I had a all to rare go on Call Of Duty on the Xbox One yesterday. I downloaded the latest map pack and I was intrigued as I ran around an Aztec ruin against bots that I heard one of them shout “enemy over by the statue”. I had not really noticed specific voice prompts of that nature before. However after a bit of exploring, and obviously getting fragged a lot I found the statue and I was pleasantly surprised to see this.
I haven’t explored the other levels too much yet but I am as always intrigued by the level design and the spirit and atmosphere these design elements create.
Checking the other add-ons it I also noticed that COD has gone all Sat-Nav on us. There are additional voice packs for the game commentary and in particular you can have the dulcet tones of Snoop Dog keeping you up to date on the game. (‘big fan am I’ of the Yoda voice on my Iphone TomTom Sat-Nav app).
Whilst on the subject of persona, Kinect Sports Rivals arrived a few weeks ago. It has a number of sports to try some of which differ from the usual motion sports. There is go course tennis and ten pin bowling, but without the controller so no risk of launching one into the TV. There is Jet Bike riding across waves, football(soccer), shooting, and the intriguing rock climbing too. What I found even more interesting was the kinect being used to scan me and make an avatar. Often the web cam style face camera pastes textures on a standard rig. This however creates a cartoon character of you. So clearly there are a set of noses, eyes etc and it picks ones close to the parameters. It starts by scanning your body shape then asks you to get close in to look at your face. I ran this a couple of times as I was intrigued when it asked me to remove my glasses (which I thought was a generic message) but then put glasses on my avatar. When I took the glasses off before I started it did not ask me to remove them and I had a specs free avatar. You can of course customise the avatar once this scan has been done but it seemed to work very well.
As I mentioned its caricature 🙂
predator
PS3 Home – Just got better
I have often been a bit annoyed by PS3 home that I did not feel comfortable with my avatar. I had a few custom clothes that were fun, but the lack of green hair just grated.
Now though with the release of the game AvP (which I have on my Xbox) some limited edition content has been made available.
There is a predator helmet and body suit (cost about £2.00)
So I bought it last night and whilst I cannot overlay my jacket as in Second Life it did feel just right. Odd as that may seem.
It made posing and dancing even funnier than it has been before
It also leads to the clash of content that worries many people about interoperability
I am also sure this is not seen in too many Audi showrooms
The models and movement and lighting are all very high grade as you would expect. Though I think it still shows the fantastic skill of Sythia Veil who created my predator AV in Second Life over 4 years ago with just the tools in SL !
Which I might add if I had not had so much time and emotion invested in that look I would not have paid to have that in PS3 Home and then written this post singing it praises. Note, there is a lot to be said for user created content and fan art!