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SEGA’s Satoshi Ito, producer on the upcoming Rise of Nightmares, believes that Kinect games need to stop relying on Avatars so much, and start making use of the first-person perspective.
“There’s currently a lot of games where you have your Avatar on the screen, and you’re motion moves the Avatar on the screen.” Ito-san told VideoGamer.com, “But the true sense of this platform will be better when you have a first person point of view – like [with Rise of Nightmares], when you’re playing this game, you don’t see an Avatar, you just see your perspective and your actions. That’s the sort of direction a lot game studios will be correcting.”
Is Ito-san saying that we should be moving away from Avatars?
“Yes, I think that’s the true strength of [Kinect]. It gives you a more immersive experience when it’s only you versus the screen, and there’s nothing in-between disrupting anything.”
According to Ito-san, there’s still a lot Kinect can do to increase immersion. Voice recognition is something that will take off in a bigger way as the technology goes forward, he says.
“Voice recognition is a really interesting use of Kinect. I think there’ll be a lot more software that makes use of that feature. This will increase the immersive effect of any gaming experience.”
Rise of Nightmares, due for release in September, uses Kinect to allow players to explore a full 3D world, where combat, exploration and puzzle solving are all achieved without a controller. You can read more about the gory first-person brawler in my Rise of Nightmares preview.
