HEAD BLOG

Microsoft kicked off the first big conference of E3 this year. It held the attention of the audiences with previews of upcoming game releases such as Gears of War 3 and Halo Reach and announced and all new slimline Xbox 360 but it was the Hands-Free Kinect presentation that was really the focus of the show.

Originally named Project Natal, Kinect is an upcoming motion control peripheral that requires no controller. It tracks your body movements allowing you to interact with games directly and was touted as being able to do a lot more than the Wii. Basically, Microsoft is jumping on the motion control train (and Sony seems to be following suit with Move) in order to grab a slice of the Nintendo pie. It makes sense, of course. Nintendo have shown that there is a lot of money to be made in the casual gaming market and any business would have to be very myopic to turn a blind eye to that.  Microsoft want in. They want some of those brand new casual gamers playing on their console and in order to do that they’ve come up with Kinect. I don’t think it’s going to work out.

It should be remembered that when Nintendo started marketing the Wii they moved into a blue ocean of opportunity where there was no competition. Whilst Microsoft and Sony were focusing on the more hardcore gaming crowd with the 360 and the PS3, Nintendo struck out to attract a brand new audience who had perhaps never been interested in gaming before. It resulted in the Wii selling millions. It also resulted in a lot of gamers who prefer a larger amount of depth and complexity in their games buying a 360 or PS3 instead of a Wii. If Microsoft want to sell to the more causal crowd they will be mostly be competing with Nintendo for customers rather than attracting brand new ones. They will have to convince them that Kinect is worth spending money on; which could end up being pretty expensive if the customer doesn’t already own a 360. They will probably have to convince them that they need Kinect even though it is probable they already own a Wii. Most importantly of all, they are going to have to convince them that the Kinect can provide a different sort of entertainment than the Wii.

Ingenuity. That’s what helped bring so much of the Wii’s success. Unfortunately, it seems to be lacking on Kinect. For every popular Nintendo title then Kinect has an answer. If you enjoy playing Mario Kart, why not have a go on Joyride? If you like using Wii Fit for exercise then give Your Shape a try! And it goes on – the answer to Just Dance is Dance Central, to Wii Sports is Kinect Sports, to Wii Sports Resort is Kinect Adventures. They’ve even got a giant tiger/kitten pet simulator called Kinectimals which is very, very reminiscent of Nintendogs. Nintendogs was released in 2005. Have there really been no original ideas since then? Do Microsoft believe that the controller free technology on Kinect is enough to push these games onto customers who are likely to already own similar games? Maybe they do and maybe they are right. Maybe they plan to make games in the future that really push the limits of motion control with new and interesting ideas. At the moment, I wouldn’t bet any money on it.

There is only one sure-fire way to create new gaming audiences and to put consoles in the hands of people who may not have wanted one previously – innovation. An audience normally doesn’t know what it wants until you invent it and tell them so – something Nintendo did very well with the Wii. To be fair, innovation is hard to do and it is easier to try and jump on a bandwagon for an audience that has already been proven to exist. Kinect is playing it safe by chasing Ninentdo’s casual gamer but it is unlikely to reap the grand rewards that Microsoft is hoping for.

After 60+ hours of game play I came to the end of Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) on the Xbox360 by Bioware. As with most games I have greatly enjoyed I was left with a slight sense of disappointment that it was over, but this game also left me with an emotion that game endings have not elicited in me before – excitement. Let me explain…

DA:O is a game based in European myth and fantasy but is really a game about choice. It is the game that Fable 2 promised to be and failed to deliver but perhaps with less whimsy. From the beginning you are presented with a large range of customisable options for your main character. You have freedom to define your specialist class (warrior, mage, etc.) and the appearance of your character is pretty much up to you (as an aside on this, I noticed that you were free to choose from a range of skintones for your character, but most NPC’s in the game were white – it would have been nice to see some more diversity within the game itself). There are six different origin stories for your character to begin the game from – each of these origins will significantly influence the choices available to you during the game.

Now, here is the thing about choice. Many video games (like Fable 2) have said they would offer it, but it very rarely has an impact on the game itself. In video games choices are limited to the extremes of morality – would you like to care for these orphan kittens or would you like to throw them in a river to drown? You are hardly ever presented with options that inhabit a morally grey area. More than that, these choices often have very little impact on the story narrative itself. You can be as evil or as good as you want and there are no direct consequences apart from perhaps a change in NPC dialogue. The choices do not influence the gameplay and you are still playing a linear narrative. Choices are meant to make games feel as if we are creating our own adventure instead of playing out a predetermined path. I had not yet played a game that makes me feel like that until I played DA:O.

DA:O offers the feeling of genuine choice when traveling through the lands of Ferelden. Of  course, there are times when I am stuck to the story path but I was not limited to having only 2 ways of moving the game forward (good vs. evil). I was presented with moral dilemmas that actually made me pause to think. Sometimes, all the options I was presented had persuasive good points and points and I really had to decide what I thought would be best either for myself, my companions or the world my characters inhabited. This also applied to conversations I had with many of the world’s NPC’s. These choices would then change the world of the game around me. Conversations may become closed off if I pissed someone off, new quests might open if I made a decision in favour of one person over another and companion characters might leave my party for good if I made certain decisions. Sometimes, I couldn’t even guess what the outcome may be so I was forced to rely on what I thought was the best thing to do, rather than try to second guess the game to make sure things went in my favour. Because of this I really felt like I was carving my own path through the game and the adventure was unique to me.

All this relates to the end of the game. The epilogue quite clearly shows you how your actions and decisions have changed the world of Ferelden for good. Depending on how you play the game there is a diverse set of outcomes that will likely vary from player to player. Now, this is what excited me. Bioware has another game called Mass Effect that is also based on these principles of choice but in a sci-fi rather than fantasy setting. Mass Effect 2 is due to be released in 2010 and will use the players Mass Effect save in order to continue the story. I can already see that the DA:O epilogue will have a significant impact on the sequel I am sure Bioware are planning to make. This is why the game made me feel like I was left on a cliffhanger – the story, MY story is not yet over. It will continue and my previous decisions will impact on what happens. I am left to wonder if that demon I let go in exchange for 25 soverighns will come back to haunt me (I needed the money at the time!) or if it really was a good idea to get romantically involved with a certain character. I want to know!

DA:O has not promised me choice but then denied me the ability to shape my own story. It made me feel like I was having an adventure. I am sure that in 20 years (maybe even 5 years!) the choices presented by Bioware in DA:O will look limited and trite in comparison to the games being produced, but I really think that this game is one of the first to understand what choice really means. If you look closely, sure, DA:O still moved my character down a pre-planned narrative but it was up to me how I got there. I think this is where the future lies. I could go back and replay DA:O with a different character and different choices to see where I end up, but I don’t want to. I played this game by deciding to do what I thought was best. I look forward to finding out the consequences to that.

The game explodes on to your console

When I was 9 years old Santa brought me and my two little brothers one of the best gifts a child could get. A SNES console and Street Fighter II. Read more…