"Hey! That's not what I told you to equip!"
Last year when Bioware made the announcement that Mass Effect 3 would be sporting Kinect integration, many a gamer let out a groan at the thought. We all imagined ourselves bouncing around our lounges trying desperately to dodge bullets and flailing like madmen in order to get our weapons to work properly.
But as more information was brought forward surrounding the Kinect integration most of us started to change those opinions quite quickly. Instead of the horrors we had imagined, we found ourselves being offered a concept that might just revolutionise the way first person shooter games are played…that is if it works.
The Kinect integration features voice-only activation, so none of the hand waving and silly jumping will be necessary. While controlling your character as you normally would with your controller you will no longer need to pause the game in order to use your Biotic Powers, change a weapon or give a command to an NPC (non player character) party member. That’s right, all you have to do is make a verbal command and the characters will do as you tell them!
To give you an idea of how this works check out the trailer below (courtesy of Gamespot):
So far all of the reviews by people who have been lucky enough to try it out have been quite positive, Justin Davis of IGN had this to say:
Most important of all is that this Kinect integration just works. When you say sniper rifle, Shepherd switches to his sniper rifle. Saying “Adrenaline Rush” activates the biotic power. Say “James, Move” and your squad mate moves to the location you have pointed out. During the entire demo, I never once had a voice command not register properly.
The voice recognition system was recorded in American English, UK English and Australian English in order to make sure that none of the voice commands would be misunderstood or not register. And herein lies the fatal flaw as far as South African players are concerned.
In a country that has such a richly diverse cultural history and no less than 11 official languages, we find ourselves in the unique position of having quite a few different accents and inflections. Until the game has actually been launched there is no way of really knowing how well the Kinect’s voice recognition software will be able to handle South African accents.
We may possibly be faced with the type of irritating scenario envisioned by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, creators of the hilarious gamer centric webcomic Penny Arcade:
Bioware could definitely be on the verge of something great here, but it remains to be seen whether this will be a life-altering experience or just another one-trick pony.
For a South African point of view on the Kinect integration as well as other gaming topics check out the podcast from the awesome bloggers at Future Pixel:
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