I have now had to chance to spent a decent amount of time trying out my panasonic 3D 42″ TV. I have been intrigued by the demos of 3d content I have seen and in particular the consequences for gaming, and what prolonged gaming feels like.
There seems to be enough 3d content out there to warrant the upgrade. Xbox, Ps3(games and 3d blu ray), and Sky 3d all having things to offer
The first extended game I had was a few hours on Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3. Initially this was a disorientating effect using the in car view, the layers of HUD information being closer than the car details meant it was a little harder to take in the peripheral information from the HUD. After about 20 minutes though I think my brain adjusted and it became a very compelling experience. If anything it was braking that became more obvious, and some of the turn in points and reference points were more obvious. I have been playing driving games for a long while and have seen others struggle a little with the concept of slowing down for corners as unless you immerse yourself into the experience mentally you can’t feel the forces of the car. The 3d certainly helped with this. Spinning out was also a bizarre experience and it seemed to be quicker to deal with that and have the situational awareness.
Equally wearing the glasses has an odd bubble effect that makes it feel a bit more like it does when you get in a car. After the initial 20 minutes adjustment I felt no more odd finishing the session than playing normally.
Next up was Black Ops on the Xbox 360. Turning the 3d on was a bit more fiddly than in GT5 as the TV did not respond automatically and you have to select side by side 3d, the PS3 switches things automatically. (It seems Sky 3d doesn’t switch either).
The HUD crosshair is a little distracting initially as it breaks the immersion, there is an option to turn this off but that seemed to crash the machine! That aside the experience is brilliant IMHO. I had played through most of the game already but the last few chapters in 3d were amazing. The disorientated running around towards the end with the “numbers” zooming around was a stunning piece, and I am looking forward to going back and trying things like the first vietnam sequence.
However the test was really to play the online training multiplayer with bots and with @asanyfuleno. I found that I felt more in control and aware of my surroundings. I think this may be similar to the driving game mental model. I know that in FPS’s it takes me a while to feel the levels. I felt instantly connected to the environment and whilst this would still not equate to pwnage online I felt the 3d levelled me up, at least in situational awareness.
The view down iron sights and cross hairs is also remarkable.
As with the driving the glasses did not get in the way, but seemed to place you somewhere other than the room you are actually in. This was not something I was expecting to happen, but thinking about it it makes sense.
The third game was Tumble on the PS3 with Move. I have said before how fantastic Tumble is with the tactile feedback and I have to say it is very much enhanced by the feeling of space crated with 3d. The need to use the shadows of the blocks as reference points just melts away.
So a nights gaming on 3d was enhanced and from my point of view will only get better as we get more used to it and designers take advantage of it. I think being an old school gamer I will still play 2d games and with a 4 year old in the house (where the advice is to not use 3d for under 7’s) means we can’t do all 3d gaming yet. However as many of the games I end up playing are 18 rated that is not such a big issue.
There was an additional serendipitous happening when I purchased the TV from Best Buy, whilst waiting for the box to come out of the stock room I got talking to the head of the 3d TV section, who also happens to run a startup creating 3d displays(more of that in a later post). It was fascinating to be talking to someone who knew a lot about the subject. Its one of the reasons I like Best Buy, no pressure or hassle salespeople and when you do talk they know their stuff. This was by contrast with my experience when I popped into Comet to get an extra audio optical cable, the salesman was pleasant enough but when he asked if he could help me I was not expecting to have to explain to him what an optical audio cable was for. He also made the usual “pay more for cables as the signal is better” type of comment which for many digital things simply isn’t true anymore.
So…. shop in Best Buy!
games
Addicted to frags?
This week saw a BBC Panorama documentary attempt to explore the dangers of addictions to gaming. I thought I would give myself a few days before writing about it as at the time the programme struck me as intensely annoying.
That is not to say I am not concerned about addiction or any of the harmful affects of the industry and its content but it did seem to be wandering into Daily Mail territory rather.
Many of the examples of excessive addiction seemed to be related to parents suggesting they had no idea what their kids were doing. That is of course a little strange as unlike the more worrying addictions that are drug related, most of the long term gaming will happen in the comfort of your own home on a nice warm PC or console connected to the internet.
Clearly some parents will not appreciate the intensity of the gaming experiences that their kids are enjoying but if they are not sleeping/eating/going to school etc then you would surely have a duty to spot that? Thats easy to say with hindsight of course.
The show aimed to inform us that there was little recognition or research into the addictive dangers of games and that the industry is in some way ignoring the fact. I do agree that dismissing it as an industry as of no consequence because there is not scientific evidence suggesting a link between games and addiction is probably not a smart way forward. We all know how addictive games can be especially when you combine the social media factors into them. This is of course something that got lost in the show. An addiction to a single player game is very different to an addiction to a multiplayer/clan/MMO based game. Whilst extremes of anything are probably not good the fact that people are focussed on working with other people to achieve their goals does alter the problem space a little.
The show managed to travel to South Korea to show the scope of the supposed problem too. It pointed out there were professional leagues, televised and a national obsession and there were coming appearing “over here” as if that in itself was some terrible consequence of games. Obviously an entire nation watching some overpaid athletes kick a piece of inflated leather around on some grass every saturday is so much better?
I tweeted at the time that life is a collection of addictions, things we attend to for various periods of time, unbalanced addictions are ones where the collections of things that are attended to are smaller that the “normal”. If the object of your obsession is generally destructive then it would appear to be on the bad side of the spectrum, however if the thing you spend all your time doing is enriching or helping your life and others, where new skills are being practiced, new bonds being formed then it really is not so much to be worried about?
Again the counterpoint to all this is the extremes, so yes those extremes are bad, but to damn an entire art form with all its genres as being the worst thing to happen to us, possibly due to not understanding it, would seem foolish.
Instead of simply suggesting the games suck you in and keep you there and you need to be pulled away to some sort of “real life” the focus should be:
- What is that is so compelling that people pay to engage in these activities and become so involved in the powerful medium that they approach addict status?
- How can that game design, technology and human willingness to participate be harnessed for the supposed worthy things that people should otherwise be doing?
- What are the attributes and aspects of these addictions relating to human relationships, where the game is online, versus single player obsession?
- Examine how we can embrace the creative and technical medium that has arrived at our doors and be proud of what it can do.
It is difficult to reconcile the ideas. “You should stop playing games and do something more worthwhile as games are silly” combined with “Wow these games are really powerful things we need to keep an eye on them” which are almost used in every sentence of the show.
It does end with the sentiment that the presenter will keep an eye on his kids games use just to make sure they are not falling prey to anything, but that should have been the starting sentence IMHO.
As for it being “real” from my personal point of view I have always been a gamer, it used to be that playing games was just fun, some were a little addictive and distracting, then it turned into needing to know how they worked, which became an obsession with technology that has carried me through my entire career to whatever point I am at now. Maybe I am a functioning games addict, but it could just be they are not all that terrible after all?
Gran Turismo 5 – Only the shadow knows
GT5 is certainly one good car game. Lots of variety and a great feel, but it seems to have lost its way in the lighting model.
Take a look at the shadow on this
Even in a screen shot from the TV, on an iphone, the car and road look great (yes dented) but the jaggy shadow is pretty appalling and much worse when you sit and watch it.
There is a great in game photo mode that lets you take all sorts of pictures from the replays as per usual and that seems to clear things up. Though that is then a rendered still so you can expect that.
You can see more jaggy shadows on this image
Its very odd and very distracting as it wobbles along with the car.
There were a few other “funnies” You can tune cars and alter options, play in 3d etc but you are warned at the very first choice (of overall/helmet combo) that you will never ever be able to change this again so pick well. I know this is not an avatar based game but thats a bit odd?
There is also the 8gb install it offers to do. If you start the game it says it will take 20 mins, if you do it from the in game menu it says 50mins! I left it running and it sat after 20mins saying “40 seconds left” for another 20 mins so I gave up on that.
My final gripe (for now). The replays, not only filled with cloudy wobbly shadows but there is only a pause, no forward or backward, yet you have stacks of options when paused for taking that perfect photo. Of course you can’t navigate to your perfect moment because the controls wont let you. Very odd.
So yes love it, yes its GT but Forza 3 with its car customisations and slickness for now has GT5 beat.
Xfactor vs Star Wars
For some reason we had XFactor on tv last night whilst we were both messing with iphones and the web. I decided it was about time to try the Star Wars Arcade Falcon Gunner on the iphone. This app uses an entire sphere around you as the playing field as you shoot down incoming tie fighters. You can move the gun turret in the playing space both by moving and spinning your body around and by a little bit joystick control. In a nod to AR and to give a bit of a frame of reference along with the Elite style scanner it patches in the video from your iphone.
This led to the accidental mashup whereby I was about to start shooting overlayed tie fighters and as I spun around Simon Cowell and Xfactor came into view.
Gets you thinking about head up displays and being able to see and maybe share information on people and things around you doesn’t it.
XFactor (which is the first we have really seen this series) was truly awful too as many great Beatles songs were ruined IMHO. Star Wars is truly awesome!. Net win in the favour of Star Wars though.
Game design – Virtual Goods World Perspective
I attended, and spoke at, the Virtual Goods World Europe 2010 conference on tuesday morning, held at the Millennium Mayfair hotel. There was a great line up though I had to miss the afternoon and day two with a combination of family things to sort out and the Cool Stuff Collective wrap party.
Of all the talks I heard the one by Zhan Ye was the most insightful. Obviously working in the virtual worlds industry for quite a few years means that some of the content is more of a re-enforcement, after all it is generally for people to come and learn. However Zhan Ye covered his personal experience on the transition and difference between the stock AAA game title and the more casual and social game experience and in particular how China has spent many years leading the way in creating these experiences which western developer are now having to come to terms with.
There were some elements that rang very true about the current crop of social games, a recipe for the genre.
Introduce conflict – bragging rights, friends scoreboards all give an incentive to compete and publicly show off.
Sell convenience – This is where the monetization (horrible world) comes in. Playing to the time poor but cash rich who still want to be in the game and maintain status.
Add peer pressure into play – With conflict also comes friendship. If you are going to let down a friend who has invested lots of time and money you do not want to be the spoil sport.
Zhan Ye was also quick to point out that these manipulative tactics raise moral questions about fleecing or manipulating players. The answer to this morality is gamers free to leave.
This tied in with another nice quote “Have to be a player before they become a payer” from Anthony Royce Sony at a later panel.
This got a little cheer from the game developers in the room. In all the talk of monetization and cash generation that virtual goods produce there is still a willingess to not just cash in but make something people want to play and interact with.
On the panel I talked on the final question was about brands that worked and ones that didn’t. All my worst examples were generally film ties ins, as they showed a cashing in with either a AAA game or a bad mobile or web experience, with little thought, care or respect for the player.
My best example though was Moshi Monsters. Having seen this at its earliest stages on a visit to Mind Candy I know that there was not just a money making core to this but an integrity and a reason to create it. The education without education and hence the winning over of parents and kids alike has made this quite rightly very popular. It has extended out into related merchandise and physical products but still seems to maintain that initial spirit. I heard that Michael Acton’s presentation on it the following day was superb too.
On a personal and performance style note. The room was an unusual layout for the conference but as people were at round tables many people had laptops and pen and paper handy. I noticed when I did my little intro “I am known as epredator online ” there was the usual slight grabbing of attention, “so feel free to google for me” was the same level, but when I said “or look me up as epredator on wikipedia” lots of pens got reading and heads looked at screens. A swift follow up with the Cool Stuff Collective plug and it was starting to sound a bit over the top, so I mentioned if anyone watched this Saturday I was not really in the show as usual but merely dressed as a big banana.
Its a fine line that I walk between over doing my excitement and enthusiasm for the industry with my own ego trip so it is great to have some mad material to draw on and provide some balance.
Kinect in the wild
Like many of my fellow Xbox 360 owners we now have a Kinect at home. The good news is it just works. The bad news is that it makes you do things like this.
I was interested to see how the predlets took to it. They really wanted to play the raft game as that is what they has seen Sy and I play on The Cool Stuff Collective so they did have some advance notice about how it should work.
It worked well setting up their accounts and it also coped well with the relative size differences between us all.
Kinect adventures was an instant hit and playable by everyone. Dance Central though is the killer app IMHO. When elemming came home from work she ended up spending a few hours grooving away, and unlike me was a natural at it.
The Fighters Uncaged game seems the weakest of the bunch we had, it felt it should be better, it is still fun hitting and kicking but you have to be a bit more careful with your form and what registers. Also the side effect of no controller is of course no force feedback or rumble that you tend to get in a fight game. This is not an issue in a dance game as, well, you are dancing. Obviously also the fight game needs to cope with any move any time but the dance can have a rough idea about where you should be and adjust its tolerances accordingly.
A quick demo of Joyride proved to me that I do not want to spend hours not holding a fake steering wheel, though there is a request from predlet 2.0 to have a go at that so I will see how he gets on.
Kinectimals has only just arrived in the post so I will hold fire on commenting, though I think it will be brilliant 🙂
Andy Piper was online on kinect last night but as we were exploring the games and bouncing around we did not get to try the video kinect, but the usual thing on xbox of getting a message, finishing what you are doing and then routing around to find the request or message which by that time the person has gone to do something else. So apologies Andy 🙂
If you have an xbox 360 there really is no reason to not have a Kinect, if you have kids all the better. It will be interesting to see the control methods get used in interesting ways over the next few years too, and maybe it evolve to the desktop and let us control many other devices.
Star Wars AR – StAR wARs I guess?
This video is doing the rounds of using the world around you as a backdrop for playing a tie fighter shooting turret game on the iphone.
There have been some great advances in using the iphone tilt and touch to control Star Wars related games and I am sure the Kinect game will be equally evocative with motion control for force and lightsaber.
It is probably that 1977 and Star Wars in general has been the grounding for many of the gamers and inventors of today that it is so obvious to replicate the things we saw back then into games tech in out hand today.
Likewise these advances in holography quickly get on to referencing the holograms seen in Star Wars.
All very amazing tech indeed and closer than we think.
Unity3d growing – lets get schools in on this
A recent press release from Unity3d gave some impressive figures “Unity Technologies Surpasses 250K Developers Milestone and 35M Installs of Free Unity Web Player”
I am a big fan of Unity3d as you will have seen over the years and it is great to see the company doing so well. I do not think this success is purely technical, Unity3d is a great product but it has been the positive and open attitude of the company which if you ever talk to the CEO David Helgasson you will see why. It is a true startup come good.
The figures are impressive for the web plugin but the figures not shown, that are in fact even bigger is the fact that every iphone and droid can run Unity3d apps. Many of you will have even played or used some and possibly not even noticed.
I expect to see Unity3d appear in more and more schools as part of both art and science lessons, that was partly my intention in showcasing it on The Cool Stuff Collective. This is a tool and an environment that has both great simplicity and the ability to get as complex as you want. Programming and graphic/sound integration is the ultimate UGC. We also have lots of ways to deploy and share that content.
It seems that a set of simple course material prefabs would make a great module in both infant and secondary education to help find the story tellers, game developers, artists and programmers of the future by letting kids just get on with it and create. There may be some real gems of ideas bubbling away out there don’t you think?
Having seen the willingness to create with my own kids, watching a 3 year old choose to paint the Kart in Mario Kart on the DS and decorate away, or seeing a 7 year old revel in 3d modelling with the haptic device we really should be pushing this future tech (not just Unity3d BTW) into schools, helping teachers understand the creative and learning potential.
I know lots of people are, I know there is lots of resistance to change too. However some of this is not massive capital expenditure (most schools seem to have computers). In just the same way as many of us solo entrepreneurs are able to punch above our human resources weight with access to amazingly accessible technology, so should the classroom.
It is then not a lesson about computing or tech but about creativity, expression as well as STEM.
Fingers crossed we can ride this wave. It is certainly one I want to pursue.
Anyone out there have good Unity3d educational related prefabs?
Kinect – Yes its fantastic
The current Cool Stuff Collective show airing or Tx8 (of 13) as they call it in the trade 🙂 features yet more great and cool gadgets and games. For me though the true star of the show was the Xbox Kinect. Having it set up in the studio and having had a little bit of time to look at it, seeing other peoples reactions to it it truly is one awesome piece of kit.
The show aired on Monday 1st November on CITV but you can see it on ITV this Saturday 6th on ITV1 9:25.
Being able to stand up and present this and explain it to Sy let me do my usual arm waving, what was great was that the avatar on the screen was obviously mirroring me as I occasionally stopped steering the boat with Sy in the and gesticulated to get the points across about how revolutionary this really is for commercial in the home technology.
Seeing the debug console earlier and all the points of the body and various cameras at work is a very surreal experience too. Obviously the games are about controlling an environment and immersion but the avatars responding to you is more about self reflection. You know its not you, its not really a video of you but a fully rigged puppet responding to you. This is much more engaging and emotive that I expected it to be.
Of course being The Cool Stuff Collective it cant all be serious philosophical points about the nature of self and existence.
So here is a picture of Monkey, Me and the Pop Crash Grannies Janice and Victoria as we have a joke sleepover party at the end of the show.
Yes that is a seagull flying past on the end of a fishing rod… oh I gave the secret away….
Yes we also had the introduction of Donkey to the show this week and the return of Cave Girl
Of course the irony/serendipity of working with Cave Girl who arrived on the show due to Monkey inventing a time machine that I helped him with, when my main presentations on the direction of virtual worlds and gaming technology is called washing away cave paintings really cant be ignored either. Its all linked you see 🙂
As is the whole Chicken suit in fable3 that I mentioned here
Washing away cave paintings v3
View more presentations from Ian Hughes.
Here is to next week with yet more bizarreness.
Understanding music – DJ Hero 2
I am a big fan of the current crop of music games. It could seem that games that merely have you follow a pattern in time with music are somehow lazy gameplay, but what has happened with all the music games is that degrees of expression and choice flow into the patterns that you follow. A prime example is DJ Hero 2. The styles of music may not be to everyones taste, though the set list is full of songs that everyone will have heard rather than esoteric club tracks.
The mixes that you play involve a certain amount of pattern following using the controller to tap notes, move the cross fader or do very flattering scratches that fit in with the tunes. However they have introduced some freestyle elements. These really get you to feel the music you are playing and feel part of it.
One if freestyle scratching, so for a short period how you move the platter rather than just the speed of moving alters the sound. The other and more obvious is the freestyle crossfade. Here the two songs are playing together and you live mix back and forth to create a unique sound. There are some visual cues on the track as to where big gaps and breaks are but it really is effective.
I cannot claim to be a DJ, though I do dabble with audio editing packages, yet this may not make me a DJ but it really does make me feel like one. That also means that it has my attention and hence I am listening to the music track on the game (around 80 mixes) rather than listening to any other music source. It is not passive listening though, I feel I am learning a bit more about the tunes I know well, finding a new vocabulary of musical interaction in how the mixes have been created and also it is a performance. If other people are around and you go wrong it feels bad, so you want to make it sound good.
On the Xbox 360 you also have the chance to use your own avatar as the DJ. This adds yet another sense of depth to the proceedings.
So yes, its a plastic turntable with a few buttons playing some old tunes mixed together on a games console but it ticks a lot of other buttons in understanding motivations, ways to learn, expressiveness and entertainment.
And by the way notice the subtle coca cola product placement in the photo.
Then there’s Rockband 3 …… thats for another post once I get my 102 button guitar