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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Less peripherals = mo' betta

EA's honest response to the money pit of 3D has me thinking.

I was doing some housekeeping in my gaming room, and stumbled into a bunch of Wii remotes, remote gun shells, and the balance board. None of it really got any use, other than the Wii remotes in the few games I actually purchased for the system. Did any of it really do anything special?

Without a thought, my head turned to look at the Kinect. Other providing questionable stats on my balance and weight, the balance board didn't really do anything that could be done with a camera. Having to fumble with less peripherals made for a better experience. As for EA Active, using my own weights instead of the Wii remotes is certainly more effective.

Utilizing voice commands rather than trying to figure out where the remote was last placed is great as well.

So for 3D, Nintendo tried to help us out in a similar way. However, 3D doesn't really make anything easier. It doesn't make "more sense" either. If we can't interact directly with a 3D object, then what good is it?

I am surprise that Microsoft hasn't found a way to use 3D and Kinect together in a way that gives value to the extra dimension. Yet, if the 3D effect doesn't seem to pop out, what could they do? They have done some interesting things with head tracking, but we need implementation. Changing the 3D picture per your position has possibilities. If you could get up and look to the side or behind something, with the view changing as you inch closer, they might be a step in the right direction. Again, plenty of tech demos but no usage.

Affordability and more direct interaction. That is where we need to go from here with the tech. Or just drop it. I am fine either way.

Monday, July 11, 2011

What's up...


Splotching my random thoughts in this blog is "fail" at best. What is this beast that devours my time? I'm cast away in a timeless sweatshop where time evaporates faster than it can rain.

One past proclamation still stands: Video games cannot be a focus at this point. When a grace a console with the E.T. touch, their breath is short-lived. Dabble, dabble, dabble...that's all I can do. For now, my gamer cred has been weakened by by my schedule, leaving me suseptable to mobile-game disease.

The wart's roots are still surface-level, however. Short bite-sized time chunks are what I got, and full-fledged games can't be consumed with the baby-spoon in my drawer.

I do put in a few hours a week with either Black Ops or Halo: Reach. That's what my friends play, but once they disconnect from the Matrix, I follow suit. With a swiftness, I hop over to Samsung Media Play on my TV, and commence getting sucked in to Subbed Anime.

After watching all the Bleach episode movies to date, I've moved on to Inuyasha. The latter fails to have me as "entrenched" so I don't mind missing a few scenes while I do other things. Concurrently, I'm working on the Dubbed Bleach episodes, in hope that my fiancee and step-son can enjoy them as well. The American voice actors sure kill the presence of the individual characters though....and why do most of the male characters sound the same?

Other than that, I'm still training three days a week. 9 - 11 hour work days added to that, and trying to figure out my future family (a story in itself).

I tend to bang out more quips on Twitter, should anyone wish to follow.