Dead Space 3 dev discusses Kinect features

By: Moses Abaortae

  |   December 31st, 2012   |  

News

Steve Papoutsis, the executive director at Visceral Games, gives the lowdown on what gamers can expect with Dead Space 3’s Kinect features and how it will complement the overall experience.

Microsoft has been pushing the Kinect to become more an integral part of the core gaming experience as opposed to its reputation being tacked on. Mass Effect 3 was the first major triple-A title to promote the ‘better with Kinect’ tag line but rather than being a complete game changer the feature failed to become anything more than a gimmick.

Visceral Games though are hoping that they can find the right balance where the Kinect can actually add to the overall experience and increase its value rather than being an optional feature that wears out its welcome too soon.

Steve Papoutsis, in a recent interview with CVG explained how the Kinect was being used in Dead Space 3 different to how it was in Mass Effect 3 as well as adding how the studio never contacted their fellow EA third-party studio for any advice or direction.

Papoutsis began his explanation of the Kinect features when he said, “Getting a chance to use Kinect was something that was pretty cool for us.”

The feature will be inclined more towards the co-op experience although it has its uses in the single player mode as well.

One of the uses of the Kinect’s voice control in co-op will be to easily swap and share items.

“Add in co-op and now you can do things with simple voice commands like give your partner ammo or items.”

Asked if certain reactions from players to the game will be detected and used by the game to connect the player with Isaac and Carver more. Steve said, “Yes! We actually have some commands that people will need to figure out.” Before going on to elaborate, “But there are commands where you might be in a certain situation and you might yell a specific expletive and it might behave in a way that you want it to.”

When asked if there were any gesture controls or any movements required to trigger certain commands and actions Steve replied, “No, because people at this point with the third one are very used to the experience we have when kicking back on their couch with the gamepad, so it didn’t make sense to put that in”

Visceral seem to be using the Kinect’s voice control to compliment the core experience rather than redefine how games are played and that balance could just end up working out in both the Kinect and Visceral Games’ favour. However, one has to wonder why, with all that technology, it is only the voice control that is being taken advantage of.