Sunjammer

Hell yeah i take games seriously. 24th year of playing them and counting, 8th year of working with them. There is an art here that i love, and removing tactile response is like translating your favorite novel into SMS language.

I'm all kinds of pro new technology. The dicks are the people who are removing tactile feedback. That's my main beef. I'm all for new motion control methods, but i basically DEMAND that i can actually feel some sort of response. I don't think it's crazy to imagine people holding random household objects when playing a tennis game using the Natal just to get a sense of weight in there, or that there will be a peripheral market for "junk to hold", such as gun peripherals that the Natal will pick up etc.

This has sort of become derailed. I don't really mind a new EyeToy style addon, as much as i'm not going to buy it there's certainly a market segment for that kind of thing. The notion put on by MS and their partners however is that this is some sort of brilliant new advance in controller technology that will change how people play games, and to that i say people have flailed around in front of cameras for quite a while, and that this sort of tech actually REMOVES integral parts of the game playing experience that are, for me at least a big part of why i keep coming back to it.

It feels good to press a button and see a system respond.
It feels good to drive off the track and hit the gravel and have the controller rumble in your hands.
It feels good to grab a controller tightly when you're playing a scary game and it's a tense moment.
It feels good to physically hand the controls over to a friend.
It feels good to pull a trigger, hear the bang, feel the rumble, see the enemy fall.
It feels good to gently nudge a stick forward to move closer to an edge without overstepping.

These are positive vibes i personally feel when playing games, and things that i connect emotionally to the controller. This is why users argue over which controller feels the best, which sticks are the best, button layouts, yadayada. They connect physically with the way they play the game, where the goal is effectively to eliminate guesswork between the player and the way the system responds. This is the absolute ESSENCE of control scheme designs.

I simply don't want to guess wether a gesture will be picked up or not. So give me a super sensitive, super analog motion sensing controller that actually responds to me physically. Give me a sense of touch in games. That is what we are missing for the circle to be complete. Not REMOVING it. Two steps forward, 3 steps back. Damn you, dick scientists.

The sense of touch is a god damn important thing to a whole lot of people. The Wii controllers at the very least let you feel things through rumble, and the basic sensation of holding a physical object. What this kind of utter bullshit does is take Sony's fuckup removal of the rumble from their SixAxis and multiply that by dozens. Even if it works as advertised, they have effectively removed the ability to feel what you are doing. You have a system where the user makes a larger physical investment and receives even less feedback than before. There is literally no tactile feedback to this system.

Relaxation is out the window, you require a larger space for gameplay (not to mention multiplayer), and game designs are forced to rely on a technology that, unless this is SCI-FI HAPPY FUN LET'S-PRETEND-HOUR, is nowhere near as precise as even the cheapest mocap rig you'll find out there. A simple depth-aware camera (looks stereo to me) simply will not be enough. Kudo's hilarious attempts at demoing the mocap (even though this was an early version) and watching the thing freak the fuck out speaks volumes. I don't even want to get into the lighting conditions this thing probably requires.

This shit is Playstation Eye all over again. Look forward to waving your hands popping balloons, and not feeling a god damn thing when you do. Technology trumping the user experience, what a fucking hoot.

I'm actually kind of *angry* with people who think the next evolutionary step in controllers is removing buttons altogether. Say what you want about the Wii, pairing triangulation with accelerometers is a very solid first step towards a motion sensitive controller that is precise enough for gameplay and still capable of providing physical response. Maybe it's time someone stepped up and looked at gloves again? Jesus christ, let me FEEL something!

Guess it needs saying that i'm a 360 owner and i love the system.

Edit: The "dicks" thing is sort of tongue in cheek :P It's just my gut feeling. People wanting to take my toys away. Grr.

Oh my god the ergonomics of that unit look even worse than the previous one. What the hell are they thinking with that analog positioning?

More Bionic Commando plz kthx. I liked the ending, even if it was a little abrupt. And it felt fucking stupid killing Super Joe. I went through all that shit in the original trying to save his ass, now i need to button mash to KILL him?