mental manifestations

If you had asked me 10 years ago what I thought about biometrics and gaming, I probably would’ve said it was a stupid idea. At the time, maybe it was. The technology for biometric gaming was nothing like it is today, but it was certainly on its way. The first time I had experience biometric gaming was at a Gameworks in Seattle where my cousins took me for my birthday back in 2001.

I remember the game being a fighter, possibly a Virtua Fighter game. The game was very expensive for a round, something upwards of four dollars, whereas all the other arcade games were considerably less. If I had to measure it out by size, it would probably take up at least the space of my dining room. It was a huge hefty thing of hardware for what seems so simplistic today.

The fighters had to stand on these circles and stand straight up and not move while the game primed itself. The actual moves were recorded by these large cameras (probably some type of infrared cameras) embedded in these poles that rose out of the floor near the contraption where you put your money. When the game was ready to interpret your movements, the main screen proceeded to display a tutorial of the moves you can do in the game.

The movements were very, very simple. No complicated stuff. Just move your arm or leg out, and the fancy computers would (try to) figure what you did. To step forward, you had to stick your leg out and retract it. Stepping backwards was similar. To punch, you had to stick your arm out. I clearly remember there was no distinction on the speed or how long you had to keep your appendage out for the game to register your movement. At times I would drop into a fighting stance, knees bent and elbows up guarding myself, which the game didn’t seem to recognize at all. I probably confused it too much, and I also ended up losing to my cousin.

When the Microsoft Kinect was released, I was very impressed when many people started hacking it and using it for different purposes. Some of the videos I’ve seen are very impressive. It is a step-up from what Nintendo did when they released the Wii. Gaming is definitely moving into a direction, and I bet there will be a day when buttons will become more and more obsolete (for the sake of simplicity). Funny how game consoles evolved from number pads and joysticks into a growing number of buttons and directional pads but now going back to less buttons and analog directional knobs (I guess they’re not called joysticks anymore).

This new direction isn’t a bad one as long as it’s respected and used well instead of being a gimmick. It seems to be gaining ground with a wider audience now thanks to the storm the Nintendo Wii caused which just ignited a huge market of gamers other than the hardcore ones. I’m still waiting for the day when all this technology will converge and everyone will have holodecks like the ones they use on Star Trek. In the meantime, I’m going to be pressing buttons and punching keys until then.