Molyneux and Milo

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_molyneux_demos_milo_the_virtual_boy.html

I have been looking into the work of Peter Molyneux over the past couple of days, as I find him a very interesting games designer. I love his ambition for a better gaming world, and find his focus on narrative and interaction to be exactly what we have yet to conquer. The graphics in gaming have improved yes, but a person does not 'buy-in' to something because it appears real, it has to feel real too and that is where developments in AI come in.

Molyneux is said to have coined the 'god-game' genre with his games Populous and Black and White - and genre creation is certainly not something to be ignored - but for me personally it was his interest in creating a game where a persons actions have full and real consequences within the game itself, which really set him as a forward thinker all those years ago. Molyneux has been striving with each new advance in technology to close the gap between the relationship of game and gamer. Milo was an exciting project set to bring his ambitions to fruition as this was a game with a character who was effectively programmed by the player. Each word said, and action realised with Milo shaped who he was and your relationship with him. Now the demo for the game had a lot of controversy over its apparently 'rehearsed' gameplay demo. Molyneux took the game with him to the TED talk (link above) which enabled him to prove the critics wrong about the game. The sad end to Milo's interesting story is that this game was never released alongside the Kinect Sensor as it was originally promised. I am hoping that even though Molyneux is to step down as head at Lionhead, that the game mechanics used in Milo's development (such as real and useful speech recognition) are going to be recycled elsewhere in the studios exports. For some, having a virtual 10 year old best mate as the no.1 selling point to the game is a mystery; they bore of the idea quickly and slink back to their high octane FPS adventures after perhaps an hour of testing the game out. For others this intriguing and appart magic performed by the game will captivate them to see how far they can push the concept and hone their influential in-game skills over the time spent playing with Milo.

I really really want this game to either be released as it was or a newer better version to be released - this level of forward thinking has been reserved to the likes of the excellent 'ThatGameCompany' and its contemporaries in recent years and it would be great to see LionHead pioneering again! (Much as I adore the Fable series I worry it will be a sequel-too-far with 'The Journey' as many fans were put off the franchise with Fable III)

Molyneux himself said that Milo was a project about player interaction and how narrative is created in gameplay and in these factors TGC and LionHead share this passion and success. It seems that many of the successful AAA games released have an excellent narrative feature to them. Even the 'taboo' (shall we say?) Call Of Duty series invests in creating emotive, and captivating characters for its Campaign alongside its adrenaline fueled Multiplayer section. You follow the story of the domineering Sergeant Roebuck, and the clumsy Chernov in COD: World at War, and I found myself laughing along with their quips, and feeling genuine sadness if they were caught in crossfire when we had shared such a journey with them during the campaign. Add to that the (Caution SPOILER ALERT) poignant moment when the beloved character Ghost is betrayed in Modern Warfare 2 (having first met him in Modern Warfare years previously) I can honestly say I felt outraged and upset at his death. I do not mean to say I felt anything like the grief you experience when you truly lose a person close to you in life, but I certainly felt for the character - I was moved, and when a game does that to a player I think something special happens; the game has achieved the  same level of attachment from its audience that books and movies enjoy.