Brake For Frogger!

If you’d have told me five years ago that Microsoft and Sony would spend millions of dollars in trying to ‘out Nintendo’ each other then I’d have laughed in your face, spun you round and booted you out of the door without a second thought. Nintendo were dead in the water, the Gamecube hadn’t performed anywhere near the levels they wanted and all the smart money was on them ditching home consoles for good. Then they turned up with a console that featured motion control, had a slightly silly name and wasn’t that much more powerful than a Gamecube under the hood and the world went mad for it. Suddenly, those complex things we’ve held in our hands for all these years are the enemy and must be eliminated.

"Always remember, the pad is the enemy...."

The recent Microsoft conference at E3 finally attached a name to Project Natal, the motion sensing add on we’ve been hearing so much about since last year. Microsoft Kinect, as they kept repeating during the show, is set to ‘revolutionise’ the Xbox experience upon its release later this year. I don’t know if it’s just age bringing out the cynisism in me but I’m not so sure. They rolled out some technician in order to demonstrate how you could wave your hands in front of the Kinect sensor in order to choose your music and rewind films etc. Personally, I don’t have a problem using buttons for that currently.

As far as games go Kinect really fell into three groups. Firstly there was the now standard Wii Sportsish avatar based games designed for family gatherings and parties which were shown complete with painfully embarrassing videos of Mum and Dad leaping around whilst the kids cheer them on. The came Microsoft’s ‘lifestyle’ software filled with usual yoga nonsense that follows Nintendo’s Wii Fit almost to the letter. Up next we saw the very curious section of previous Xbox 360 games updated to include Kinect controls. A quick demonstration from the guys at Turn 10 shed light on a Kinect version of Forza Motorsport. Cue some bloke who held his arms out in front of him and thrashed them from side to side like a four year old watching Formula 1. At no point in my life have I ever played a driving game and thought that it would be a much better experience all round if I can ditch the joypad and use a dinnerplate for a steering wheel instead.

Only any good if you can shoot the bloody thing

I can fully understand why Microsoft are chasing the so called ‘casual’ gaming market, Nintendo have gone there and made millions off the back of it after all. My question would be why the joypad must now be the first casualty in the bid to introduce gaming to new audiences. There are plenty of games that have simple, effective controls systems that don’t involve motion sensing which can attract those who have never thought of spending time in front of a console before. Why, after all this time, does it seem to have to be party game collections that are shunted forwards with this aim in mind?