Saturday, December 03, 2011
Glen
"I want to play Skyrim and cast my spells using my hand or maybe occasionally doing some other strategy things in other types of games using hand gestures or voice, and do an integrated Kinect experience that has both. That's the thing that excites me the most" he said.
And now thanks to YouTube user KinectFAAST, Bleszinski's dream has become a reality. Using a program called FAAST, he was able to convert Kinect gestures into keystrokes. He also used a program called VAC to pair spoken words with keystrokes. This allows the player to, for example, swing their arm to hack with a sword. The left arm is used to control the players view, as well as the aiming of any equipped magic.
Nagivation is handled similarly to Rise of Nightmares, with the player putting one foot forward to move, and subtle leaning controlling direction. Voice control helps with menu navigation and equipping weapons and magic, as well as bringing up the map or starting a conversation with an NPC.
None of this is likely to excite the majority of Skyrims fans. As Bleszinsky states, "hardcore gamers are terrified by [Kinect], to the point where they get fiercely defensive", but there is definitely room for Kinect to complement a controller instead of necessarily replacing it here. The voice commands alone could be beneficial and genuinely immersive and Mass Effect 3 will hopefully be the first of many games that use voice for a tactical advantage.
Check out the full video below. Lets hope we'll get to see an actual retail game with this much ambition soon. We're looking at you, Ryse.
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