   E3 has Started
  I was waiting for a thread like this, but I guess not much has been presented yet.The Microsoft Conference was earlier today where they showed off new games. Metal Gear is apparently coming to the Xbox. Yet another Final Fantasy game is being released. (FF 13). Valve is releasing L4D 2.Also there was a preview of Xbox's motion sensor to make the player the controller. Seems to be definitely trying to take some Wii gamers away. Especially with the new Tony Hawk Ride game with the skateboard controller. With it Lionhead studios discussed their new AI based game with a little kid. I'm not really sure what that's about but they seemed excited.Speaking of L4D:New gameplay with melee weapons. Also the the trailer is up there now.There was also a splinter cell game. Conviction. It looks a lot less about hiding now and more like a James Bond game. :PAlso Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 looks cool. The front ice picking scene was really sweet with the breaking ice and blizzard scene.// Edit OH YEAH Alan Wake. Another teaser basically. :( No release date still.(*mumble mumble* and halo stuff. Halo with some rookies and Halo something or other. A new halo game).Are you guys looking out for anything in particular?   
  That project Natal trailer is hilarious for how badly it's faked, hopefully Microsoft will sweep it under the carpet and then pretend it never happened   ;  Watched it at work before I wandered home as the Natal stuff was something we knew about and wanted to see how much could be mentioned after it.We should be getting some Natal devkits in the coming weeks, the game I'm working on might be a launch title for it [grin]   ;  Do you guys think that Natal technology is for real at all? I didn't think our motion capture technology was at the point where you could do all of that fancy stuff.I forsee that the Natal games are either going to be:1) Really easy, because any body movement whatsoever registers as the required action, so you can just sit on the couch and shake your foot to do everything.or 2) Frustrating, because you'll repeatedly try to do the movement correctly, but the game won't register it, and you won't know why.Also, voice recognition? I'm pretty sure that voice recognition is not that good. Like, it would probably have trouble telling the difference between two siblings.   ;Quote:Original post by pinacoladaDo you guys think that Natal technology is for real at all? I didn't think our motion capture technology was at the point where you could do all of that fancy stuff.I wouldn't be too terribly surprised, actually; at GDC every year there are a few vendors showing off camera-based mocap using little markers that you wear; assuming you're in a room with a high-contrast background, it should be possible to get rough mocap just from the silhouette.   ;  Don't forget about DJ Hero.  I was hoping this would come out as a hip hop game but nonetheless should be pretty awesome.  I vow to be pro at this game.   ;  I searched up a couple of stories on Natal, and it does seem interesting. Is there a good page showing the full scope of what it can do?I was a postgrad student in computer vision up until early this year, and the sorts of research I've seen suggest that is possible. It shouldn't be too difficult in theory to track things like someone's head, hands and feet via a camera and map that to a 3D model. The big questions would be things like how easy is it to break the system - such as whether you can spin around, or whether it gets confused if you move your hands together. There might be issue with wearing certain types or patterns on clothes too.   ;Quote:Original post by pinacoladaDo you guys think that Natal technology is for real at all? I didn't think our motion capture technology was at the point where you could do all of that fancy stuff.You'd be surprised.Granted, I can't say much due to NDAs, but I spent 10 months working on a project which had some pretty good motion cap abilities and the software for that came from a small independant team and used the crappy XBox360 camera/better PS3 camera.;  As a little clarification, FF13 was announced last year already and that demo has already been released in Japan (this was the first localized version for us).  Maybe I didn't catch it but from what it sounded like the Lionhead 'boy' was more of a tech demo rather than a full game, but it could be the Dmitri project Molyneux has been working on in the background for years (though would have changed because it was mentioned WAY before Natal).  Also, the Metal Gear game apparently (from what was shown) isn't a remake of any of the current MGS games (so MGS4 isn't coming to Xbox still).  I'm guessing it'll end up being a disc full of mini-games though thats pure speculation based on the fact it's utilizing Natal.Also shown was Beatles Rock Band and Crackdown 2.Alan Wake sounds so incredibly generic to me.  I haven't seen the trailer or gameplay or whatever they showed, but the idea of using a flashlight as a weapon has been done in movies and will probably be a poor mechanic, in my opinion.  Also, they start with "Previously on Alan Wake", something used in Alone in the Dark, which was horrible.Overall MS had a solid showing only because last year was such a bad show.   ;Quote:Original post by phantomQuote:Original post by pinacoladaDo you guys think that Natal technology is for real at all? I didn't think our motion capture technology was at the point where you could do all of that fancy stuff.You'd be surprised.Granted, I can't say much due to NDAs, but I spent 10 months working on a project which had some pretty good motion cap abilities and the software for that came from a small independant team and used the crappy XBox360 camera/better PS3 camera.Can you say anything now that Sony have announced their wand thingy?I must admit, at first I thought it was a wiimote clone, but now I actually thing it has more implications for real games than Wiimote and even Natal (!)