Preview: ZombiU Single-Player

[BrotherRool]

snip...
Also how does the attention work, with the UI on the screen, do you find it natural glancing at the two or do you have to lose focus on the TV screen to look at the UI?

Last question (this is the problem with Nintendo being innovative, there's so much stuff to understand ) how is it to hold? Pictures make it look like the thumbsticks are as awkward as PS Vitas and it's larger than that. I'm glad they've got proper games in the works for it though

lets put this in perspective of what they are doing in Colonial Marines the motion tracker is on the game pad, and never appears on the TV screen, so you know how artificial it felt that: the character is holding a pistol with one hand, and the motion tracker with the other, and I still have to put the motion tracker away to shoot the gun, or this gun is supposed to have the motion tracker on it, but I have to press a button to look at it. when in all the movies whenever a person wanted to look at the motion tracker they had to stop looking at the things right in front of them (sometimes it was for suspense), and look at it which with respect to the world is actually more immersive then what has been done with it: have it on screen, but still able to "look over it" when that never happens in the movies, or have it in the corner of the screen like its on that funny eye piece the character wheres even though that has never been in any movie.

then in other perspectives like here "I need to look into my backpack", so if I push a button the character is looking through their backpack, and I have to "look" at the backpack by looking at the gamepad.

then in like Fallout the pipboy is on the characters are but when you go to look at it the character brings it up to their face like they have glaucoma, or are near sited, but with this you can actually be looking at the gamepad like it was your pipboy (just in your hand instead of on your wrist) even though how heavy the thing looks.

then in a game to look at a map its in the corner of the screen I find that this is unimmersive because "hey my character has a photographic memory of the terrain"

In some sense are true, but the logic isn't necessarily sound, we've found both with the Wii and the Kinect that an action which is more physically similar to the action, can increase immersion but it can also decrease immersion despite being a more realistic action, because the extra gap between the fiction and the players mind doesn't allow the player to slip into the game. The action has to be very natural and good to make up for this gap.

In this case, the situation you describe, if you stop to look at a tracker in the situation, you're looking at it surrounded by the dark with these weird noises looking at you. In our case we have the player remove his eyes from the screen, which represents the hostile environment he's in, leave that hostile environment and consciously consult something that resides in not only a different, non-hostile environment, but one he probably very much connects with safety and security.


I'm not saying it's definitely immersion breaking, I was asking a genuine question to someone who had experience with the game and the system, but unless you yourself have had experience of the game and can say it's not so, then we can't make a conclusion either way. You have made a sound argument, but it's also sound that a book can be just as/more immerrsive than a film, despite recreating much less of whats going on, because the gap between the mind and it's material is lessened.

Also, if you haven't, check out the Extra Credits episode I was referencing when saying that more realistic mechanics don't naturally improve immersion
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/kinect-disconnect

 

[gardian06]

snip...
I'm not saying it's definitely immersion breaking, I was asking a genuine question to someone who had experience with the game and the system, but unless you yourself have had experience of the game and can say it's not so, then we can't make a conclusion either way. You have made a sound argument, but it's also sound that a book can be just as/more immerrsive than a film, despite recreating much less of whats going on, because the gap between the mind and it's material is lessened.

Also, if you haven't, check out the Extra Credits episode I was referencing when saying that more realistic mechanics don't naturally improve immersion
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/kinect-disconnect

actually at the beginning of the press conference on the 13th they were talking about the hands on events. I went to the one in Seattle, and in terms of feel I have what you would probably call medium sized hands (the gamecube controller was a little awkward, but usable), and the controller felt to have about the same amount of stretch needed as the gamecube controller. in terms of weight it felt about the same as the old XBox controllers (before the smaller ones), or a little heavier then a gen1 Ipad.

in terms of the immersion I found that when sitting, and something needed me to look away from the tv at the gamepad I instinctively lifted the gamepad from the resting position, and brought it to a short distance from the tv line. though for some of the displays where they asked me to stand while playing it didn't feel as natural to bring the gamepad up, but that just tells me that it is a sitting to play system. then someone brought up the touchscreen, but it felt similar to using any touchscreen tablet, and the modelling of the sides actually felt pretty good to rest in.

the only issue I could see with using it is if you have hands on the smaller side, but even my friend who does have smaller hands said that she found it a little bit of a stretch to be in the grooves, but it never felt tedious, or painful to play like the gamecube was for her.

and as a note I still find it funny to be dancing with the WiiMote.

 

[BrotherRool]

actually at the beginning of the press conference on the 13th they were talking about the hands on events. I went to the one in Seattle, and in terms of feel I have what you would probably call medium sized hands (the gamecube controller was a little awkward, but usable), and the controller felt to have about the same amount of stretch needed as the gamecube controller. in terms of weight it felt about the same as the old XBox controllers (before the smaller ones), or a little heavier then a gen1 Ipad.

in terms of the immersion I found that when sitting, and something needed me to look away from the tv at the gamepad I instinctively lifted the gamepad from the resting position, and brought it to a short distance from the tv line. though for some of the displays where they asked me to stand while playing it didn't feel as natural to bring the gamepad up, but that just tells me that it is a sitting to play system. then someone brought up the touchscreen, but it felt similar to using any touchscreen tablet, and the modelling of the sides actually felt pretty good to rest in.

the only issue I could see with using it is if you have hands on the smaller side, but even my friend who does have smaller hands said that she found it a little bit of a stretch to be in the grooves, but it never felt tedious, or painful to play like the gamecube was for her.

and as a note I still find it funny to be dancing with the WiiMote.

Cheers that was a nice description. I've got small hands but I don't remember the gamecube controllers being unusable for me, so that should be fine. And definitely the whole point of Wii Mote dancing is to be laughing at the silliness =D

 

[FantomOmega]

For the love of god, even watching somebody else constantly switching between two screens frustrates me. I hope, I HOPE that you can turn that shit off and just have everything on the one screen. Pleeaase.

Making the game in First Person view makes this controller REDUNDANT since Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Slender man doesn't need a smaller screen to make things tense since you would only see in-front of you and would need to turn around to make sure the undead is not on your tail

Nintendo tried to reinvent the wheel but only ended up adding spinning rims to the thing!

 

[Tom Goldman]

Remember how you used to have to press a button, perhaps the D-pad, to cycle through weapons in an FPS? Or press pause to equip a new gun in a game like Resident Evil (the older versions, anyway)? No more. With a tap on the GamePad , ZombiU lets you quickly switch weapons, or turn on and off your limited-use-hence-stress-inducing flashlight.

The description hasn't really sold me on this bit. Instead of tapping the right trigger, which our fingers rest on to hold the controller (or okay, tapping a button on the d-pad with fingers in reach, but it's normally right trigger) we can tap a screen instead? Do you have all your weapons on the screen and you can tap the one you want? I guess that would be an improvement, cycling through weapons on a normal controller was normally a pain (hence Halo's two-weapon innovation), even with circular selection ala Resistance and Halo.

Also how does the attention work, with the UI on the screen, do you find it natural glancing at the two or do you have to lose focus on the TV screen to look at the UI?

Last question (this is the problem with Nintendo being innovative, there's so much stuff to understand ) how is it to hold? Pictures make it look like the thumbsticks are as awkward as PS Vitas and it's larger than that. I'm glad they've got proper games in the works for it though

You have a small inventory of icons you can touch. They're in the corners of the touchscreen (3 at each corner) so it's easy to reach over and switch. It was very natural to glance down at the GamePad and I felt it worked well. It added to the immersion as opposed to if you had a zombie radar on your screen, which is "unrealistic" (unless you were wearing Google Glasses)... like I said as if you were really holding a gadget inside of ZombiU's world.

This was after a short impression of the game, so we'll have to see how it works in the long run. I actually liked the GamePad's functionality more than I expected, and it was very easy to hold... not heavy or uncomfortable or anything like that.