I’ve recently started replaying “Beyond Good and Evil,” in which you use a camera and your wits to try to uncover a government conspiracy. It’s a beautiful game with a real sense of place that draws you in, and a story that keeps you playing to find out what happens next. What I like most is the expressiveness of the main character, Jade (right). Unlike Tommy Vercetti’s stoic mug in “Vice City,” Jade’s face reveals when she’s wistful or startled or determined. Gamers aren’t buying “Beyond Good and Evil” in “Vice City”-like numbers, but slowly we’re seeing a shift toward more subtlety in gaming. Right now, games use cut scenes — mini-movies — to advance the story and reveal characters’ thoughts. But cut scenes leave gamers sitting on their hands, waiting for the next task — not good interactive entertainment.
Facial expression is a faster, more involving way of exposing a character’s inner state.
Writing at Gamasutra.com, game designer Ernest Adams challenges the industry to come up with more emotionally complex NPCs, or non-player characters (the characters the player does not control). NPCs generally have one of two functions: to aid your quest to win the game or stop you dead. Adams argues that nuanced characters will behave more humanly, making games more involving: “I believe we should go on working towards the goal of creating three-dimensional characters in our games, firstly because advancing the state of the art is a worthwhile aim in itself, and secondly because it will enable us to make new games for new markets: people who are tired of cardboard characters.”
Hear! hear!
I FOUND IT
A new search engine takes a page from the social networking of Friendster and the recommendation feature of Amazon to find stuff you’re interested in. It’s called Eurekster, and it works like this: You and your circle of friends sign up to Eurekster.com (it’s free), and whenever a circle member uses Eurekster to search the Web, Eurekster offers up sites ranked by how much time circle members have spent at the site. The idea is that your friends’ preferences are similar to yours, so your search results will be more relevant than results from other search engines.
Google and Friendster have shown that search and social networking can bring people together and bring advertisers to those people. That’s why new search engines and networks will be popping up this year.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Now that wireless companies have to track cell phones to pinpoint the origin of 911 calls, Bell Labs says it has come up with a way to let people control how their location information is shared by location-enabled devices.
Location-based services are tapped as the next big thing in the mobile world. Bookstores could announce they’re right around the corner from you when you get within a block. Buses could broadcast a signal telling cell phone owners how far away a bus is from its next stop.
Bell Labs says its software package, dubbed “Houdini,” can let users control unsolicited contact. For example, a user may be interested in receiving a coupon from their favorite coffeeshop only on weekdays before 9 a.m. The rules engine would not block 911 calls.
