Unit 12: Task 2

Motion Control: More and more games are utilising motion control these days, adding to the gaming experience by allowing the player to truly interact with the game. The Nintendo Wii was the first gaming platform to make use of motion controls in most (if not all) of its games, the idea being that this new way of playing wouldn’t just offer a more realistic experience but would also provide a simplified way to play for non-gamers. Motion control has become ever more popular due to the success of the Wii with many companies providing similar options for many of their products, such as Sony’s sixaxis which allows players to tilt their controller to control certain aspects of games.

This is the Nintendo Wii's remote control that brought Motion Control into the public's eye

Music Games: Music games entered the public’s attention with game series like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. These games allow players to “play” their favourite songs by hitting a series of buttons in time with the music. The reason behind the success of these games lies not just in the choice of music that appeals to almost everyone but also in the peripheral’s that are used to play the game. These game specific controllers provide a more entertaining method of playing the game by offering a control scheme that is simple to learn but difficult to master, appealing to hardcore gamers as well as non-gamers. This type of controller, along with the game’s concept, allows players to pick up and play the game within minutes providing optimum enjoyment. Because of their success the budgets for the games have gotten bigger allowing the developers to buy the rights to use particular artists songs, resulting in games such as The Beatles Rock Band.

Rock Band is played using a variety of intrument inspired peripheral’s


User-Generated Content: User-Generated content is an ingenious way to increase the life of a game whilst creating a community and getting the player involved. It allows the player to create something such as a level or a new character design and share it with other players over the internet. By doing this they are giving other players a reason to keep on playing the game. It’s because of this reason that more developers are giving players different ways of generating additional content for their games. Many just provide a level editor, allowing the player to design and create their own levels, and a network to upload it onto like Little Big Planet. However, some developers like Valve actually give their players a full development kit allowing them to create everything from new stages to mods.

Valve's Source SDK allows their players to create almost anything that can then be implimented into their games.