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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.

6 of 26 comments (clear)

  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. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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 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.