Project Natal – It’s Nearly Here

The latest gadget from Xbox is almost ready to go. Yesterday myself (Brian Maher) and Dara Quilty got invited to test out Project Natal.

Neither of us knew a huge amount about it, other than, you no longer need remote controls and its something to do with motion sensors. It’s sooooo so so so much more than that.

We played a demo game, which, showed off a tiny amount of Project Natals capabilities. The game was relativly simple. It was a combiation of squash and and the classic Pong. We just had to hit as many as the bricks as possible while keeping the ball in play. We could use any part of our body to keep it in play – Head, Arms, Feet, Knees etc. A video may be easier to demonstrate but no cameras were allowed.

Really this was just a very small demonstration of what Project Natal is going to be able to do when it’s launched later this year.

The really amazing part was how accurate the motion camera is. If you scratched your nose, your avatar (the person you use on screen) scratched their nose. Did scretched – it does stretches. Just from seeing all this our imaginations were able to run wild. Can you imagine playing Halo, and actually running around, firing your gun? Playing sport games like Tiger Woods, Fifa, Pro Ev, NBA etc – using no remotes, no pads, no nothin. Just standing infront of your TV controlling everything.

Project Natal will work with all existing Xbox 360′s. It just plugs in via USB. Existing games however won’t be compatable. However, i’d imagine most of the games that will be released at the start will all be geared towards Project Natal. Much like when the Wii first launch.

I didn’t fully get how amazing this was  until yesterday. You should be excited. Very Excited!!!