By Shane Willoughby of thegamingliberty.com
To be definitively convinced by Project Natal’s face value revolutionary tact would be a huge mistake. Sure, watching a Microsoft representative gleefully bash red balls on a distinctively green-soaked 360 E3 stage with no controller may look good, but these public displays of Natal love should not be enough to convince you whether or not you the peripheral is all it’s cracked up to be and more.
To be won over or to ‘Jump In’ with Natal from what we’ve seen thus far just isn’t enough to persuade us all that Natal is the paradigm shifting gaming evolution Microsoft and Fable writer Peter Molyneux keeps telling us it is. The only prevailing emotion or sentiment that one should rely on, until we play it at least, is skepticism and skepticism alone.
Yesterday, two TGL skeptics (pragmatic ones mind you) attended a behind closed doors first look at Microsoft’s Project Natal in Dublin. Weighed down by a surfeit of questions and a glut of instinctive and habitual doubts, we skeptical types were treated to about 15 minutes of Natal time and honestly we can tell you that Natal, even from this small insight, is every skeptic’s nightmare.
The real deal
Within seconds of standing before the device for the very first time, we skeptical types were left reeling in shame for any inclinations of ‘doubt’ or ‘skepticism’ we had about Natal to this point. Natal is the real deal, plays like a dream and proves us skeptics irrevocably wrong. This dream is every doubter’s nightmare because it proves us all to be very mistaken.
It’s at this point that I’d like to add that 15 minutes with Natal still isn’t enough time to gauge just how much of a dream the actual device is. I would be doing myself and everyone else for that matter an injustice by suggesting that by virtue of my 15 minutes with the device, that I’ve had the ‘complete’ Natal experience. I have not. 15 minutes just isn’t enough time.
But, I can tell you that those 15 minutes were utterly fantastic and really gave us at TGL a sense of just how special Natal could be.
Upon arriving at the venue, we were greeted by Alex Waller, a Microsoft Natal representative who was more than a little enthused to let us actually get in front of the device and experience Natal for the very first time. After a couple of minutes of ground rules i.e. no questions on price, launch, games etc (all the questions you’d want to ask) it was time to play – Microsoft are saving all their big Natal announcements for E3 we were informed.
Before us stood a 50 odd inch Panasonic HD TV, an Xbox 360 Debug Console in White and on a small knee high table, the Project Natal camera peripheral.
The device was white, as in the colour of standard arcade 360s and appeared to be a slightly altered and refined shape to the original images of Natal that we are used to seeing from E3 and CES.
After a short introduction, Alex literally took to the peripheral and we were introduced to Ricochet, that red ball bashing game the MS reps played live on stage at E3 last year. We were informed that this version of Ricochet is much closer to the final retail version we can expect when Natal is released and that the game has been significantly tweaked since last we saw it. And so our experience with Natal began.
How else do I describe what we saw other than to say that Alex lifted up his hand and waved it from left to right to choose between ‘male’ and ‘female’ avatars in the main Ricochet menu. The Natal device instantly picked up Alex and what we were watching seemed like magic.
After choosing the male option an avatar was popped into centre screen and red balls started to come towards him who was now standing in a kind of invisible tunnel. Alex started to play and literally started to hit the on-screen balls in the same manner as in the previous footage of the game you have all seen before.
But the difference of seeing someone react and literally hit these balls close up is an altogether different experience than to just watching someone do it on YouTube. It’s a powerful experience. Alex’s avatar was incredibly responsive and he was punching, kicking and kneeing red balls at every discernable angle with different distributions of weight with no lag or no delays.
Much like the Wii when it first came out, it was nearly as fun to just actually watch Alex jump around and react than it was to watch the on screen gameplay. Only this time, more importantly, Alex isn’t holding a Wii-mote or any kind of a controller.
Alex played two rounds of Ricochet. The goal, though we didn’t go into it, was to simply smash the red balls back down the tunnel to hit what seemed like wooden panels and targets before the timer ran out. It wasn’t long before I had the chance to experience Ricochet myself and my first interaction with Natal was to simply put my hand out in front of me and move the small on screen icon to the right to confirm that I wanted to start a new game. Doing this seemed so strange and yet so natural.
Perhaps this is the best way to describe the Natal experience. Everything about it was so natural, so simple and so easy. No buttons, no fixing the angle of the camera, nothing. Just stand and play. Alex told us that if you stand out of range then you’re on screen avatar would start to become invisible and the game would eventually pause itself. For my game of Ricochet I stood about 2 and a half to 3 meters from the camera.
Responsive
My Ricochet avatar was incredibly responsive. Any pose, any movement, anything, was recreated instantly on screen. Even jumping on the spot or twisting my upper body saw the avatar doing so too. Bending my knees, inverting them inwards or clapping my hands was again perfectly reiterated by my avatar. No lag, no delay and no thinking.
Playing Ricochet was simple. The game’s timer doesn’t start until you hit the first red ball that hovers at around shoulder height. The balls then come back at you fast and quick and as you react and you attack the ball with whatever limb you wish, said limb with ‘light up’ on your on screen avatar. You could head the ball, chest it, kick it straight or get your foot around it and kick it into the ground to see it bounce. You don’t have to smash the ball either; you can lightly or gently tap it. There was a great feeling of control and weight.
After our two rounds we were introduced to a two player sequence where literally another player can jump in and join you in the Ricochet red ball tunnel instantaneously. The two player experience was actually quite fun and there was no let up in responsiveness or just how interactive it all felt.
It’s just such a shame that we could only play Ricochet because from what we played, as fun and as responsive as the title was, we just couldn’t help but feel that there’s so much more that Natal can do. Bashing red balls is a great introduction to the peripheral and although some three years on we’re all still inclined to throw on Wii sports for a spot of tennis or boxing, you can’t help but feel that with technology this good, Natal is much better than Ricochet.
Unlike Wii Sports, after three years you may never ever go back to Ricochet. The experience will have probably evolved so much more in that time. That said, it did give us a great feel for the device and was a more than interesting introduction to the experience. Natal’s little red ball game that could, won us over.
Though Ricochet itself is not revolutionary, Natal could very well be. Playing Ricochet was not just playing a hi-def Eye Toy game. There was just so much depth and precision that comparisons with Eye Toy, though a little justified, shouldn’t hold any weight here.
Before playing Natal we had so many questions and after our 15 minutes and actually playing it, we have so many more questions. Natal is the real deal. But we need to see more. Microsoft needs to prove just how powerful the Natal experience is. That’s what E3 is for. After 15 minutes with Natal, we want more. I’ve never heard of a man suffering from Post Natal depression before now.
TheGamingLiberty.com is Ireland’s Premier Videogame Website.
