The game is Ubisoft's newly-announced Racquet Sports. It offers tennis, squash, table tennis, racquetball and badminton and supports up to four players. Control options initially seemed, during a demo of the game in a New York penthouse hotel suite last evening, conventional. Racquet Sports can be played, like Wii Sports Tennis, with just the Remote. Or, for more sensitive motion control, players can use a MotionPlus. Using that second option, I competed in a virtual squash match in an underwater glass box against a Ubisoft developer. She had no mercy.

But the surprise was that the Ubi rep then offered me the chance to play the game with no controller. Racquet Sports enables this via the publisher's proprietary Wii camera peripheral, which originally sold with the company's 2009 fitness game, Your Shape.

The camera-controller mode only works in single-player and reminded me of games I've played with the PlayStation 2's Sony EyeToy. As with games like EyeToy Play, I had to stand within the dimensions of an outline rendered on the TV so that the camera could detect where I stood in the room. From there it would be able to register my movements.

Once I was calibrated, a tennis match started. An image of me was gone from the screen, replaced by the Racquet Sports' straightforward tennis-match visuals. I'm left-handed, so I lifted and swatted with my left hand to serve, and then volleyed swinging forehands and backhands. Between serves, a replay showed how the previous point was scored, but I could skip that with a wave of my right hand.

The Ubisoft camera doesn't operate with the sophistication I experienced in demos of Microsoft's Project Natal. It's not detecting my joints and mapping my movements to that of a virtual stick figure. It's, in the words of the Ubisoft developer showing me the game, looking at "pixel clouds," determining if my movement is straight out to the side or at an angle and interpreting that, along with the speed of my movement, into different kinds of shots.

I had a good time playing without the controller, though I wasn't sure why anyone would forgo the option to use one other than to conserve battery power in their Remote. It worked well, evidence that there's more than one way to do motion controls on the Wii.

I asked if the developers had tried using the camera mode with real tennis rackets in their hands. Not yet, I was told. But with a table tennis paddle, they said, it works just fine.

Capcom producer Morgan Gray said that he believes motion controls don't work well for flight games that include a lot of shooting in it.

His reasoning: Players tend to move their bodies a little when they're making tight turns in flying games — or even a racing games. If you map motion control to your flight game, then the controller will read those accidental body leans as inputs from the player. The result will be even more movement of the flying character or craft, a "false positive" input from a player who didn't intend that. That's bad news in a game that requires you to shoot while flying, he argued. It's even worse, he said, if you're being shot at while flying. A little flinching could ruin everything.

I pointed out to Gray that the PlayStation 3 game Flower did just fine with mapping its flight controls to the motion controls of the Sixaxis. But shooting wasn't required in that game.

Some players would surely like to have options, but as I watched Gray fly Dark Void's hero through canyons, precisely shooting at building struts and the joints of robots, I could see his point.

"Here's where we're at," says Chris Kramer:

In Japan, Alternative Edition will be released as a new physical package, with all that entails: new box art, new manual, new shiny disc, another plastic box to add to a tottering stack of console games. This makes absolutely perfect sense for the Japanese gaming market, where the uptake of digital content is a bit behind the western markets. However, based on the success of the RE5 "Versus" downloadable content, as well as digital-only titles like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Marvel VS Capcom 2, we know that the demand for DLC in the west is huge. More and more, gamers in North America and Europe want content immediately and are less inclined to be tied to boxes and packages.

They're flat serious about putting this up to a poll on the Capcom-Unity site, although it should be said, nothing implies the final tally is binding. But if it matters to you, make your voice heard. You'll need to have a Capcom-Unity account, or register one, to make your vote count.

"We're gonna let the poll run for a few weeks, then present the team with the results and our recommendations," Kramer says, "Once we get it all sorted, we'll report back with an official announcement."

Resident Evil 5 Alternative Edition: How do YOU Want the New Content? Tell Us! [Capcom-Unity]

1. Sony's PSPgo has been the subject of much criticism prior to its release. Which criticism do you feel is most valid?

Its price is too expensive: 35 percent (2,748 total responses)
The inability to play UMD games already purchased is disappointing: 35 percent (2,729)
The device is largely redundant to the existing PSP: 23 percent (1,761)
None of these; the device is fine, it's not a replacement for the existing PSP: 7 percent (580)
7,818 total responses

Equal numbers complain of the price and the lack of UMD. Both are heavy barriers to the Go's adoption, but we didn't ask "Why are you not buying the device," just what the most valid criticism was. This means, theoretically, that for some the lack of UMD does not matter as much as the price, and vice versa. But taken together, if the Kotaku readership is any indication of the core gaming crowd, the PSPgo has two hard strikes against it.

2. Based on what you've seen and read, which motion control system do you feel will be best integrated with its console's offerings?

None of these/Don't care: 27 percent (2,134 total responses)
Microsoft's Project Natal: 26 percent (2,085)
Sony's Motion Control: 24 percent (1,866)
Nintendo's Wii MotionPlus: 23 percent (1,799)
7,884 total responses

3. Which motion control system are you most interested in playing?

Microsoft's Project Natal: 39 percent (3,072 total responses)
Sony's Motion Control: 26 percent (2,068)
None of these/Don't care: 26 percent (2,067)
Nintendo's Wii MotionPlus: 9 percent (701)
7,908 total responses

4. Based on your personal gaming tendencies and preferences, do you feel that motion control systems:

Would not be relevant to the games I play: 42 percent (3,307 total responses)
Would detract from my enjoyment of the games I play: 22 percent (1,725)
Would enhance my enjoyment of the games I play 21 percent (1,682)
None of these/Don't know: 15 percent (1,167)
7,881 total responses

5. How do you feel about motion-control games?

I enjoy them, but I enjoy standard-control games more: 46 percent (3,621 total responses
I do not seek to play these games, but I enjoy them when invited to by a friend: 26 percent (2,076)
I do not enjoy motion control games, and do not want to play them: 14 percent (1,109)
I enjoy them and seek to play games that utilize them: 7 percent (580)
Not sure/Don't care: 6 percent (449)
7,835 total responses

This paints a strongly indifferent picture toward motion control games, as paradoxical as it sounds to say that. Your opinions of, basically, the best motion control system are all in a statistical dead heat - including "Don't care," the overall leader. Given an opportunity to play any motion control system, readers chose Project Natal, reflecting the base's strong preference for the Xbox 360. The Wii's stark underperformance in that question indicates either a disaffection for the console or the lack of perceived novelty in its control scheme after more than two years, and probably both. But the final nail in the coffin is that 42 percent of the readership simply doesn't care for motion controls; a supermajority finds them either irrelevant to the games they play, or that they detract from them.

6. Which platform do you enjoy the most?

Xbox 360: 36 percent (2,835 total responses)
PlayStation 3: 30 percent (2,359)
PC: 23 percent (1,841)
DS/DSi: 5 percent (359)
Wii: 3 percent (226)
PS2: 3 percent (223)
PSP: 1 percent (66)
Mac: 0 percent (30)
iPhone/iPod Touch : 0 percent (18)
7,957 total responses

We asked this as a control, just to establish console preferences and to see if they were consistent with previous answers. In large part they were.

7. Which statement best reflects your opinion of the Scribblenauts "Sambo" controversy?

It was blown out of proportion by the games press: 37 percent (2,850 total responses)
It was not offensive content, and merited no discussion: 30 percent (2,289)
Other opinion/Not sure/Don't care: 20 percent (1,570)
It was a controversy manufactured to harm a good game: 5 percent (424)
It was an insensitive error that deserved an apology: 5 percent (410)
It is a consequence of the lack of diversity in game development: 3 percent (204)
7,747 total responses

No surprise here. The controversy over Scribblenauts - writing "Sambo," a racial slur in the U.S., produced an item that looked like a watermelon - was almost immediately rejected by the commentariat on sites and forums that reported it, with many expressing the strong feeling that it was a gotcha-game invented by a gaming press with not much else to do. Only 5 percent, however, thought it was actively brought up to knock Scribblenauts down a peg.

8. What is the first word that comes to your mind for this game: Halo 3: ODST?

7,120 total responses

Unfortunately, I thought our polling software would aggregate responses using the exact same word, showing at least the top two or three words. Instead, the percentages are all 1/7120th. Scanning the list, "meh" appeared to be a popular choice. "A horse being flogged because it worked once," was another more specific expression of things like "redundant," "overrated" and "cash cow." "Expansion" and "expansion pack" also reflected a disappointment with ODST's singleplayer campaign. Positives included "awesome," "amazing," and "fun." Unfortunately, I simply can't tally up the percentage of positive words versus negative or indifferent. Thanks for participating in this question, but we can't use its kind in the future.

Look for more questions Oct. 10, as we continue to flesh out the habits, preferences and trends among the Kotaku Gamer.

This week we seek to measure your attitudes on the PSPgo, whose pre-release has been marred by retailer unhappiness, criticism of its price point, and disappointment in its lack of UMD support. We're also interested in your feelings on motion control, as 2010 figures to be the year when all three major consoles will have some type of full featured system. Finally, two games we've written about provoked a great deal of reader reaction in comments about them. Approval ratings will attempt to crystallize how you feel about both.

Editor's note: For one of these we're experimenting with an open-ended answer capability. An explanation will precede that specific question below.

Again, you will not see the results of these polls after you vote. They will close tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. U.S. Mountain Time. We will publish the results and an analysis the following Thursday evening.

For this next question, because of the limitations of our poll service, we had to include at least two forced choices. These have been identified as null; do not check either of them. Click the third radio button and type your answer in the space provided in the third field.

This video comes from Sony's Tokyo Game Show presentation during which motion control support was revealed for LBP as well as Resident Evil 5 (video of that is here). We reported that the game would also support, EyePet, Flower, Pain, High Velocity Bowling "and more". The slide at the end of the demonstration also mentions Sing and Draw, Champions of Time, Motion Party, The Shoot and Tower.

[TGS 09] PS3 モーションコントローラ リトルビッグプラネット LBP [EyeToy] [YouTube, thanks John R.]

The gameplay begins at 2:50 (unless you speak Japanese, skip to that part, it's all presentation dialogue up to that) and lasts to the six-minute mark. It looks smooth enough, but the demonstrator also is holding a regular PS3 controller. Can't tell if that's because this is a prototype, or if that's how this game will be operated when it releases in the spring of 2010.

[TGS 09] PS3 モーションコントローラ バイオハザード5 [EyeToy] [YouTube via VG247]

The jump shot's a no brainer - Wiimote and nunchuk up, flip the 'mote, splash, as Kobe Bryant shows you. Whipping the Wiimote in the direction of a teammate serves up a nice fast-break pass. Both controllers up and Greg Oden rejects a Monta Ellis shot.

I can see these kinds of motions being much more easily explained, and implemented, to friends who come over and haven't played the game, than their counterparts on a full console controller. The shooting motion especially; that's basketball's answer to the air-guitar.

I wonder, though, if that pass is good for one of Magic Johnson's patented length-of-the-floor bounce passes.

In an interview with Digital Spy, Kai Huang, president and cofounder of RedOctane, said the studio has "definitely been evaluating Microsoft's Natal technology, along with a lot of other different technologies."

Natal is very interesting because there's so many different things you can do with it, whether it's the motion detecting, maybe sensing how you're playing, or the ability to use it for interactivity purposes and taking advantage of it for party purposes. I think the technology is very exciting. We're evaluating it, and I think it's likely that sometime in the future we'll have those technologies integrated into our games.

Rock Band also is considering Natal, saying they'd look at the technology for inclusion in Rock Band 3.

Guitar Hero May Use Natal Technology [Digital Spy]

"We are not going to produce a gimmicky feature that just takes advantage of motion controls when it doesn't feel right," he added. "We're not going to make a feature that's not fun. If there's an opportunity to do it, we will definitely investigate it. If it's fun we will leave it in the game."

In late June, Bungie studio head perked up ears when he said the forthcoming Halo: Reach "could be enabled with" Natal. Cutting's remarks at least hedge the idea that it will.

Asked if Natal can accommodate the FPS, Cutting analogized it back to the FPS coming from its established mouse-and-keyboard base on the PC to dual-analog sticks with Halo earlier this decade.

"I think FPS, there's a lot to be said for dual stick control. But, you know, before dual sticks came around and before Halo: Combat Evolved established it on a console, people were pretty doubtful about that, that it could ever move from keyboard and mouse. So we've seen it already from one control scheme to another."

MS: We'll only do Natal Halo 'when it makes sense' [Videogamer.com via Joystiq]

If he seems familiar, Mikhailov, of SCEA's Research & Development unit, was part of the controller's original demonstration at E3. He explains the level of control the wand delivers, as opposed to the traditional control mappings of a dualshock, and why developers like what they've seen so far. Unlike an accelerometer "it gives a straightforward answer about where the device is," he says, thanks to the multicolored orb, which interacts with the PlayStation Eye.

Another fun fact: Mikhailov some trouble taking it through airport security when he flew to the U.K. to demo it there. Dude, just tell 'em it's a lightsaber, they'll let it through.

Motion Controller Update Part II: Interview with R&D – The Sequel {PlayStation.blog]

The PlayStation folks offer an insightful look at the research and development of the PS3's motion control offering, the one that's tied to the PlayStation Eye video camera and does very cool things. Somewhat surprisingly, the R in the R&D of the device goes far beyond watching a video of the Wii Remote in action and someone taking notes. I swear!

Marks and company talk about some of the controller's technical specs, which include an analog stick built in and some of that nifty force feedback. Not good enough for the SIXAXIS, but good enough for the sequel.

All kidding aside, this is a must see for any PS3 owner who wants to see what's coming down the pike in terms of control options for the PlayStation 3. Watch it!

EXCLUSIVE: Behind the Scenes with SCEA Research & Development (Part 1) [PlayStation.blog]

None of it was live, mind you, and none of it from any "proper" games, but still, these new demos already look far more polished than those presented at E3 only two months ago.

This stumble in Nintendo's stride has gained little attention as its competitors chase its dust. It's about the key tool for movement in this big gaming movement.

The original promise of the Wii's controller, the Wii Remote, was that it would augur a revolution in game control, a Motion Control Revolution.

Yet nearly three years later, with the Wii Sports' sequel, Wii Sports Resort,on the verge of its U.S. release, the triumph of the Motion Control Revolution is debatable at best. At the very moment when the wisdom of releasing the Wii is beyond dispute, it can be argued that the Motion Control Revolution has stalled — failed even — and that Wii Sports Resort is the next best hope (the last one?) to save it.

First shown at a game conference in Tokyo in September of 2005, the Wii Remote was going to make imitation swordsmen and dentists of us all. It was going to turn us into sharpshooters and champion fishermen, or so Nintendo's video sizzle reel hyped.

When Wii Sports was released in November 2006, that Motion Control Revolution seemed assured. We swung the Remote like a tennis racket and heaved it like a bowling ball. Those motions first delighted our families at holiday gatherings and then an audience at The Oscars. Day after day, the anchors of cable news seemed charmed to play a game on a console whose name they struggled to pronounce.

Yet, since the Wii Remote birthed the great Wii Sports, it's no stretch to claim that the revolutionary Remote has spawned no other great motion control games.

That's Nintendo's hidden stumble, this struggle for the motion-sensitivity of the Wii Remote to prove itself the equal of traditional button and stick controls, to say nothing of establishing itself as the superior option. Gamers groan at the flimsy motion controls mapped to action games. A shake of a hand replaces what could have been the press of a button. In game after game, motion control presents a different option, but one that seldom seems better.

As right as Nintendo was about so many things, maybe it was wrong about this. Or, as is so often the case with Nintendo's Wii project, the failure here may be one of critical imagination. That happens. Forty years ago on Monday, a human being first stepped on the moon, and what people assumed would happen in the next four decades — trips to Mars, cities in space — have not been built. The guessers often guess wrong.

The future we may have expected in 2006 — of a 2007 and beyond filled with motion-based greats manipulated with a Wii Remote — has not come to pass. The lightsaber, magic wand and music-conducting Wii games we expected were made. But they felt constrained and inaccurate. Mario and Zelda have not been transformed into adventures of motion-based brilliance. Magnificent as that motion control in Wii Sports was, the ability to let a player control their game by swinging the Wii Remote appears to have inspired little confidence and limited mastery even in some of the world's most expert game creators.

Even in Wii Fit, the great successor to Wii Sports, the Wii Remote was all but relegated to a laser pointer used to select menu options. Meanwhile, the mechanism for the game's motion was the Balance Board, a controller inspired by a bathroom scale.

Other Wii designers minimized their use of the Wii Remote's motion control even more. Chart-topper Super Smash Brothers played without it. Blockbusters Mario Kart Wii and Guitar Hero tucked it away in shells shaped like wheels and guitars, doing little to convince anyone that motion control was a must.

A new Zelda down-played it. A new Mario limited its motion-control element, as have so many Wii games, to the occasional vibration of a player's right hand. This fall's New Super Mario Bros. Wii, made in the two years since the last Wii Mario, uses motion control no more than the last.

Some games have used the Remote's motion control aggressively. MadWorld, No More Heroes and Manhunt 2 harnessed its potential for violence. Wii Music marshaled motion for musicality. Boom Blox made it the mechanism for hurling baseballs at stubborn bricks. But fun as some of those games were, they were not hits.

In that dust behind Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft and Sony are in the chase. Last month they revealed their own Motion Controllers, tied to cameras and, in the Xbox's case with Project Natal, absent the need for players to hold anything in their hands. One wonders if the companies have noticed Nintendo's struggles with motion control amidst the Wii's triumphs. The use of arm and body movements to play games has not proven a game-changer in and of itself. By making games more appealing a wider audience, its been a component of a bigger change. But it's also been a red herring.

Designers borrowing ideas from Wii Sports had had better success drawing from the game's accessibility than strictly from its motion controls. The simplicity of its design made Wii Sports approachable, streamlined and friendly, the least intimidating game many people had played since Pac-Man. It has one of the shortest gaps between being turned on and being fun. These have been its smarter qualities — and have revealed that the genius of the Wii Remote may not be its swing but its shape. It can be understood when seen from across a room and clearly it's no threat.

If the lack of games doing great things with motion control was one sign of trouble for the Motion Control Revolution, another was last summer's revelation that Nintendo was building a gadget that would enhance/repair/improve the Remote's motion-sensitivity. Bundled with copies of next Sunday's Wii Sports Resort and made to be plugged into the base of a Wii Remote, the MotionPlus add-on is, in Resort, a necessary attachment for better sword-swinging, archery, bowling, golf and more. A swing is a swing and a flick is a flick, and the controller feels like it finally knows — instead of merely simplifies — how the player is moving.

After years of playing games made during Nintendo's era of the Remote, playing Wii Sports Resort with MotionPlus attached suggests that we've been using a tool that was too blunt for the task. It is a technological success but also an admission by its manufacturers that the original Wii Remote was not capable of the motions we imagined — or that were teased in that sizzle reel.

Wii Sports Resort has greatness in it. A couple of days playing it — of going back for more and more — reveals it to be another joyful construction, a game with plenty of fun to share. The necessary bolting on of MotionPlus could be proof that, like Wii Fit or Guitar Hero, the greatest, most accessible motion-based games needs a unique device of its own, a controller shaped to the actions and fantasies of the game it supports. Wii Sports Resort suggests that for all the virtues of the Wii Remote's simplicity, it was too simple on its own to enable a line of games made great by its motion control.

By exposing what's been wrong with it, Wii Sports Resort may be the game to save the Motion Control Revolution.

(All images via Nintendo of America's press site. Super Smash Bros. player image from Nintendo/Stuart Ramson)

Sony promised to display "a lot more of the new controller" and give "several real-world examples of such techniques as used in recent and soon to be released PS3 and PSP titles from both Sony Computer Entertainment first party and external developers." During the event, Sony did not allow the filming of the controller in action as the company stated it was "prototype hardware" — photography was allowed during designated times.

The controller actually consists of two wands, which the user holds in their hands, while the PS3 camera tracks the movement and translates it into on-screen movement. In conjuction with the camera, the motion controllers can be replaced with other items, such as guns, displaying the player on the screen holding all sorts of items.

According to website VG247, one of the wands has a purple light on top, and the other has a red light. "It doesn't resemble the final unit as such," said Kish Hirani, the head of developer services at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Hirani played through the E3 demo and called the controller "very, very responsive."

"It can track true 3D, wherever I move it will fully track on every axis," explained SCEE developer services boss Kish Hirani. SCEE's Colin Hughes added, "We're not getting any lag, which we had with the camera-based stuff on PS3 before."

The PS Eye camera ensures that vision is always on, and provides accurate 3D location and orientation. Hirani called it "true 3D position" thanks to the camera and internal sensor.

"There's a whole spectrum of things you can do with this controller," Hirani explained. "It picks up all the pitch and movement. It's precise and responsive — the sphere on [the front] is what the controller is tracking — it uses the full RGB spectrum for the colors."

The controllers are available to studios, but developers have to "make a case" to get them. Remember these are prototypes and, as Hirani, pointed out at the presentation, "extremely limited."

A good chunk of the presentation was tech heavy and directed at game developers. That's why they call this conference Develop 2009, you know.

VG247 » Blog Archive » Liveblog - Sony motion controller session [VG247]
Sony motion controller is 'true interaction' [Develop]

THQ's Brian Farrell tells G4's The Feed that his company already has Natal development tools. They've had them for four to six weeks, by his estimation. The same can't be said for development on Sony's PlayStation Eye powered motion control tech, which is apparently still in the third-party "discussion" stage.

Sony apparently did say to developers, via a recent dev community bulletin, that "hardware prototypes and support are in extremely limited supply," that it is "prioritizing allocation for those partners likely to be able to deliver a title that makes use of the distinctive features of this controller at its consumer launch." That launch is penciled in for Spring of 2010, a launch that may not include THQ.

On the Natal front, Farrell isn't quite yet ready to discuss what THQ has planned. He doesn't rule out motion controlled content target at core users, but says the camera tech "feels more casual to us at this point."

THQ's Experimenting With Natal, Doesn't Have Sony Kits Yet, Making A Peripheral Game [G4's The Feed]

Away from the chaos of E3, we've gotten a chance to swing a MotionPlus-appended Wii Remote to control Wii Sports Resort, the showcase game for Nintendo's latest controller add-on. Yes, the chaos of the big show was absent, but present were guys from Nintendo.

And here's the thing: the more one spends time chatting with guys from Nintendo of America, the more one feels that parts of their headquarters must feel like a gamer variation of a varsity locker room, where the jocks walk around with swelled chests bragging not about how much they can bench press but how many more times they can return a serve in Wii Sports Resort table tennis.

With meager skills and a willing attitude, Kotaku took a swing.

What Is It?
Wii Sports Resort is the sequel to Wii Sports, which is, Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft notwithstanding, the most-discussed game of the last five years. The original Wii Sports was packed in with every Wii sold in North America. The new Wii Sports comes bundled with MotionPlus, the required add-on that enables a more direct relationship between a player's hand movements and those rendered on-screen. Wii Sports had four five sports. (Edit: sorry about that.) Wii Sports Resort has 12 — well, more than 12 given some of the unlockable variations of the core dozen.

What We Saw
We binged and played five sports: archery, basketball, table tennis, swordplay and skydiving.

How Far Along Is It?
Wii Sports Resort is out in mere weeks. It's done.

What Needs Improvement?
Uh, nothing? This game's quite good. Maybe we should complain about how simple these Miis look. Or about how there's no online play. Or how some of the sports, like bowling, are built upon (or recycled) from what was in Wii Sports. Or how the game would be cooler if it came bundled with two MotionPlusses instead of one to more easily enable multiplayer gaming. But such criticisms would be like yelling at a cute puppy to put on a hat: an ineffectual recommendation and one hardly guaranteed to improve something that's already plenty capable of providing delight.

What Should Stay The Same?

Archery: Seen at E3, previewed by many. Hold the Wii Remote vertical as one would hold a bow and yank back with the nunchuck to pull back the arrow. Hold steady. Account for wind and how gravity will tug on a long-flying arrow. Release. After the easy levels, a batch of new areas and harder difficulty options open up.

Basketball: Select three-point contest (other variations are offered). Hold the remote sideways. Tap the b-button to grab a ball from a rack. Make a flicking motion. Put some spring in your toes. Work through racks all around the half court, just like the pros. It feels perfect, though somewhere a Sony designer is growling that they already did this with Sixaxis for the first NBA game on PS3. Sorry, dude.

Table Tennis: It controls like Wii Sports tennis but plays faster. The variation on head-to-head is a challenge to return serves. Kotaku army, try to beat Nintendo man Melvin's 352 points. That's an order. And don't call the Achievement-like things in this game Achievements. They're Accomplishments. It's unclear, though, whether the times one hits the computer character on the other side of the table with a ball to the head is an Accomplishment or not.

Swordplay: One on one? Played it at E3 last year. Alternate mode involving chopping stalks of bamboo? It's probably dandy. But if there's a trophy for Mini-Game Of The Year, polish it for whatever Nintendo is calling Wii Sports Resort's light variation of Gears of War Horde. You are your Mii. You're holding a sword. And those waves of sword-wielding Miis coming down that rope bridge toward you need to be whacked. Batter them off the bridge and a balloon lifts them to some sort of Wii Sports Resort heaven. Boss Miis with extra health hearts and better blocking abilities await. By the way, imagine if those Miis rushing at you resemble your friends, family and favorite celebrity Miis.

Skydiving: Hold the Wii Remote like it's a small doll and tilt it to make him dive. Shades of the Pilotwings sequel we behaved so well to get but Nintendo never made. Points are taken for linking the diver to other divers, which sends a photographer down to snap a shot. Parachutes open automatically to prevent that Pilotwings pastime of planting skydiver into ground. The unlockable modes for this one include an airplane dogfighting mode, stretching the definition of sport in a manner few will protest.

Final Thoughts
What originally could have been accused as a cash-in or pointless sequel instead appears to boast more depth than any game Nintendo's internal teams have made in a couple of years. There's little to complain about from last night's preview session. In short bursts these games control splendidly.

This is one of those Nintendo games that, when you play early, feels like it's going to both intimidate and inspire game creators. For gamers it will need to prove its depth is equaled by longevity. A healthy sampling of what's on the game's menu suggests that it will. Things are looking up for this one.

It may look a bit like a Wii sensor bar, but it's something altogether different. Project Natal, as Microsoft is calling it at their 2009 E3 press conference, is a camera and sensor assembly that recognizes faces, body movements, objects, and even voices in order to integrate the player into the gaming environment. Examples shown at the conference include a boy holding up a skateboard, which then appeared on the screen, with the boy then riding said board by just swaying back and forth on his own two feet; two women trying on virtual clothes using a camera image of themselves; facial recognition; voice control; buzzing in to 1 VS 100 by raising a hand;and even browsing the NXE using hand controls as in the movie Minority Report.

Project Natal creative director Kudo Tsunoda took the stage, showing his Xbox Live avatar moving with his movements and playing various tech demos, including a handball game and one that allowed you to paint with stencils.

Development kits are arriving at Microsoft partners today, so while there's no word on when this amazing technology will actually make it into player's hands, with developers like Fable's Peter Molyneux behind it, we can expect great things. Things like this: Molyneux came on stage to present a demonstration of Milo, in which a real woman and a small boy on the screen interact. The boy recognizes her emotions, throwing her a pair of goggles, which she reaches out and grabs.

Everyone at the press conference was floored. This could very well be the sort of show-stopper that Microsoft needs to take home the fictional press conference of the show award.

This year developers unveiled games that have players using a faux turntable to pretend to be a DJ and another that has them ride a plastic skateboard in a new Tony Hawk game. And both Microsoft and Sony are rumored to be working on motion controls for their consoles.

"Peripherals can make the experience of playing video games even more immersive," said Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs. "Instead of simply pressing buttons to control the action, players feel like they are inside the game itself."

Over the past few years Nintendo has introduced plenty of peripherals, from the Wii Wheel to the Wii Zapper and Balance Board.

"All of these peripherals have helped make video games more accessible to new players while providing new challenges for veteran players," Kaigler said.

This holiday ten-year-old skating franchise Tony Hawk will get an overhaul with motion controls of its own.

Gamers will play Tony Hawk: Ride on the Playstation 3, Wii or Xbox 360 by standing on a plastic skateboard and rocking back and forth as if they were on the real thing. No other controller is necessary.

"This is the game I've always wanted to make," said Tony Hawk, who has been directly involved with development of the project. "Playing on the board is unlike any other game, and I'm excited for everyone to have the chance to feel what it's really like to experience the true feeling of skateboarding."

The wireless board gamers stand on features two accelerometers and four motion sensors, located on the front, back and sides of the board. The bottom of the board is curved on the sides, front and back to make it easier to rock, but still flat on the very bottom so players don't need to balance when not turning.

Josh Tsui, president of Tony Hawk: Ride developer Robomodo , said the idea for the game was inspired by arcade games like Top Skater that had similar real board controls.

"We came from an arcade background and we felt that if we could bring the arcade experience to the home and do it cheaply, and safely it would be a home run," he said in a phone interview.

But, he added, it was games like Guitar Hero that allowed developers to start experimenting with new controllers.

"It opened the doors for people who aren't into games as much," he said. "I know a lot of people who play Guitar Hero who didn't play video games that much. They didn't want to figure out the controls."

The same was true for most arcade games, Tsui points out, the barrier for playing a game in an arcade was much lower than with typical modern console games.

"I don't like having to relearn a control mechanic for every game that comes out," he said.

Ride will feature three difficulty setting. When you are playing at the hardest setting it is targeted toward the hardcore gamer, there is a lot of motion, Tsui said.

Players will have to wave their hands or feet over the sensors to do tricks. The easier difficulties are more geared toward novice gamers.

The team at Robomodo have been working on the game for about a year and a half, he said. And now that they've gotten the sensors in the three-and-a-half pound board tuned, they're looking at how it may be used for future non-skateboarding games.

"We started out with skateboarding because it's easy to understand," he said. "But there are a lot of games we realize could be used on the board. We were surprised at some of the ideas we listed out ."

Now the team has a "huge list" of potential future games for the board.

And that will be key to Ride's success, said Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

"I think the problem with all peripherals is that you have to make them reusable," he said. "They must be acceptable to be used with more than the original game."

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Remember when Wii controls involved swinging your arms wildly or making gestures that could more easily be inputted with the press of a button?

The developers of the next Madden on Wii are trying to rein things back in and nail what has been eluding many developers for almost two and a half years: good Wii motion controls.

The latest re-thinking, or re-re-thinking was on display at an EA games showcase in New York a couple of weeks ago where a producer for Madden NFL 10 for Wii explained the new, calmer controls for this year's game.

Last year, Madden NFL 09 All-Play asked players to shove their hands left and right to juke and stiff-arm. They had to reel back with the Wii remote when throwing a pass and then flick their arm forward, as if throwing a football.

Those controls proved both too hard for some players to remember and too time-consuming for quick plays, a Madden producer told me at the event.

So this year's game, which drops the All-Play moniker and matches title with its big console brethren, will feature simpler but still Wii-specific controls:

* The development team is offering a "point-and-pass" option which lets players point the Wii remote at the spot where they want to pass the ball, press a button and make that pass.

* Tackling and escaping tackles will be accomplished by shaking the Wii remote. It's what players naturally do with their motion-controller when they are being tackled in the games anyway, the EA developer explained.

* The game will also let players use the Wii remote to draw routes for their players.

So maybe the development of motion controls will end up like the porridge Goldilocks liked to eat. Did those early Wii games have too little implementation of motion control? Did games like All-Play have too much? If so, here's hoping that Madden NFL 10 ushers in an age of game developers getting things just right.

Madden NFL 10 for Wii ships this August.