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The Lost Gizmondo Halo Title

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lamentable dept.

GameSetWatch has a piece up reporting on a lost title in the Halo universe. The game, slated for the Gizmondo portable device, utilized a unique control scheme. From the article: "... the game, had it gone into production, would have used the Gizmondo's back-mounted camera to detect motion and provide a 'mouselook'-like effect as you swiveled the handheld around, enabling the player to change the camera view just by physically rotating the machine. Whoa." This game has been rumoured in the past, but this time around GSW has the facts to back things up.

26 comments

  1. Been done... by thos_thom · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This has been done already on a nokia mobile handset. The game even incorporated the image from the camera in the game. I forget what it was called, but the system was flawed in two ways. Firstly it was inaccurate especially when you got close to objects (read: walls). Secondly it made me very dizzy.

    1. Re:Been done... by Tackhead · · Score: 2, Funny
      > This has been done already on a nokia mobile handset. The game even incorporated the image from the camera in the game. I forget what it was called, but the system was flawed in two ways. Firstly it was inaccurate especially when you got close to objects (read: walls). Secondly it made me very dizzy.

      But on the bright side, the Nokia version was a lot cheaper to alpha-test than the Ferrari Enzo version, which also exhibited similar flaws regarding inaccuracy near objects, particularly while the player was dizzy.

    2. Re:Been done... by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but the Ferrari version offer that unique "split device" exploit of the "too near to object" crash!

    3. Re:Been done... by Raumkraut · · Score: 1

      I remember trying out one game that used the camera as a control mechanism; a cow-shooting game called "Blowcow".
      Seriously.

  2. Lame. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lamentable? More like LAMEntable.

  3. I heard... by WinnipegDragon · · Score: 3, Funny

    In one of the sequences in the game, you crash a Warthog into a tree at 160MPH and blame it on a guy named Dietrich.

    1. Re:I heard... by StingRay02 · · Score: 1

      Considering the way the AI drives in the game, that would be a plausible story.

    2. Re:I heard... by djdavetrouble · · Score: 1

      a reference to the gizmondo guy totalling a million dollar ferrari enzo and telling a bizarre story to try to explain it. For some reason it always seemed like a scene right out of Super Troopers to me......

      --
      music lover since 1969
    3. Re:I heard... by nb+caffeine · · Score: 1

      Do you know why I pulled you over?

      Dietrich was driving way too fast in mein porche

      --

      "Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
    4. Re:I heard... by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      Der Porsche, nicht das Porsche.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  4. Re:What the...? by HumanisticJones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Gizmondo is still alive in some way? I saw that thing at E3 two years ago and never heard word one about development for it since. Amazing the things that will be on the floor with a multi thousand-dollar booth, production models, demos, etc that will never be seen again.

  5. Accelerometer Instead of Camera by SpeedyGonz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not an accelerometer?

    It seems to me a better choice than the camera, because as somebody already pointed out here, a camera could have problems with background noise like somebody or something moving. Imagine having to point the camera to a wallpapered wall all the time to get the effect right.

    With a 2 axis accelerometer (cheap one, chips sell around 15 bucks retail methinks) you could get a better chance of capturing "natural" movement.

    1. Re:Accelerometer Instead of Camera by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      I would imagine the camera would be better since you can have your reference points MUCH better by basing your location on the beermat placed on a surface.

      How far away is the table top from your 2 axis accelerometer?

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    2. Re:Accelerometer Instead of Camera by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      Haloware Twisted!

      Chris Mattern

    3. Re:Accelerometer Instead of Camera by SpeedyGonz · · Score: 2, Informative

      I take You don't know what an accelerometer is . . .

      It's a device (like the Analog Devices ADXL202E chip, to use an example) that measures acceleration, hence the name.

      It could be used to measure displacement, like when you move your hand with the device, that's why i said it could be used instead of a camera. And it would take A LOT less processor time than to analyze a video frame, cause the chip already gives a serial readout with the changes in acceleration.

      Probably they used this method in the gizmondo because the camera was already there.

    4. Re:Accelerometer Instead of Camera by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still doesn't fix the dizziness problem.

    5. Re:Accelerometer Instead of Camera by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      I do know what an accelerometer is, and whilst I agree they can be used as a motion controller to look around with, they lack the ability to track location relative to some known reference point (except itself which will suffer from drift, these things aren't *that* good).

      So in the demo I was watching of the towers on the tabletop, the motion controller would work nicely moving the pieces around on the screen, but the pieces would not be locked and would not appear on the table top because without the reference points (from the beermat) it would look stupid.

      The new logitech cameras have similar technology to insert custom objects over the camera feed by tracking your face in a similar manner, so no matter where you move your head the object stays locked onto it.

      The processing power isn't really that much nowadays.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    6. Re:Accelerometer Instead of Camera by twistedsymphony · · Score: 1

      Wasn't there some open source game someone made for the iBook that used it's internal accelerometers (drop sensors I believe) to play a marble labyrinth game?

      sometime the position relative to itself IS the desired measurement.

      --
      Collector's Edition
  6. Nice Idea... but stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most of my time playing portable games (DS,GBA) is on the bus or train. In a seat. It hardly seems practical to make your player have to move around, or tilt the game out of the viewable range in order to turn your camera.

    If I tried this on the skytrain, I'm sure I'd lose my seat in no time.

  7. Re:Who came up with that name anyway? by SetupWeasel · · Score: 1

    The truely funny thing is that I have read more that one article criticizing the name "Wii" then giving "Gizmondo" as an example of a "cool" name.

  8. because by sentientbrendan · · Score: 1

    >Why not an accelerometer?
    it's in a cell phone?

  9. Oh please . . . by SpeedyGonz · · Score: 1

    A chip with the latteral size of a 1/8 watt resistor not fitting inside a cellphone?

    Google for the Analog Devices ADXL202E chip, and check for yourself

    1. Re:Oh please . . . by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      How many cellphones include accelerometers and how many have a camera?

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  10. Banshee? by blackraven14250 · · Score: 1

    Could you imagine following a banshee flying overhead in a CTF game? You'd be spinning in circles trying to follow it.