Microsoft: Rare Working On Numerous Natal Projects

"Rare is intimately involved with Project Natal in a number of different dimensions. They're doing an awful lot of work, even outside the traditional game space, I would say. Unfortunately I can't go into a lot of detail about that. Rare is alive and well and really having a broader impact on the entire Xbox world than just doing the games they traditionally have in the past." --Shane Kim, Corporate V.P., Microsoft

Rare's games haven't sold very well, so Microsoft absorbed them into their R&D department?

Dvader said:

So I'm the only one that thinks table manners is something Miyamoto would make a game on, cause he has stranger inspirations for games.

The next quote he is saying how his thought process always leads to advanced gameplay and difficult situations, he holds himself back to make the games accessable. Imagine if he let loose in one game, what kind of majestic game we would get. I never stated once that he was dumbing down his games, you made that up, I said he has always held himself back.

I don't know what else to say. The table manners thing was obviously a joke. Besides Miyamoto rarely ever give details of his games before their reveal.

As for the difficulty. He says that he always explores deep and advanced gameplay elements but he is always careful that he doesn't make these elements too hard or complicated. He doesn't want a learning curve or difficulty curve for the controls hence why games like Super Mario and Zelda the advance game elements are through how the simple commands and interface interact with crafted and complex design. This is often what the best of the best developers do with their games (I.E. All of Nintendo, Valve, Blizzard, Etc.) Hard difficulty has its time and place in games, but usually not these types of games.

Iga_Bobovic said:

Jesus Vader, stop paying attention to his interviews. He always says weird shit, like once he told Mario will turn more mature.

Oh and Megaton.....

Looks Great! Twilight Princess art-styled Zelda again?

Iga_Bobovic said:

Oh and Megaton.....

What Megaton? He looks exactly the same as in TP. More mature my ass.

darthhomer said:

Got to play  some Uncharted 2 with Vader, fun stuff. Cheers mate!

And when are you going to play with me, sonofabitch?

robio said:

And then we made plans to go grab lunch after our step class next Tuesday, so all in all it was a productive call.

...and, since you eat with your toes and constantly put your elbows (and balls) on the table, He will studying your behavior at lunch and be modelling the first boss in "Table Manners Wii" after YOU, correct?

Reprinted from my Knights in the Knightmare Forum Topic:

It's hard to describe this game, but I'll try:

You control a wisp. The wisp shows where your sylus is pointing to onscreen on the battle screen. With this wisp, you choose weapons to drag to Knights and other allies on the battlefield.

You drag a weapon or item to an ally, charge it, aim it and attack. Charging the attack takes away your time for that Round. When time runs out, the round ends. You have a set amount of rounds to fill a Kill Gauge at the bottom of the screen, or it's Game Over.

Your enemies will attack the Wisp (not your allies) and their attacks will deplete the time for the round. This is where the whole "bullet hell" likeness comes from. The enemies attacks often have a spread or homing effect to them that makes them very similar to shooters (Ikaruga).

The effects of the items or weapons vary depending on whether or not you have Skill Points(?). You replenish your Points as you beat enemies. Magic crystals are released as enemies are defeated; you collect these to replenish your Points.

So, in a typical battle, you need to drag weapons to allies, charge and attack and collect crystals --ALL WHILE-- avoiding your enemies attacks. Even though there are rounds and things happen in "turns" the battle still plays out in real-time. You'll hear KitK described as turn-based and real-time, but you've never played a strategy game like this one before!

It gets more complex than I already described. Weapons have attributes (Lawful or Chaos). You can only use the weapons that apply to the current state of the Battlefield (Law or Chaos). There is a fog that covers the Battlefield that depletes as you use special attacks. As the fog depletes, you earn less crystals. The Wisp --CAN-- flip the attribute of the Battlefield to replenish the fog and change the weapons you are able to use.

If this sounds unnecessarily complex and unplayable, it actually turns out to be anything but! The rounds play fast, colorful, furious and fun! The battles are quick, most of the time is spent on the planning phase.  --DON'T-- let what was said here discourage you! Missing out on this game would be a crime! With the absolute lack of innovation we've been seeing as of late, it's --GREAT-- to see dev. teams trying different things!

...it REALLY doesn't get much more "different" than this!

mmm... chicken legs...

*drools*

I'm hungry!