Current state of motion control gaming?

thoomfish · 3 months

My opinion on motion control is that it can be used well, but generally isn't. Attempting to simulate 1:1 motion mapping is a recipe for frustratingly leaky metaphors (i.e. the Ghirahim fights in Skyward Sword, which completely throw away the notion of 1:1 mapping).

Instead, developers should stick with what the controls are actually good for:

Pointing. Motion control beats the ever-swinging hell out of analog sticks for pointing at on-screen objects from your couch.
Gestures (a.k.a. waggle) as additional control inputs
Some small skeumorphic flourishes when it makes sense and adds to immersion (i.e. unlocking boss doors in Skyward Sword)

Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime 3 had good, understated use of motion controls.

Much like the DS stylus, it's going to take developers some time to get used to the idea that motion controls are available, but shouldn't be shoehorned in everywhere (anybody else remember the first year or so of awful DS gimmick games?). They should be used to embellish existing control schemes rather than to replace them.

CarpeKitty · 3 months

It's not so much that motion IS a fad, it's that it's still treated as such. If it doesn't fit, don't force it. It's basics.

Take this example. A button works when you press it. It responds. It's almost instant. It's also just a button. It's hard to push a button wrong. You can push the wrong button, but that can be overcome in time. And since all games on the selected console only have those buttons to choose from it can't ever be a different button.

So why would someone put motion controls in instead? Was a button not sufficient? Was the game enhanced by motion in such a compelling way that otherwise would not have suited?

Skyward Sword does this with the shield. It's an accurate timing mechanic that is paired with a focus that isn't accurate and is open to interpretation and failure. Punching doesn't really nail it :(

rhfs · 3 months

I just got Move a couple weeks ago, and I'm liking it a lot so far. It's true that there isn't much out there for it, which is a bit of a shame, because in just the early tech demos alone, there was a ton of really cool things it can do. I believe it has taken Wii's crown as the gold standard for motion control, as far as 1:1 accuracy goes.

The biggest problem (and I think this is most evident with Kinect) is that devs (or more likely publishers) either don't know what to do with it or how to implement it well, or are too scared to do anything that's a bit more out-there and take better advantage of what it can do.

For example, the aforementioned Move demos. Just give me that. Forget about a "game". Just give me a package of tech demos that are each a little sandbox for me to play around with what it can do. Put me in a room with a cube made of jelly and let me slice it up. That right there would be better than most "real games" put out so far.

In that vein, of the things I've gotten for Move, the best by far is Tumble. It's like they read my mind. Just gimme some blocks and let me stack 'em. It's sublime. That's all they need to do. Set up something simple and rewarding, and just let the devices abilities shine and speak for themselves. The Move version of "Wii Sports", whatever it's called, is also pretty great.

Everything I've tried so far works very well, compared to what I remember about Wii (thoughI must admit I haven't really played much that utilizes WiiMotion+). I certainly hope that more PSN-type games come out to support it. It's funny, I've kind of wanted a Move in the back of my mind for a while now, but hadn't payed much attention to the actual lineup. I had sort of assumed that if Sony was to go through the cost and potential embarrassment of actually bringing this product to the market, that they'd have a pretty robust lineup, but there really isn't too much out there. It's not too unlike how they had the camera accessory even way back on PS2, even though I can't think of a single game that used it. But there's some pretty great things. That said, there's not really a ton out there for Kinect, even.

One definite perk (at least for Move and Wii) is that they're also basically light guns. That shit is pretty fun. I got Dead Space Extraction, it's great. I've also heard generally pretty good things about Killzone and Resistance as well, despite those not being "Move-only".

When it comes to companies not knowing what to do with it, in my opinion it's almost like they try too hard. In the case of Kinect, that device is frankly incredible. There's so many worthwhile, meaningful implementations for it, if they'd just relax and let it be a little more in the background. What they're doing in ME3 is very exciting to me, because it's the first game I've seen that uses Kinect to augment traditional gameplay. Imagine an FPS where you could actually lean and duck to peek around corners or over cover. Even if it was negligible as far as actual gameplay goes, and it was just an ever-so-subtle shifting of the POV, the difference in immersion alone would be great. See Gran Turismo 5's head tracking for a taste of what I mean. Voice commands, hand signals, there's so many cool little touches they could throw into regular, controller-controlled games, but instead they do this.

This stuff is relatively still very new. There's so much possibility there. It would be terribly unfortunate for gamers, and short-sighted of companies if it were to die out. To me, the problem is similar to gaming on smartphones recently. They can't just make a regular game like before, stick the buttons on the screen, and expect it to be just as good. They need to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and design for that. Once some smart devs start to really unlock the potential of these technologies, shit's gonna start poppin' off. And I, for one, can't wait.

The-Dudemeister · 3 months

I have all three so I guess I'll chime in.

1) I still think the wii sucks. I think its really inaccurate and is plagued with problems. The motionplus helped a little bit, but overall it is still pretty bad. I think it is a poor move on Nintendos part to use the same setup on the next console instead of redoing the controllers. I think its okay for the simple flash-type games such as mario party, trauma center, cooking mama, etc. but it just fails to meet the standard of justification for actual games. As others have said it worked well enough for the metroid series, but at the same time what exactly was the point when you target lock everything. It didn't fit either Zelda, imo. Neither should have had it. I agree the implementation was better in the 2nd one, but it still had lots of issues (For example, why do you have to center it every time you go to 1st person? Bad software or bad hardware? I don't know.) Regardless of it all it just was never good as you wanted it to be. Unless you are a hardcore zelda guy, you probably wouldn't have enjoyed the latest zelda. Also moving the controller in a direction (up down left or right) in lieu of a button press is not what anyone imagined when they though of motion controls. It is just shitty design.

2) The Move - this is your gold standard, imo. In my opinion it is what the wii should have been like. Sure the controllers look like dildos, but it works perfectly. The sharpshooter attachment is the best thing to come out of the motion controls. Ask anyone who had one with killzone 3. It was THE way to play. Your accuracy is much much better with it (though you did have to reteach your self how to play FPSs since your hands weren't used to it.) If I had my way, they would have to make every FPS implement a control system for the move. I still hop back on to KZ3 multiplayer from time to time and still find it more enjoyable than say BF3. I mean come on, you are holding a fucking gun and murdering people in the TV. Of course you have the problem with the lack of software for the move. I am still waiting to see if sorcery ever comes out.

3) Kinect. I actually just got this a few weeks ago because my gf was begging me to get that Dance Central game. To be honest, I was quite impressed. It is a lot more accurate than I thought it would be. I feel like a goofball playing it some times, but it's pretty legit. Like the move though, I wish there was more games for it. Most of the stuff here is little excercisey type games. I am totally sold on it being included with the next xbox. I feel like they should include a wand like controller (kind of like the move) that way you could open up the possibilities on the type of games that it could be used for.

All in all if you took the crazy camera of the xbox and combined it with the move, I think you would have the holy grail of motion control gaming. Only if....

1338h4x · 3 months

I see it much like touch screen controls on the DS. When it came out, everyone was racing to shoehorn it into their games no matter how gimmicky or terrible, but after a while they finally realized where it does and doesn't work. Plenty of games use it now, plenty more don't.

shadow1515 · 3 months

It works for some things, but I don't think it's enough to justify actually including it in future consoles. The only standout success to me is the Wii version of Resident Evil 4. That game just worked; it felt natural, and pointing with the Wii remote was by far the superior way to play the game in my opinion.

More often than not, though, motion controls simply degrade the quality of otherwise perfectly good games. The worst offender I've experienced is New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Super Mario World had a very similar spin jump move to that game, mapped to the A button. There's no reason at all Nintendo couldn't have included a control scheme using the classic controller that was identical to Super Mario World. Instead, they pushed their motion control. Jostling the controller while playing was awkward, and if I had to readjust my grip or scratch an itch on my nose I'd often jump on accident, causing a moving platform to fly out from under me, and fall to my death.

It works sometimes, but it doesn't work even more of the time, and I just don't think it's worth it.

DustbinK · 3 months

You don't know a single title for Move because Sony is doing it right and it works in games both with a regular controller and with Move. Find some reviews. People compare Move on PS3 for FPS games like Killzone to a mouse and keyboard.

bahlgan · 3 months

Well, here goes. I've used all three.

The absolute best motion controlled games are for the wii. The wii uses a controller with an accelerometer or multiple accelerometers in the case of MotionPlus. The reason being that the games are developed as GAMES, not gimmicks. If you look through Nintendos first party library, its also obvious there are certain games that subtly train you to be able to use their Wiimote like a pro(think of the star bits in Super Mario Galaxy, though it's an interesting concept, seems very specifically trying to improve your pointing skills).

The Kinect is the easiest to use. It makes navigating the UI stupid easy. It uses multiple cameras and sensors as well as a microphone. It's tracking is very poor compared to both the Wii and PS3, however. It has some problems with multiple players, as well as working in low light settings. There are pretty fun games for Kinect, however, they do seem to be targeted to children, and the production value isn't incredibly bad, but definately more shovelware than the other two offerings. IMO, it's a much more powerful UI tool than a gaming tool, except when the voice control is added to normal controller gameplay.

Now, the best motion control, the Playstation Move. It breaks my heart to say, this is also the least fun to use. Using both a camera AND. A controller, multiple accelerometers, Move can track rotation, yaw, depth, and more. The controllers are all wireless, light, and comfortable, and look like wands with balls of light at the top. It tracks motion in an almost one to one level. When I TWITCH my hand in Sports Champions(the bundled game) I see the sword twitch in the game, if I rotate the controller, the character rotates the sword. The titles for Move are awful. Sony has instead tried to incorporate first party games with a motion control option WHICH IS HOW IT FUCKING SHOULD BE, accept, though it's a powerful strategy, they fall short on delivering a fun experience, just a more complex or more"real" one. Using the normal controls for most of these games makes more sense. Games that support both and do motion well are Heavy Rain, Killzone 3, and Resistance 3.

Motion control is still a new technology. Game developers should make strides in using is as an option instead of shoving down players throats. It's definately fun every once in a while, but not something I'd wanna do every day. Cheers, gamers.

kdawggg · 3 months

My opinion on the kinect is, you CAN'T do anything with it. Everything (fps's, hack n' slash's etc.) is on rails and isn't that fun to play. The playstation move is a great system but the guys at Playstation AREN'T doing anything with it. I think that both, the kinect before the PS Move will "go the way of the virtual boy." It already seems like it's begun.

Connador · 3 months

[deleted]

okelfo · 3 months

Let me just mention that playing "Heavy Rain" with Move was one of the most awesome gaming experiences I ever had.

I_am_not_Victor · 3 months

Besides what was already mentioned in this thread (Skyward Sword, Metroid Prime 3, Red Steel 2 and Conduit), there was also a great implementation in Godfather: Blackhand Edition. Besides the poiting which was flawed, the motion controls were awesome.

grumbel · 3 months

The way I see motion controls right now: Still nothing more then an empty promise, as nobody has actually implemented them properly, both in hardware and in games.

The original Wiimote simply lacked the sensors for proper 1:1 position detection, it could guess at best. MotionPlus is better at guessing due to better sensors, but it's still just guessing, leading to all those calibration problems. PS Move can actually detect the position properly, but Sony forget to stick an analog stick on the thing, making it unflexible and unsuitable for a lot of games. It's also an add-on, thus nobody supports it properly.

All this leads to a situation where nobody actually bothers to build a game around motion controls. Even stuff like Zelda is really just Zelda + some motion gimmicks thrown in, not a new genre build from the ground up around motion controls.

I still see potential in motion gaming, I would love to see a heavily physics based game like JP:Trespasser to be implemented with motion controls. It could work and it could offer a far deeper level of interaction then a controller ever can. But the only way that this will actually happen is when the next generation of consoles all come with sophisticated motion controllers by default, so that the big AAA money can be thrown at motion controls without limiting to a small audience.

guyanonymous · 3 months

Once I got used to the Razer Sixsense deal I picked up - I enjoyed playing through Portal 2 with it, but that's because it actually made sense to use...

Other FPS's though were/are a pain as it wasn't a great replacement for mouse/keyboard. It needs to be properly integrated in a way that's useful.

zinco96 · 3 months

cons of each motion control:

Wii: not very prescise (unless you use the motion plus), and it has way too much minigame "games", also lacks quantity of hardcore games (the wi-fi system is a crap, but that is not the case now.) and the control not as dangerous as pepole think, its only dangerous because pepole are FREAKING STUPID, because you can avoit a crapload of accidents by using the GODDAMN WRIST STRAP, all those accidents are because pepole are retarded enough to no wear the wrist strap, or special cases like: when the wrist strap "breaks", or when the person hits something/someone/himself/herself while wearing the wrist strap.

PS move: lack of games and its UGLY.

kinect: unprescise/difficult to make it prescise, also the lack of a physical control makes certain options, and it really lacks interesting titles (and hardcore titles aswell), yeah, kinect is fun, but i wouldn't spend 200 dollars just to play kinectmals or dance central, sure, if i had a motive to buy a kinect (aka a really good game.) , dance central (and other simple games) would be a nice addition to the game list.

"grail of motion gaming" would be a console with: the amount of games of the wii (but not having the bunch of generic minigame "games", and with better game producers), a physical control prescise as the PS move, and a camera with certain options (like kinect but much more prescise.) that mix both the control and your body.

purekillforce · 3 months

The only game made better with motion controls was Res Evil 4 remake on Wii.

i think that speaks more about Res Evil's control scheme though, than motion controls.

Motion controls ruin what could be amazing games. Bad controls ruin what could be amazing games.

As long as games with good control schemes are made, companies can waste as much money on motion crap as they like. Just give me my proper games too!

thatguyfromcanada · 3 months

It's still relatively new as a consumer commodity, hell even traditional controller-based games are barely 30 years old. I'll use film as an analogy here. There was a period of time from the 1880s, when film first developed as an artistic medium, to about 1920 called the "cinema of attraction", which is basically academic circlejerk talk to refer to movies that had no real artistic value and existed to show off the new medium/special effects of film. It was an exposition of what film could do, but not an in depth exploration of what films can make you feel. After about 30 years of development in 1920 (let's say 1917, for those cinephiles out there), films became increasingly accepted as viable art due to the influx of people who were capable of doing more than just using film technique, but interpreting and integrating abstract concepts such as logic, emotion and motivation with the technical production itself. I believe this is the transition video games are making now. We've demonstrated what games can do technically, and we're starting to explore what games can do for and to us as abstract expression. TLDR; just like film, video games are going through a " technical-extravaganza attraction as selling point" market into a more emotive and human-based motivation behind consumption, like movies, books, TV, artwork etc.

darkplumb90 · 3 months

Everyone wants it to die. Especially the Wii.
The Kinect has value outside of gaming and is the only innovative motion control at this point.

ApolloHelix · 3 months

Motion controls, along the vein of Skyward Sword, open up a whole world of gameplay and character articulation that cannot be done with analog controls.

That game's combat is predicated on cutting angles (take that, Metal Gear Rising) and tactile, intuitive weaponry such as the whip and the beetle.

The problem is that not every franchise or style of gameplay can fit with motion controls so easily.

Shooters are actually simulating pressing buttons and triggers. That's not motion control compatible.

You couldn't play a strategy game with motion controls because that's not where the core gameplay lies.

This goes on for many genres, with only a select few actually suited to motion controls.

Sports, Music, Weapon-based action/adventure, Driving, Pointing

These are the genres that can take advantage of motion controlled games because they are based on motion. Everything else is tacked on and inorganic.

It's really very simple.

stone500 · 3 months

I, like many on here, also own all three. I'll try and keep my thoughts short and simple.

Wii: Least preferable for me to use. Without the Wii Motion+, it's just not accurate enough to be worthwhile. With the Motion+ accessory, I'm always worrying about the calibration going off and having to recenter my cursor all the time (especially a problem with Skyward Sword). Doesn't provide worry-free 1:1 controls that would help it.

Kinect: It's pretty good for games that cater to it's strengths. Dance Central is a blast, as is Fruit Ninja, and kid-friendly games like Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster has entertained my niece and nephews for hours. However, it's not really nice for hours and hours of playtime, and only really seems worthwhile for genres that you can't really play well with other platforms.

PS Move: This is probably my favorite, but Sony seems to not really be doing anything with it (where's Sorcery?!). I'm most impressed at how well it just works, and provides a much better 1:1 experience than the Wii. I bought Sports Champions and Eyepet just so I could show it off. The Move is the best alternative (but no replacement) to standard controls for shooters and some platformers, but still needs a killer app.

CompactedPrism · 3 months

It could be groundbreaking, it's just that none of the big game companies want to take a big risk with it. We've seen several uses for kinect not for gaming, but nothing truly groundbreaking in gaming.

zorudan · 3 months

It can be used for some interesting and innovative things. But at the same time it can be obnoxious and stressfull. I certainly doubt it will take over the entirety of games, but it can be a part of it. It works for some games and its popular enough that it doesnt look like its going to just vanish. I think its going to remain as a common but not universal thing, kinda like realistic graphics.

derpsinspace · 3 months

I always wondered why Sony and Microsoft didn't launch their respective motion control add-ons with better games, after witnessing the launch of the Wii. It seems silly to me for both Microsoft and Sony to both think that 3rd party developers will take initiative in maximizing their hardware. Sure they released tech demo type games and shovelware games, but I think it would have been a worthwhile investment for both to get their in-house developing teams together to create games specific to their add-ons.

Can you imagine the Kinect launching with a Forza and Halo game, both created specifically with Kinect in mind? Or Sony's Move being released with a God of War, Uncharted, Jak and Daxter, Modnation Racers, or SOCOM, all with the Move solely in mind/needed? Not only would sales have probably gone up, but they would have shown third party developers that you can make great games with each respective motion controls.

I know this isn't really new thinking or innovative thought, but I feel that it needs to be restated when talking about introducing anything not "normal." Whether the console makers like it or not, 3rd party games are probably going to always be the driving force in the video game industry from here on out. Respectable, approachable developers (Bethesda, Valve, Rockstar, etc.) are the reason behind this. Because of this, the console makers need to do what they can to "sell" these developers on using their hardware. Kinectimals, Wii Sports, and Kung Fu Rider aren't going to do it.

deuteros · 3 months

No idea if it's a fad or not but at this point I still have zero interest in motion controlled games.

KittenMittns · 3 months

Loving all the insight! Thanks r/truegaming

KerooSeta · 3 months

"Hardcore Gamers" hate it, "casual" audiences love it, Nintendo rakes in millions of dollars from it. I think that about sums it up.

To summarize even further: people on /r/truegaming might not like it, but it's apparently not just a fad.

EDIT: OH SHIT! I defended motion controls on /r/truegaming. I might as well delete my account, now...

girigiri · 3 months

Played Child of Eden with the controller when it first came out as I was a massive fan of Rez on the dreamcast.

Enjoyable but not mind blowing.

Then I picked up a Kinect recently and the extra immersion that it gave me was amazing. It really added an extra layer to the game that you miss out on with just the controller. Very impressed overall with the Kinect although I wish there were more "hardcore" games available.

I also have the Move. It was fun for Dead Space Extraction but I havent found anything else that has really done much for me.

darkesth0ur · 3 months

Dead.

[deleted] · 3 months

Motion controls are total garbage, always have been and will continue to be for years to come. They are a gimmicky fad that does more to hinder usage than anything. The problem is that we NEED these shitty consoles with their shit interpretation(Wii) in order to progress to the next levels.

you'll need to login or register to do that

create a new account

login