During our recent trip to the studio we sadly didn’t get the opportunity to have a play with the new Kinect functionality in FIFA 13, but we did get a chance to have a chat with Ian Jarvis, who’s the man charged with getting Kinect into the game.
Firstly, the main thing we need to clear up is something that has changed from the initial feature announcement. You will not be carded for swearing at the ref. From the conversations we had, we understand that it was tried, but it just didn’t work properly. Which player would the ref card?
Swearing can still influence the ref though. Excessive swearing can cause the referee to be stricter on your team or be more lenient on your opponents. It can also be mentioned in commentary and be used to trigger stories within Career Mode. After a decision is made, Kinect will be listening for a short period of time (we don’t know how long) and if it picks up on any unsavory language, it’ll trigger one or some of the events above.
Elsewhere it can be used to make tactical changes and subs without pausing, and when playing as a single player you can encourage team mates to shoot, make clearances and call for passes, amongst other things in Be A Pro. Ian assured us that there will be support for various accents, that each needed to be individually tested.
I think it’s safe to say that if you don’t already own Kinect, then you probably won’t be rushing out to buy one just to use for FIFA, but the additions are as good as they could be without giving too much of an advantage to Kinect users. If you do already own a Kinect, they sound useful enough and are going to be worth a look.
Here’s the official FIFA 13 Kinect Trailer
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzB3YzkstBc&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Kinect In Focus
- Swearing at the referee will not result in yellow cards, instead it will effect referee strictness.
- Comments Kinect picks up could be used to trigger Career Mode stories.
- Voice commands can be used to change tactics, formations and make substitutions.
- In Be A Pro you can use Kninect to call for passes or encourage team mates to clear the ball, tackle or shoot.
- Kinect will support multiple regional dialects.
