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[Messofanego]

You know what, I played the demo. It's not half bad! I died only because I wasn't following the instructions in the subtitles and instead was just shooting at the enemy VTs.

I quite like the sprint ability, I like that masochistic clunky thing of having to get out of the First Person View, grab the gear, then go back into view in the heat of battle. For some reason, proves I got skill or something

All the control issues could've been solved if there was a full controller option, instead of only using Four buttons.

For context, I played this in dim light conditions. The worst command is for the side stuff, he always turns his body instead of grabbing the monitor or gears.

 

[saunderez]

It's a bit of both here it seems. Kinect clearly could not handle the kind of game they tried to make, but they also should've either scaled back or not even have used Kinect.

Absolutely agreed. Had the game been designed around Kinect strengths the game would have been much better for it.

 

[Jasoneyu]

Absolutely agreed. Had the game been designed around Kinect strengths the game would have been much better for it.

I just think they used a lot of fine and delicate the controls over to the kinect which simply could not interpret the user's movements accurately enough so that it would work in game.

 

[Htown]

It's a bit of both here it seems. Kinect clearly could not handle the kind of game they tried to make, but they also should've either scaled back or not even have used Kinect.

Pretty sure Microsoft's money ensured that this stayed a Kinect game.

 

[vitaminwateryum]

The Giantbomb review is up.

1/5.

 

[Jintor]

God-dammmmmmmmmmn.

 

[saunderez]

I just think they used a lot of fine and delicate the controls over to the kinect which simply could not interpret the user's movements accurately enough so that it would work in game.

Yeah they definitely should've used more gestures, Kinect is rather good at picking them up. Well that and all the unused buttons on the gamepad, would it really have hurt to have certain things dual control with both Kinect and the gamepad?

 

[LowEndTorque]

The Kinect technology is just shit. idea of controller-less gaming is just shit and was a stupid fucking idea.

Fixed for ya =)

 

[Jomjom]

Go and play Child of Eden and tell me it's inaccurate and unresponsive. It's not.

If one game managed to have responsive and accurate controls then how can it be the hardware at fault? You wouldn't call analog sticks a failed technology just because there are games with shitty analog acceleration curves that are terrible to play.

I have played Child of Eden, while I wouldn't say it's inaccurate and unresponsive, the movements and input to make those movements is just about the simplest of any Kinect game. Additionally, there most definitely is lag in the input.

To your question about how it can be the hardware's fault when one game has managed responsive and accurate controls (an assumption that I do not agree with), think about how the hardware of the Kinect works with the hardware in the 360. The Kinect essentially shares processing power with the 360, due to MS's decision to cut the processor they originally intended to be in the Kinect itself. While beautiful, the graphics in Child of Eden are far from taxing on the 360 hardware.

Therein lies the fallacy of your logic. If every game was going to be similar to Child of Eden in graphical prowess, control scheme, and game genre, then yes I would agree that Child of Eden has shown that that every game can have accurate and responsive controls. However, not every game is like that. Even if I agreed with you that Child of Eden was fully responsive and accurate, it still would not be conclusive proof that every type of game made for the Kinect can be responsive and accurate.

Lastly, your comparison to analog sticks is also problematic. The rare game where controls are inaccurate or unresponsive using the sticks are the exception to the rule, while Child of Eden is the exception to the rule that Kinect games generally control poorly.

 

[Kasumi1970]

I guess Kinect and From Software being a bad combination shouldn't have been a surprise.

??? From Software are a great co. i love there games.......like Dark souls
when i played the demo it played ok for me. i enjoyed.

 

[Raoh]

I think we know who to blame for motion controls...

Honestly i think that is what's missing from motion control schemes like Kinect.

Even in minority report, he used gloves

g-speak - minority report os demo, uses gloves
http://youtu.be/gqW2K3A0AnU



waving your hand over a set position and having it auto-lock is not true motion gaming.

 

[Dibbz]

Oh gaming journalists, I bet they feel so high and mighty handing out 1/10's (rightly so to this game) whilst games with just as big problems but with huge devs and publishers behind them ala Skyrim get top scores.

 

[renitou]

Games like Killzone!

 

[Visualante2]

How about no? Even IGN deserved a link more than him.

It's bad enough that GAF usually plagiarizes the entire article, denying the authors ad revenue. But to outright not bother linking at all is out of order.

 

[tedtropy]

Reminds me of the crazy noodle arms from Trespasser.

 

[Aselith]

Steel Battalion deserves better than this.

 

[saunderez]

Oh gaming journalists, I bet they feel so high and mighty handing out 1/10's (rightly so to this game) whilst games with just as big problems but with huge devs and publishers behind them ala Skyrim get top scores.

You can't possibly be suggesting Skyrim was anywhere near as broken as Steel Battallion is. Controls that don't work at all are kinda more damaging to a game than memory related bugs that didn't start popping up for 30+ hours.

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

You can't possibly be suggesting Skyrim was anywhere near as broken as Steel Battallion is. Controls that don't work at all are kinda more damaging to a game than memory related bugs that didn't start popping up for 30+ hours.

That was one of Skyrims most detrimental flaws, but only on one console. Remove that issue and there is a still a satchel full of gameplay design and mechanic atrocities laden within a shallow game. Its like people who say ME3 was a good game besides the ending, those people are over looking detrimental flaws.

 

[A.R.K]

lol wow...bad coding or bad tech? I think its a bit of both. Kinect was never upto this task.

But this is promising:

http://www.leapmotion.com/

It is way beyond what Kinect can do. Wonder if they would be bought by MS.

 

[saunderez]

That was one of Skyrims most detrimental flaws, but only on one console. Remove that issue and there is a still a satchel full of gameplay design and mechanic atrocities laden within a shallow game. Its like people who say ME3 was a good game besides the ending, those people are over looking detrimental flaws.

Yes but still there is nothing in Skyrim that even comes close to the clusterfuck that is Steel Battallion. You only have to play the demo to see this. Skyrim looks like a masterpiece in comparison. I'm sorry but controls that simply don't work trump every other kind of bug except for save related issues.

 

[chickdigger802]

The Giantbomb review is up.

1/5.

"5 star" brad giving 1 star???

Well you kinda knew it was coming when the first words of the QL was "I hate steel battallion Heavy Armour".

 

[Oracle Dragon]

Oh man this game looks amazing, why doesn't it work? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

I hope they fix it up for a "gold" type version, this was such a unique kind of game

 

[Satchel]

The problem isn't Kinect.

Developers are the problem.

Dance Central is proof that Kinect works perfectly when a competent developer is behind the wheel.

 

[Derrick01]

The problem isn't Kinect.

Developers are the problem.

Dance Central is proof that Kinect works perfectly when a competent developer is behind the wheel.

It's proof that dancing games work on the thing, which I don't think anyone doubted. It's the more complex game types that people questioned.

 

[kayos90]

It's proof that dancing games work on the thing, which I don't think anyone doubted. It's the more complex game types that people questioned.

Agreed. Just because Kinect works for one game doesn't mean it's the devs are at fault. It depends on the game and how big of a project the team is handling. The more complicated the game, the harder it becomes.

 

[saunderez]

Agreed. Just because Kinect works for one game doesn't mean it's the devs are at fault. It depends on the game and how big of a project the team is handling. The more complicated the game, the harder it becomes.

The devs aren't at fault for releasing a game that literally doesn't work due to the controls? Really? How proud must you be of your work if you let this go to market with your name on it....

Sure the publisher is likely to blame for pushing it to market but it should never have been released in this state and its hard not to blame the developers for it being in this state. At the end of the day this should never have been released, not in its current form. It makes Capcom look bad, it makes From look bad and it makes the Kinect look bad.

 

[kayos90]

The devs aren't at fault for releasing a game that literally doesn't work due to the controls? Really? How proud must you be of your work if you let this go to market with your name on it....

We're not talking about the SB. We're talking about how people think the Kinect is an absolutely broken product. In the case of SB, yes the devs are at fault. Please read before making idiotic comments/responses.

 

[unholyrevenger72]

The problem isn't Kinect.

Developers are the problem.

Dance Central is proof that Kinect works perfectly when a competent developer is behind the wheel.

It's the accuracy of kinect thats the problem. It can detect large broad movements, Dancing, standing up in steel battalion to look out your hatch, but the accuracy of pushing a small botton on a virtual control panel isn't their yet.

 

[kayos90]

It's the accuracy of kinect thats the problem. It can detect large broad movements, Dancing, standing up in steel battalion to look out your hatch, but the accuracy of pushing a small botton on a virtual control panel isn't their yet.

I expect that we probably won't even see that with the next iteration of the Kinect as well.

 

[famousmortimer]

The problem isn't Kinect.

Developers are the problem.

Dance Central is proof that Kinect works perfectly when a competent developer is behind the wheel.

There's two sides to this coin and I think you aren't looking for the other one.


Yes, a good developer can make a good game with anything. That is clear.


But if no one is making good games for a device at some point you have to point the finger at the device and figure out why no one tries/wants to/cares enough to do it.


Is there no money in Kinect only games? I have no idea, I would assume the popular ones do OK.

So why is it? I think that's the central question when it comes to the kinect. Why does this thing even exist? What does it do that's more fun than what we already have? You mentioned dance games, but the best selling dance game of all time isn't on the Kinect. And there are popular dance games on all three systems.


So what does it do? I never could wrap my brain around that so I took a wait and see approach to buying it (which is kinda rare, i tend to buy everrrrrrrything). But I just couldn't figure out how this thing could possibly be more fun than anything else I currently had.

And neither can developers. You can blame them if you want, but I think you're missing a big part of the picture.

 

[kayos90]

There's two sides to this coin and I think you aren't looking for the other one.


Yes, a good developer can make a good game with anything. That is clear.


But if no one is making good games for a device at some point you have to point the finger at the device and figure out why no one tries/wants to/cares enough to do it.


Is there no money in Kinect only games? I have no idea, I would assume the popular ones do OK.

So why is it? I think that's the central question when it comes to the kinect. Why does this thing even exist? What does it do that's more fun than what we already have? You mentioned dance games, but the best selling dance game of all time isn't on the Kinect. And there are popular dance games on all three systems.


So what does it do? I never could wrap my brain around that so I took a wait and see approach to buying it (which is kinda rare, i tend to buy everrrrrrrything). But I just couldn't figure out how this thing could possibly be more fun than anything else I currently had.

And neither can developers. You can blame them if you want, but I think you're missing a big part of the picture.

It can go both ways yes. I think that the hardware definitely works for a certain genre/type of games since the hardware has the most potential for it. Stuff like SB though, definitely not. What I don't get is, why did they pursue it knowing that it probably wouldn't work...

 

[Satchel]

It's proof that dancing games work on the thing, which I don't think anyone doubted. It's the more complex game types that people questioned.

Um, body tracking is body tracking. If anything Dance Central is more complicated because your body is flailing and shifting everywhere.

Steel Battalion involves sitting in one spot.

Kinect works fine. The developer was the problem here.

 

[kayos90]

Um, body tracking is body tracking. If anything Dance Central is more complicated because your body is flailing and shifting everywhere.

Steel Battalion involves sitting in one spot.

Kinect works fine. The developer was the problem here.

I don't think he's insinuating that it wasn't the devs are at fault.

 

[Satchel]

There's two sides to this coin and I think you aren't looking for the other one.


Yes, a good developer can make a good game with anything. That is clear.


But if no one is making good games for a device at some point you have to point the finger at the device and figure out why no one tries/wants to/cares enough to do it.


Is there no money in Kinect only games? I have no idea, I would assume the popular ones do OK.

So why is it? I think that's the central question when it comes to the kinect. Why does this thing even exist? What does it do that's more fun than what we already have? You mentioned dance games, but the best selling dance game of all time isn't on the Kinect. And there are popular dance games on all three systems.


So what does it do? I never could wrap my brain around that so I took a wait and see approach to buying it (which is kinda rare, i tend to buy everrrrrrrything). But I just couldn't figure out how this thing could possibly be more fun than anything else I currently had.

And neither can developers. You can blame them if you want, but I think you're missing a big part of the picture.

Seriously? So Capcom was forced to make this game were they?

Kinect is an OPTIONAL accessory made my Microsoft.

No third party developer is forced to make games for it. If they choose to make a game, then it's on them to make it work.

The fact that there are games out there that work means its perfectly possible. I'm sure being first party helps, but it's about effort.

Why are multiplats on PS3 generally worse than the 360 version? Is the PS3 broken? Why do the first party games look and run do well?

Developers. Yeah, Sony made it trickier for third parties but it can be done. Same way Microsoft made it tricky by taking out the processor in Kinect and making the res pretty low, but it can be done.

 

[cuyahoga]

I'm worried that this "Shit, dawg" dialogue is my influence at work.

 

[kayos90]

Are there any videos that show the gameplay and the person playing it simultaneously? I want to see how bad this actually is. I haven't seen a 1.0 pop up anywhere as of late.

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

Um, body tracking is body tracking. If anything Dance Central is more complicated because your body is flailing and shifting everywhere.

Steel Battalion involves sitting in one spot.

Kinect works fine. The developer was the problem here.

You haven't played these games have you? You aren't "constantly in motion". Its pretty much you do a specific move that you see on screen in time with the beat, or when the circle beneath your feet indicates the timing. Unfortunately I know this because I was shamed in a mostly female party trying to get this thing down pact.... That is nothing like Steel Battallion at all.

 

[Satchel]

You haven't played these games have you? You aren't "constantly in motion". Its pretty much you do a specific move that you see on screen in time with the beat, or when the circle beneath your feet indicates the timing. Unfortunately I know this because I was shamed in a mostly female party trying to get this thing down pact.... That is nothing like Steel Battallion at all.

I own Dance Central. Try Playing it on harder difficulties.

Anyone who strictly stays in one tight spot is playing it wrong and is most likely not scoring highly.

Plenty of the moves require you to shift around quite a bit.

You sit in ONE spot in Steel Battallion. Put your hand out every now and then and stand up here and there. This was a massive failure on the developers part.

You played Gunstringer?

 

[jkh13]

It's the accuracy of kinect thats the problem. It can detect large broad movements, Dancing, standing up in steel battalion to look out your hatch, but the accuracy of pushing a small botton on a virtual control panel isn't their yet.

It is not the accuracy of the Kinect that is the problem. I have worked with the Kinect and have some idea of the ins and outs of what can be achieved with it. Typically you can expect it to be able to detect positions of all limbs to a <40mm precision in mere milliseconds, I can assure that is more than accurate enough for any action present in the game. However that is all the Kinect is supposed to do, detect the poses of humans in its view.

The problem lies in the developers abilities to interpret how these poses translate into game actions. For instance how to program the game to understand that a sequence of poses of you getting off the chair means you are looking out of the hatch. It's not an easy task and clearly a lot of developers are having great difficulty with it. It is actually quite an exciting area of research that is getting alot of attention due to the revolutionary technology that the Kinect brings to the table. Read up on 'gesture recognition' for more info on this.

I would like to reiterative, the problem does not lie with the Kinect, it does what it is supposed to do almost perfectly, which is to detect the pose of a human in its view and construct a humanoid skeleton model from the pose. The technology is pretty revolutionary and with any new technology there will be a learning period were developers will need to learn how best to interpret the information the Kinect is giving them.

 

[chiablo]

Had this been released on PC, and you used a mouse instead of Kinect... This would have probably been a pretty cool game. Joystick to control the mech with mouse-look inside the cockpit? Sign me up.

 

[Satchel]

It is not the accuracy of the Kinect that is the problem. I have worked with the Kinect and have some idea of the ins and outs of what can be achieved with it. Typically you can expect it to be able to detect positions of all limbs to a <40mm precision in mere milliseconds, I can assure that is more than accurate enough for any action present in the game. However that is all the Kinect is supposed to do, detect the poses of humans in its view.

The problem lies in the developers abilities to interpret how these poses translate into game actions. For instance how to program the game to understand that a sequence of poses of you getting off the chair means you are looking out of the hatch. It's not an easy task and clearly a lot of developers are having great difficulty with it. It is actually quite an exciting area of research that is getting alot of attention due to the revolutionary technology that the Kinect brings to the table. Read up on 'gesture recognition' for more info on this.

I would like to reiterative, the problem does not lie with the Kinect, it does what it is supposed to do almost perfectly, which is to detect the pose of a human in its view and construct a humanoid skeleton model from the pose. The technology is pretty revolutionary and with any new technology there will be a learning period were developers will need to learn how best to interpret the information the Kinect is giving them.

Thank you for clearing that up and confirming my suspicions.

I've seen and experienced Kinect working perfectly which means the device is fine.

 

[mujun]

That was one of Skyrims most detrimental flaws, but only on one console. Remove that issue and there is a still a satchel full of gameplay design and mechanic atrocities laden within a shallow game. Its like people who say ME3 was a good game besides the ending, those people are over looking detrimental flaws.

What score does the 360/PC version of Skyrim deserve in your opinion?

 

[PrinceOfApathy]

I think the problem is the Kinect despite jkh13 good post. If the Kinect is basically a gaming camera that freeze frames skeletal structure and feeds that into the system of the game, that means in a heated situations such as Steel Battallion where you are trying to hurry the movements to quickly scope, pull levers or press buttons it's going to cause conflicts, because in a hectic game you will obviously want to do things quickly. Especially if the music is blaring, the atmosphere is caustic and exciting. Which the Kinect has a problem recognising as opposed to a static pose, or slower movement.

 

[Satchel]

I think the problem is the Kinect despite jkh13 good post. If the Kinect is basically a gaming camera that freeze frames skeletal structure and feeds that into the system of the game, that means in a heated situations such as Steel Battallion where you are trying to hurry the movements to quickly scope, pull levers or press buttons to is going to cause conflicts, because in a hectic game you will want to do things quickly, which the Kinect has a problem recognising as opposed to a static pose, or slower movement.

You move very quickly in both Dance Central and Kinect Adventures. Also Gunstringer.

 

[Dibbz]

You can't possibly be suggesting Skyrim was anywhere near as broken as Steel Battallion is. Controls that don't work at all are kinda more damaging to a game than memory related bugs that didn't start popping up for 30+ hours.

It was basically unplayable for one platform but got the same reviews across the board. This dogpile they are doing right now on Steal Battalion highlights the sliding scale the gaming media all seem to run by in which their favourite games get let off even if there are major bugs or design problems with them.

 

[outunderthestars]

It's weird that MS would even allow a game this broken to get through certification. I wonder how many returns From software will end up receiving...

 

[Oni Jazar]

You move very quickly in both Dance Central and Kinect Adventures. Also Gunstringer.

It is extremely more easy to mask unintended gestures with a game like Dance Central then it is with a direct control game like Steel Battalion Heavy Armor.

 

[Arklite]

For anyone wanting a good laugh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKRBUzElTU

What a mess. You really need something physical to interact with for a game like this. A new giant controller would've been much better than blindly flailing at a camera.

 

[saunderez]

It is extremely more easy to mask unintended gestures with a game like Dance Central then it is with a direct control game like Steel Battalion Heavy Armor.

The Gunstringer is 2 handed direct control at all times (left handed movement, right handed shooting most of the time). Dance Central mightn't be a good example but The Gunstringer is.

 

[chickdigger802]

haha, wonder if another mech game in a world where there is still technology, would work better for kinect. Minority Report style broad gestures over a sleek interface could be cool (and could possibly work).