Keep talking. Your games can hear you.
Just don’t expect to have an interesting conversation. Even though you could run the space shuttle with all the technology packed into your average Game Boy, ask it a simple question and it will sit there blinking at you as dumb as a parakeet.
Which makes it feel all the more weird shouting commands at your GameCube. “Left! Advance! Left. No, LEFT!!” People in the other room might think you’ve gone crazy. And you might just do that playing “Odama.”
This surreal new game by famed developer Yoot Saito can’t lay claim to being the first game adding voice recognition to a major console release. “Konami’s Lifeline” had you bossing around a girl stranded on a space station exclusively via a microphone connected to the PlayStation 2. And Saito’s “Seaman” provided a creepy humanoid fish on the Dreamcast that would sit around and listen to you babble on.
“Odama” can boast its pioneering offering of the first feudal Japanese tactical-combat game combined with pinball that includes voice commands.
On a stylized field of battle, samurai warriors line up, ready to battle for their shogun. Strangely, at the bottom of the screen sit two giant paddles that look like pinball flippers. These come in handy once the giant Odama rolls onto the field, and you commence the battle by whacking the gargantuan orb into the opposing army.
Barking commands into the included microphone helps steer your little warriors out of harm’s way and encourages them to advance against the enemy. Since this is pinball dressed up as a warlord’s opium nightmare, the field of battle presents all manner of targets and obstacles.
If “Odama” teaches you anything about history, it’s that generals never proposed massive pinballs as weapons because giant balls tend to do as much damage to your guys as the bad guys. Voice commands to the troops help simplify things a little. Yelping at soldiers to move out of the way encourages them to shuffle here and there. But managing a pinball game while trying to figure out the best tactics on a fluid battlefield means that most of what you shout at the computer, it won’t understand.
Still, this talking-to-the-computer thing remains a fascinating possibility. Didn’t Mr. Spock talk to his console? Sooner or later, talking to games ought to replace prodding them along with a joystick.
New games this week
Gallop Racer 2006; PS2; Tecmo; released today
Over the Hedge; Xbox; Activision; today
Seed; PC; Runestone; today
AMF Extreme Bowling 2006; PS2; Bethesda Softworks; Saturday
IHRA Drag Racing – Sportsman Edition; PS2; Bethesda Softworks; Saturday
Sandlot Basketball; Xbox; Vivendi Universal Games; Saturday
Sandlot Football; Xbox; Vivendi Universal Games; Saturday
Sandlot Hockey; Xbox; Vivendi Universal Games; Saturday
The Da Vinci Code: Light Puzzle; Cell; Blaze; Saturday
Source: Gamermetrics.com
