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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Games Sony Debuts "Kung-Fu LIVE" (or "This Again? Really?")

Posted by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli on Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:57 AM

PAX was this past weekend and per usual it saw the big three console companies shilling their latest and greatest to a few thousand people excited to simply be in the same auditorium as Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day.

Nintendo had Kirby knitting shawls for the elderly, Microsoft had a new set of space marines doing the homoerotic xenophobia thing, and Sony had, well, this:

It's called Kung-Fu LIVE and it utilizes the PlayStation Eye to capture live images of a player which are then implanted into a game made to resemble those old Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks. You probably already grasped all that from the clip.

You probably also got a strong wave of déjà vu 15 seconds into that whole thing, right? Hit the jump and I'll show you why.

That's a clip from one of the games produced for Sony's vaguely memorable EyeToy peripheral for the PlayStation 2.

Why just "vaguely" and not "completely un-" memorable? Because now that Sony is marketing PlayStation Move as the "Next Big Thing" [and continuing to put out games utilizing the PlayStation Eye —Ed.], one only has to look back half a decade to realize that the company is simply pairing a Wii-style motion-sensitive control wand with technology that consumers already rejected en masse.

Sony isn't entirely to blame here though. The gimmick of gamers using their entire bodies to (poorly) control characters in games has been attempted in seemingly every generation.

The NES had the Power Pad:

The Genesis had the Activator:

All Sony's done differently is added your face staring back at you from the TV screen during gameplay. As if a virtual doppelganger will make it more difficult for you to junk PlayStation Move when you realize that these "virtual reality" games are less compelling than the weakest control pad title and you have to flail around like an idiot to play them.

One could argue that that hasn't stopped the Wii from dominating the console market, but how many Wii owners own the console for anything other than the one or two yearly releases Nintendo deigns to offer them? Even those with huge Virtual Console collections likely have a thick layer of dust collecting on top of their white machines in between new Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda sequels.

People say the Wii got families gaming together and ignited a wave of people waving their arms like morons purely by kismet, but a lot of that magic came from Nintendo being a damn creative developer who releases damn good games.

Without the support of a Nintendo, PlayStation Move will disappear as quickly as it arrives.

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: An earlier version of this post stated that Kung-Fu LIVE utilizes Sony's upcoming Move peripheral. The game actually utilizes the PlayStation Eye, which was made available in 2007.

 

Comments (3) RSS

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1
This game looks like crap. What they SHOULD be working on is a first person, motion capture fighting game. Or, at least, that's what I'VE always wanted since I began studying martial arts in middle school. What I find amusing is that in all of their promo videos they have not even tried to find a martial artist to make it look good.

Posted by EliyahuPDX on September 8, 2010 at 3:53 PM · Report
2
A martial artist playing Kick Ass Kung-Fu, also from the same developers back in 2004: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PPTI0nzkfo. What's new in Kung-Fu Live is better tracking that works without a bluescreen and gameplay stuff like the special powers triggered by the moves and poses.
Posted by 2OldToBtwist on September 8, 2010 at 11:38 PM · Report
3
You guys have no sense of evil. I will be using the Playstation Eye to image my neighbors baby, your pug Olive, cute kittens, Iguanas, and Mr. Pickle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgWn7zbgxZ4) to fight in these games. Then capture to OughTube in my quest to rule the intardnet.

Now Wii has a sense of evil. That is why it looks like a circle jerk when you play their games.
Posted by Rosy on September 9, 2010 at 4:16 AM · Report

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