In the grim dark future is only war… and annoying grenades?

Last weekend I played through Warhammer 40K: Space Marine on my PS3 (yeah, I know I am bit late with that one). First I have to admit that I always enjoy visiting the Warhammer 40K universe with those fancy space marine servo suits, orks in space and the over-sized weaponry. Sadly, the story and the dialogues are completely forgettable and the game would have been more enjoyable with a bit more variety within the level and art design.

But we’re in the grim dark 40th century and looking for some action, right? In most cases you start approaching the enemy’s forces by some short-range shooting with your guns but end in close-combat surrounded by a group of enemies. That’s not only because your Space Marine rocks in close-combat but also due to the fact that the only way to regenerate health is dropping finishing moves on your enemies at close range.

Sometimes the third-person camera comes so close to your servo suit hero that you have to manually zoom out, while bashing buttons or continue bashing buttons and pray to the emperor that you’ll hit some foes. You may get used to this issue, but close-combat has a much more serious problem. If you’re starting a finishing move a fixed animation starts and will last some seconds with optional quick-time event button pressing to overwhelm your combatant. During this fixed finishing scene no other enemy can touch you in close-combat, which works similar to the quick-time events and finishers in God of War or other hack’n slay games. I am ok with the fact that other enemies can shoot at you during the finisher, but which really annoyed me was the fact that – especially later on in the game – there was a high chance that someone would throw a grenade right to your feet during the finisher phase. You see the grenade landing nearby, hear the warning – and can do absolutely nothing. Neither can you stop the finisher nor can you kick back the grenade or evade it. You just sit there and watch your Space Marine die. Dear Relic Entertainment – why not include another quick-time event to add a chance to escape this situation?

Shooting works out pretty fine until you come across a stationary weapon that is even larger than your super-sized weapons you already carry around. To use the weapon you have to approach the weapon and press a button, which shows up when you stand in the right area of interaction. Sounds pretty easy. But the tolerance for the area of interaction seems to be pretty small, so I often walked back and forth several times to exactly hit the right spot in order to use or rip-off the super-sized weapon in front of me (ripping it off is always better to keep moving and make a use of cover). Being veteran gamers we all know that big guns are there for a reason (e.g. large waves of enemies or boss fights) and that’s why it is a frustrating experience when you approach the weapon and cannot use it immediately because those enemies won’t wait until you are ready. Come on, Space Marines are not known for their fine motor skills, so why do I have to take several attempts to use the big guns?

That said, Space Marine delivers great combat action but it would lead to less frustration if someone would have taken care of these issues.

Call for Papers: Entertainment Interfaces 2012 at Mensch & Computer, Konstanz, Germany

For the third time the Entertainment Interfaces track will take place together with the German HCI conference Mensch & Computer and the German Usability Professionals (UPA) track.

The track “Entertainment Interfaces” offers researchers, developers and designers a platform to present innovative ideas in the area of interactive entertainment with a focus on interaction in games and other entertainment products and to discuss design challenges and the evaluation of entertainment interfaces. The aims of the track are to strengthen the awareness of the relevance of user-friendly and innovative interfaces for entertainment applications in the research community and in the public, to encourage the research activities and the education in this field, and to foster the knowledge transfer between researchers and developers. We like to emphasize the interdisciplinary background of the “Entertainment Interfaces” track and welcome contributions from the areas of computer science, psychology, design and engineering sciences as well as contributions from developers and designers working in the field of interactive entertainment.

Important Dates

  • 18. March 2012
: Submission deadline for full papers, demonstrations and posters
  • May 2012: Notification of acceptance
  • 15th May 2012: Start of conference registration
  • 17th June 2012: Deadline for workshop papers
  • July 2012: Notification of acceptance for workshop papers
  • 27th July 2012: End of early-bird registration
  • 2nd September 2012: End of online registration
  • 9.–12. September 2012: Conference in Konstanz

For more information please visit the conference track website.

Call for Submissions: International Conference on Entertainment Computing 2012 at Bremen

CfP: 11th IFIP INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENTERTAINMENT COMPUTING, 26-29 September 2012, Bremen, Germany

The IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing explores the application of computational technology to entertainment. The conference brings together practitioners and researchers interested in the art and design of entertainment computing applications. ICEC welcomes submissions on the design, engineering, application and theory of entertainment technology. We solicit paper, poster and demonstration submissions, as well as proposals for tutorials and workshops. In addition to regular scientific contributions we encourage contributions specifically for and by the industry that will be presented in a dedicated session. Papers will be published via Springer and archived in the SpringerLink digital library.

IMPORTANT DATES

March 10th, 2012 Workshop proposal submission
April 1st, 2012 Full/short paper submission
May 20th, 2012 Notification for full/short papers
May 30th, 2012 Poster/demo/installation/doctoral consortium submission
June 15th, 2012 Notification for posters/demos/installations/doctoral consortium
June 22nd, 2012 Camera ready submission (all submission types)
Sep. 26th-29th, 2012 Conference at University of Bremen, Germany

Further information about the submission types and topics can be found on the conference website.

Game Innovation Show @ 7th Dec, Mülheim/Ruhr

On the 7th of December the Game Technology Competence Center (GTCC.NRW) and the Game Development Initiative Ruhr (GDI.Ruhr) invite you to the Game Innovation Show, which takes place at the Games Factory incubator at Mülheim an der Ruhr.
The exhibition will feature game projects, innovative technology and research results from scientists and students of the Unviersity of Duisburg-Essen presented with live tech demos and/or posters. Instead of listening to talks or presentations, the visitors are encouraged to move freely through the exhibition and get in touch with the scientists and students and to learn more about their projects in a face-to-face conversation.
The show will feature demos and posters within the areas of serious and health games, 3D gaming, innovative user interfaces, user participation tools, authoring systems for the interactive digital storytelling as well as studies about user experience and effects on gamers.
The Game Innovation Show aims at game developers looking for innovative ideas and new research findings or who are interested in collaborations with the University of Duisburg-Essen; as well as students and researchers within the area of games research.
The show takes place at the 7th of December from 11:00-15:00 at the Games Factory Ruhr, Kreuzstrasse 1-3, Mülheim a.d. Ruhr. Please register by e-mail: joerg.niesenhaus[at]games-ruhr.com

Looking for German Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Players

We are currently looking for German-speaking Battlefield: Bad Company 2 players, who are willing to take part in a short online questionnaire. The study is focusing on the play style of first-person shooter gamers and is NOT yet another questionnaire about aggression etc.

If you play BFBC2 on the PC, PS3 or XBox360 please feel free to take part in the study. Here is the link to get started:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Study (German only)

CfP: Workshop on ‘Creating Digital Games for Elderly Players’

1st International Workshop in conjunction with Entertainment Interfaces Track, Mensch & Computer 2011

Chemnitz, Germany, 11th-14th September 2011

WEBSITES:
Conference website: http://english.uebermedien.org/

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
20th June 2011

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Digital games represent a popular leisure activity among large parts of the population, and an increasing amount of casual and social games aims to include new target audiences such as adult gamers. Research results imply that an increasing amount of adult players regularly engages with digital games (Grüninger et al., 2008). Moreover, case studies suggest various positive effects of playing digital games on elderly persons, e.g. regarding the overall emotional well-being (Jung et al., 2009) and a reduction of the depression risk (Rosenberg et al., 2010) among institutionalized elderly. Furthermore, first attempts towards the integration of digital games as leisure activity at nursing homes show a generally high acceptance of entertainment technologies among senior citizens and imply that digital games have a potential of fostering social interaction as well as physical activity among elderly (Ulbrecht et al., 2010).
However, initial results also suggest that commercially available games are not fully accessible to senior players and that the creation of games specially designed for elderly is necessary (e.g. Hanneton & Varenne, 2009). First efforts regarding the creation of senior-friendly game concepts date back to the 1980s and 90s (Weisman, 1983; Whitcomb, 1990). Recently, this issue has been addressed by academia through the examination design of requirements and game design opportunities for elderly (Gamberini et al., 2006; Ijsselsteijn et al., 2007) and the creation of design guidelines for particular game genres such as health games (Flores et al., 2008) and exertion games (Gerling et al., 2010). In addition, recent national and European activities such as Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) have strengthened the links between research and application in academia and industry.

WORKSHOP GOALS & TOPICS
To encourage existing efforts towards the introduction of digital games to elderly citizens and the creation of senior-friendly games and interaction concepts, this workshop aims to bring together practitioners and researchers to discuss existing issues regarding the use of digital games among elderly persons and to initiate further cooperation between industry and academia. The workshop organizers are currently involved in a number of related projects, such as the Games Development Initiative Ruhr(GDI-Ruhr) and the European AAL-JP FoSIBLE (Fostering Social Interaction for a Better Life of the Elderly).Topics of this workshop include the following areas of research and industry efforts:

  • Entertainment interfaces for elderly persons including experimental hardware such as tangible interfaces, gesture-based input, touch interfaces as well as regular input devices, e.g. mouse, keyboard or remote controls. Furthermore, we welcome reports on the integration of commercially available gaming hardware such as Microsoft Kinect, Playstation Move or the Nintendo Wii Remote.
  • Accessibility and usability issues when designing for the elderly with a focus on (game) interfaces and the creation of usable entertainment technology.
  • Social aspects of digital games for elderly audiences: Networks and communities, approaches towards remote and local multiplayer games for senior citizens, integrating entertainment technology to foster social interaction.
  • The exploration of intergenerational game concepts allowing for joint interaction among seniors and children with a focus on the design of interaction paradigms suitable for all audiences.
  • Game design opportunities including serious games, games for health and general well-being, e.g. cognitive or physical training and rehabilitation for elderly people. Of interest are game design concepts as well as demonstrations of game prototypes.

IMPORTANT DATES
20th June 2011:  Submission deadline
7th July 2011:  Acceptance notification
22nd July 2011:  Camera-ready version
11th – 14th September 2011 Half-Day Workshop (TBC) in Chemnitz, Germany

SUBMISSIONS
We encourage the submission of position papers including case studies and system demonstrations, user studies and evaluations, reports on industry efforts or field reports of practitioners working with elderly. (Detailed instructions and templates can be found on the workshop website, please contact the authors for further information)
Accepted papers will be published in the joint workshop Proceedings of Mensch & Computer 2011. Papers should be submitted in both editable and print format (e.g. DOC & PDF) to the workshop organizers by e-mail: games-workshop-2011@fosible.eu.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Matthias Klauser(1), Kathrin Gerling(2,3), Jörg Niesenhaus(1) and Steffen Budweg(1)

1 Interactive Systems and Interaction Design, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
2 Entertainment Computing Group, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
3 Interaction Lab, University of Saskatchewan (Canada)

Nintendo 3DS Hands-On

Well, after missing all official Nintendo events of the last months and the opportunity to get my hands on Nintendo’s new handheld I got my chance today at the CeBIT trade fair in Hannover. I must admit that I was a bit sceptical about how well the 3D effect works but after playing around with the device for half an hour I am really impressed of the technology. As you might already know, the effect can be turned down to find the best individual setting, which is a great feature. Both games I played – Pilotwings and Kid Icarus – used the 3D effect for a better separation of the controllable objects and enemies from the level background, which seems to turn out well. A consequence of this approach is that the level design and background graphics look somehow ‘flat’ compared to the very prominent presentation of 3D objects in the foreground. The real benefit from the 3D presentation is the better estimation of depth for the controllable game characters or objects. In Pilotwings the depth of the presentation really helps the player to land his airplane at the right spot or maneuver through rings in the air. In contrast to Pilotwings, Kid Icarus left me unimpressed because of its plain and simple gameplay of a railshooter downgrading the 3D effects to pure eye candy with little impact on the gameplay. The next months will tell how well the games will make use of the potential of the 3D effects – until now the starting lineup is not that impressive but the nearby future (looking forward to E3) might be able to give us a better understanding of the potential of the 3DS.

Entertainment Interfaces 2011 CfP

After a successful start of the Entertainment Interfaces track alongside the German HCI conference “Mensch & Computer” in Duisburg in 2010, we are happy to announce that the track will take place again in 2011 at the “Mensch & Computer” conference in Chemnitz, Germany.

The track Entertainment Interfaces offers researchers, developers and designers a platform to present innovative ideas in the area of interactive entertainment with a focus on interaction in games and other entertainment products and to discuss design challenges and the evaluation of entertainment interfaces. The aims of the track are to strengthen the awareness of the relevance of user-friendly and innovative interfaces for entertainment applications in the research community and in the public, to encourage the research activities and the education in this field, and to foster the knowledge transfer between researchers and developers. We like to emphasize the interdisciplinary background of the “Entertainment Interfaces” track and welcome contributions from the areas of computer science, psychology, design and engineering sciences as well as contributions from developers and designers working in the field of interactive entertainment.

For more information please check out the new website of the Entertainment Interfaces track.

My 1st week with Playstation Move

Since last week`s release of Playstation Move in Europe I had some quality time with the new hardware and games and want to share some of my first impressions. The hardware is robust and the button placement is well-considered. It reminds me a lot of the Wii Remote and the Nunchuck but both the main controller (with the light bulb) and the smaller navigation controller (without the lightbulb) feel a bit more advanced than the Wii hardware in terms of button placement, power supply and the blu-tooth connection. Some of the games I tested have some delay issues but as this is only a problem of some games it should be mainly a software issue. But fast movement, e.g. in close combat games where you wield a sword, seem to cause more delays and wrong pattern recognition so it will be interesting to see in future games if this is also a software problem or an hardware issue which cannot be fixed easily.

A lot of the reviews criticize the calibration process but I experienced it not as an annoying activity. More annoying is the fact that most games want to see you standing in front of your tv set instead of staying seated. For sport games with a lot of body movement it feels right but for some other games I prefer staying seated. In most cases you can accomplish the calibration process sitting on your couch but it may cause some problems if you are too far away for the camera tracking or changing your seating position during the course of the game.

Now to the most important part: The line-up of games. As already mentioned in my last article on PS Move and Kinect I think that both start line-ups are very disappointing. I bought the Sports Championship game and played a lot of demos of the disk provided by the starterset and the PSN but there is no outstanding game to sell the hardware. Of course there are some updates coming up for games like Resident Evil 5 or Heavy Rain but – hey – I played through both of them and both seem to work pretty well without PS Move. In my opinion, the best PS Move  game at the moment is Flight Control HD. It`s an extended version of the iPhone game and puts the player in charge of the flight control of an airport with several airstrips and heliports in order to draw for each plane and helicopter a line to the best landing position.

The problem of the other games is that most of them lack some sort of gameplay innovation for the new hardware. Tumble is Boom Blox in HD, Sports Championship is basically Wii Sports in HD and I could continue the list further. There are some small highlights like the EyePet controls or the R.U.S.E. control scheme for PS Move but I presume that it will be not enough to make people want to buy PS Move right now. Of course Sony and the game developers around have a much easier transition from the Wii controls to PS Move than to Kinect but it would be very sad for the gamers out there if this leads to HD-clones of Wii games only. Hopefully Sony and some third-party developers find ways to use this hardware in challenging new ways and build good games around it – if they fail, it will be also the failure of the PS Move hardware.