Some Thoughts on Project Natal

Unlike the Wii, Natal uses your real motions, so repeating actions are a no-no (unless you want to). I see Natal being used not so much for simple actions like "thumbs up and thumbs down", but more for inventing your own way of playing a game. There are already fighting games where you can make your own combos.

Natals weak spot is that unless they do things like preset commands (like the Wii) we are limited to actions that are in our capabilities. A big reason I play video games is because I can experience things I could never otherwise do, immersion if you will. Natal limits me to things I can do on my own unless they use "preset waggle commands". Of course, there is always the fact that the visuals will be provided.

Also, Natal limits you so that you can only face one direction, so for FPSs we must still have some control stick or a waggle command for the direction we are facing. for that reason a first person ninja fighting game will be hard to do because you won't be able to make that punch while spinning around. On the same game, you won't be able to do a spinning drop-kick of doom.

There are a number of other thing to consider. Is Natal powerful enough to track all of your fingers? If not, what about triggers, buttons, etc. If so, I would still like some kind of physical button to make it feel like a am lulling a trigger. This problem is easily solved with specialized controllers, but then we go back to what the Wii already has. Additionally, will we have to drop our pistol controller and pick up our assault rifle one? If not, then how will it limit games? The immersion might be nerfed if I am holding a rocket launcher in game, but only a pistol in life.

Also, when the physical and virtual worlds collide, it can screw up competitive gaming, giving the more physically equipped people the advantage. SOme sports suffer from this. The people with more money get the better equipment and so have more potential. But now I am getting nit-picky.

Don't get me wrong, Natal is a great thing, I will definitely be getting it. I know that it is aimed at casual gamers and I appreciate the fact that Microsoft is widening their audience. But Natal would have taken a lot of time and money. I have also noticed that the PS3 is catching up to Xbox on the games front. I'm worried that Microsoft will ditch the hardcore audience to an extent to chase after the casual gamer audience.

Yahtzee from Zero Puncuation once said:

Oh sure, you'll get a few sales from the gimmick crowd...Everything is fine until someone invents with a slightly shinier object and then you end up crawling back to the core fanbase you spent the last few years blowing off.

Then again, I guess we just can't judge properly until we see what developers try to do with Natal.