with the glowing bulb at the top. But even then, a stick can only be used in so many ways. So it wasn’t a surprise when Sony announced the sub-controller, a little wireless attachment with an analogue stick.

Natal won’t be able to completely capture the casual crowd. Making it completely accessible has in a round about way, done the opposite. The Wii still has a controller in your hand, even though it looks more like a TV remote, it’s still a physical controller. And the nunchuck (as well as Sony’s sub-controller) provides proper 3D movement of your character in-game.

Think about contact for a second. Nintendo and Sony’s controllers have rumble feedback. Natal has you swatting balls that you can’t even feel. The lack of contact, even if it is virtual, really takes away from the kind of experiences you can have with Natal.

Natal is a brilliant idea, it really shows how technology is progressing and all so rapidly too. But I just don’t see it working in turn with game design. The controls will either be too precise or too loose, making games actually harder to control. Not to mention physical activity which as well as making you tired, makes players focus on themselves and not the actual games, taking away that immersion developers strive for.

Now I could be completely wrong and Project Natal sells millions more units than the Wii, but from what I’ve seen so far, it quite simply is going to fail. It works fine as a toy but does it really make games control better? All will be revealed when Project Natal releases this holiday season (hopefully with a new name).

But what do you guys think? Will Project Natal be a success or a failure? Or maybe something in-between?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Feature Article, Games, Playstation 3, Wii, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.