14 DAY TRIAL // The centerpiece of the E3 Microsoft press conference was indisputably Project Natal, a new hardware that could be coming in the fall of 2010, promising complete motion tracking and gesture recognition for the Xbox 360 home gaming console.
A lot of people, like those from Bungie, described it as the future of gaming but it seems that some developers/studios are not easily impressed. One of them is Epic Games, the creator of Gears of War.
Cliff Bleszinski, who is one of the best known developers working at the outfit, told a United Kingdom magazine, called Develop, that “Y'know, we'll take a look at Natal - no promises - but it's likely that the classic control interface is what Epic will be working on in the foreseeable future. But I think there's ways that you could merge the two interfaces and supplement a classic game with Natal controls to make something compelling.”
Project Natal is based on the idea of complete motion tracking, without the use of a peripheral like the Sony wand or the Wiimote. Microsoft showed people playing Burnout Paradise, a driving game, only by using their hands and feet to steer and accelerate using an imaginary wheel and pedals.
One could envision a cover-based shooter where the player shoots by pointing their hands, ducks in real life to get into in-game cover and runs on the spot to move from place to place. The only problem is that taking the controller completely out of the equation can make the experience less compelling, with simple actions becoming much more complicated to perform.
Other revelations coming out from the interview are that Bleszinski likes BioShock and is eagerly waiting to get his hands on Borderlands, which is being put together by Gearbox. The developer had nothing to say related to Gears of War 3 but it’s safe to assume that somewhere deep inside the headquarters of Epic work is already being done on the title.