视频游戏新玩法──边动边玩

Videogames Expand New Phase Of Full-Body Playing

If you gave or got videogames as gifts yesterday, you may have noticed something very different about how some of the hottest ones are played these days.

The top-selling game console at the moment -- and one of this holiday season's toughest finds on store shelves -- is Nintendo's Wii, which comes with a motion-sensing controller that gamers swing around to play tennis or to dice up opponents with virtual swords. Guitar Hero III, the music game sensation, comes with a guitar-shaped controller for jamming along to the Rolling Stones, Guns N' Roses and other groups. Another music hit, Rock Band, goes even further with guitar, microphone and drum-kit controllers.

What these products have in common is that they reject the conventional wisdom about how people want to play games. For years, the business focused on dazzling users with ever-more-sophisticated eye candy, paying little heed to the fact that they were shutting out large numbers of potential customers with games that were just too hard to play.

The conventional game controller -- that boomerang-shaped gadget you hold -- is a symptom of the complexity. With more than a dozen buttons and two joysticks, they look like you need a pilot's license to operate one.

The Wii, Guitar Hero and Rock Band have found huge success, in part, by delivering new experiences with new devices for connecting to and controlling games. It would be tough to feel like Keith Richards while mashing buttons on a typical controller, but with a plastic Guitar Hero ax slung around your shoulder, you're there.

Game companies have experimented with unconventional controllers for years, but a lot of them were clunkers that didn't sell well like the Power Glove, a device introduced in 1989 for that let users control Nintendo games with simple hand motions. It's only recently that the commercial success of the Wii and other products has helped foster a golden age for game interface development. Nintendo just released a product in Japan called the Wii Balance Board, a pressure-sensitive device that users stand on to perform yoga, aerobics and other exercises as the Wii critiques their balance and encourages them to get fit.

Richard Marks, a senior researcher at Sony's games division, spends much of his time imagining new ways for consumers to interact with games. Dr. Marks created the technology behind the EyeToy, a camera that plugged into Sony's PlayStation 2. The EyeToy inserts the moving image of a player into a game, letting them do fun stuff like give a karate chop to enemies.

These days, Dr. Marks's team at Sony has created a demonstration for the PlayStation 3 that allows players to sketch drawings with standard pen and paper, scan them with a camera and then 'play' their drawings on screen.

Such technology could help games tap into the same creative energy at play on YouTube and other sites with user-made content, Dr. Marks says. 'Our game industry is really good at making authored experiences, but there's a new area that hasn't been explored, where people want to make their own content,' he adds.

One of Dr. Marks's dreams is to be able to use a camera for live-motion capture in peoples' living rooms. For example, he'd like to see his son suited up as Spider-Man on screen, shooting webs from his hands by performing the same hand gesture as his hero.

It may be some years before game consoles are up to such computing challenges, but part of the technology required for such feats, so-called 3D cameras, is getting ready to hit the market at consumer-friendly prices. Next year, an Israeli camera maker, 3DV Inc., plans to introduce a 3D camera for less than $100. It's a more-sophisticated version of the motion detection done today by the Wii, which gives users a wand-shaped controller to hold as they play games.

In the boxing game that comes with the Wii, the console does a so-so job of measuring when players use their fists to punch opponents. A boxing game using 3DV's camera focused on the players from atop a TV set, allows users to hit an opponent with far greater accuracy, and to duck a punch.

Zvika Klier, CEO of 3DV, says the camera also will be useful for controlling avatars in online games. In most online games today, for example, you make a character dance by hitting a button on a keyboard or controller. With a 3D camera, players could simply dance in their living rooms to make their avatars dance.

Even movement itself may one day be optional. San Francisco start-up, Emotiv Systems, has come up with a method of measuring the electrical activity of the brain through a helmet-like device so users can control action in games by just thinking 'up,' 'down' and other simple actions. Emotiv says this system won't replace the precision and responsiveness of traditional controllers, but it could be a great way to augment the experience of, say, fantasy games where mind control is part of the picture.

So, players of a Star Wars game may some day be able to 'lift' an object by telekinesis, instead of hitting a button on a controller.

The Force may be with us.

如果这个圣诞节你收到或送出的礼物中有视频游戏，那么你可能已经注意到，一些最热门视频游戏的玩法已经与以往大不相同了。

这些天，最畅销的、也是你在商店货架上最难找到的一款游戏机是任天堂(Nintendo)的Wii。这款游戏机配有动感控制器，玩家在打 球或比剑过程中可以像真正的运动那样把它挥来舞去。轰动一时的音乐游戏《吉它英雄III》中就配了一只吉它形状的控制器，玩家可以摆弄着它让自己“混进”滚石(Rolling Stones)、枪与玫瑰(Guns N' Roses)或其他乐队一起演出。另一部音乐游戏Rock Band更是将吉它、麦克风和架子鼓都弄成了控制器。

这些产品的一个共同点是，它们颠覆了传统的玩游戏方式。多年来，游戏业一味在给玩家制造越来越眼花缭乱的视觉冲击，他们没有注意到，这么做的结果是游戏难度越来越大，许多潜在玩家不得不望而却步。

传统的游戏控制器大都是飞去来器的形状，上面有十多个按键、两个操纵杆，看上去非常复杂，似乎你得有张飞机驾驶执照才能操作它。

Wii、吉它英雄和Rock Band取得了巨大成功，这在一定程度上是因为，它们在控制和连接游戏方面的新装置让玩家获得了全新体验。如果还是用老式控制器，你很难体会滚石传奇人物凯斯•理查德(Keith Richards)演唱时的感受。但斜背着吉它英雄配备的控制器“吉它”，效果就完全不同了。

其实，游戏公司多年来也在不断试验非传统型的控制器，但许多都不成功，比如1989年为任天堂游戏配备的Power Glove手套型控制器。直到最近，随着Wii和其他产品的销售成功，游戏互动装置也终于迎来了黄金时代。任天堂刚在日本推出了Wii Balance Board，这是一个压力传感装置，使用者可以在上面做瑜珈、体操和其他身体运动，Wii会对使用者的平衡水平作出评价，并鼓励他们健身取得进展。

索尼(Sony)游戏部高级研究员理查德•马克斯(Richard Marks)的主要工作就是开发新的游戏互动装置。马克斯曾开发过EyeToy，这是插入索尼PlayStation 2游戏机的一种摄像装置。它可以将游戏玩家的动态影像传到视频游戏里，让他们在游戏中做好玩的动作，比如用空手道进攻敌方等等。

马克斯的团队最近为PlayStation 3设计了一个展示活动，参与者可以用标准的钢笔和纸作画，用摄像机扫描到游戏里，然后在屏幕上“折腾”这些画。

马克斯说，这种技术可以让人们在玩游戏时也能展示他们在YouTube等网站上摆弄自己原创内容时所展现的那种创造力。他说，游戏业的确非常善于运用别人做好的内容，但还有一个新领域尚未被开发，那就是让人们自己制作内容。

马克斯的梦想之一是，在人们的起居室里运用能拍摄现场画面的摄像机。比如，他喜欢在屏幕上看到儿子穿成蜘蛛侠的模样，摆出蜘蛛侠那样的动作。

或许，让游戏机完成这类需要大量运算的任务还需要数年时间，不过，这种功能所需要的三维摄像技术有一部分很快就能面市，而且价格也是消费者能够接受的。明年，以色列摄像机制造商3DV Inc.计划推出价格不到100美元的三维摄像机，它在捕捉动态图像方面比Wii目前的水平更高级。Wii现在用的一种控制器就是棍棒形状的。

Wii配置有一个拳击游戏，不过在玩家用拳打击对手时，设备的测算功能做的很一般。采用3DV摄像机设计的一款拳击游戏则是从电视机上部捕捉玩家，使用者打击对手或躲避对方击打的准确度要高出很多。

3DV首席执行长维卡•克立尔(Zvika Klier)说，摄像机在控制网络游戏中的人物方面也会有帮助。比如在目前大多数网络游戏中，你是通过键盘或控制器让角色跳舞的，而如果用三维摄像机，玩家只要自己做出舞蹈动作就能让角色动起来了。

有朝一日，就连动作本身也是可以选择的。旧金山初创公司Emotiv Systems找到了通过一种头盔形状的装置测算脑电波运动情况的方法，使用者只要在脑子里想着“向上”、“向下”或其他简单动作就能控制游戏中的动作。Emotiv说，这套系统目前在准确性和响应速度方面还不能与传统控制器媲美，但这种心灵感应式的控制方式是增加奇幻游戏操作体验的一个绝妙途径。

因此，星球大战的玩家有一天或许能通过这种感应举起某个物体，再也不用 控制器上的按键了。

最伟大的力量还是来自人类。