Natal may sound cool, but it's a BAD idea!

Now, I’ll admit upfront that I’m not entirely educated in the works or distribution of motion controllers, but to my knowledge, the Nintendo Wii was crowned as the first to widely popularize motion in games. This and all preceding technologies are (in my book at least) considered the worst move since Betamax!

Virtual Reality has been a pipedream for gamers, and well… everyone really. People think that such technology would introduce new revolutionized interfaces. While it’s quite logical that such equipment would be useful to organizations like NASA, but for gaming, this is a step into a realm of unspeakable irritability. If we continue to utilize these in everyday games, tears will undoubtedly spray from our already overworked tear ducts. So, why are motion controls such a bad idea? I’ll tell you…

First, who can honestly say that waving a Wiimote has proved annoying and/or pointless in one game or another, a resounding yes is the answer I would likely expect. So, for these games that simply don’t fit the criteria for motion control, how would you like to kick it up a notch? Instead of that pointless waving to smack your opposition, or pushing forward a joystick to walk or run, why not flail your arms around or stick your feet out in front of you? Not only could it prove to be a hazard to yourself and virtually anything within a yard of your protracted limbs, but it simply sounds boring.

Another difficulty arises when camera views are introduced, seeing as you can’t readily rotate your screen view when your right hand is busy shooting, you’re jumping in place to continue running, and your left hand is in possession of a clip ready to reload. Humans have one undeniable flaw, we aren’t readily equipped to multitask in this way, and nobody even has the attention span to continue all of these bodily controls without severe internal hemorrhaging.

With recently announced Natal and Sony’s patented “Household items as controllers” deal, it’s going to be hard to dodge what people consider “the future of gaming”. However, the fate of all motion controls lie in the developer’s palm. I’d love to see how they could possibly implement these mechanics, but I’m certainly not going to jump right on the bandwagon. So until further notice, consider me extremely skeptical.