Kyle Orland GuestSpotter	Now Playing: WarioWare (GBA), Ikaruga (GC), Ape Escape (PS), F-Zero (SNES) Favorite Video Game Professions: Race car driver, hang glider, skier, police officer, boxer

Steel Battalion and the Future of Direct-Involvement Games

I saw the future of video games the other day.

There I was, eating stale pizza and drinking warm soda at a Microsoft promotional event being held at my college, when I saw a nondescript computer science student walking by the rows of dazed Halo players. No one else seemed to take notice of the huge, almost impossible controller in his hands, but I recognized it immediately as the exclusive two-joystick, 27-button, three-pedal interface for Steel Battalion.

After setting up the controller and fielding questions from a growing group of stragglers, the owner let me have a try at the game. As he gave me a crash course in mech physics, I tried to absorb the function of every button, knob, and gearshift he could throw at me. I clicked the ignition in time with the start-up sequence. I shifted the beast into first gear. I was off and lumbering out into my first mission.

Sure, situations like this are exciting, but imagine how much better it'd be if you were actually behind the wheel.

At first I felt confused and slightly overwhelmed by the massive array of options at my fingertips, but I gripped the joysticks for support and pressed on. Eventually, I got the hang of using the turbo boost, executing precision turns, and using the view change button to lock on to incoming enemies. I couldn't believe it. I was actually using this monstrosity of a controller to pilot a mech. It was loads of fun, but, more importantly, playing Steel Battalion in that darkened lecture hall was more immersive than any video game experience in recent memory.

Steel Battalion is part of a growing trend in gaming that I like to call direct-involvement games. Unlike games that use the basic hand-controller interface to approximate real-life actions (for example, hitting the A button to jump), direct-involvement games let you control the experience more directly by providing an interface that is closer to the one you would use in real life. Using the X button to accelerate your car is not direct involvement. Using a gas pedal to accelerate is.

At first, this may seem like a trivial distinction. After all, why should it matter how you make the car move, as long as it actually moves? But direct involvement can make all the difference in turning a relatively dull gaming experience into a great one. To see how much of a difference, simply compare the experience of playing Hydro Thunder in the arcades with that of playing the console version. Without the rumbling of the seat beneath you, the speakers blaring engine noise directly in your ears, and the feeling of the throttle in your hand, the home version seems rather dull. It's the experience of being inside a hydroplane that makes the arcade version so engaging.

This game isn't much to look at, but those arrows represent a gaming experience with no equal.

Direct-involvement games are not a new phenomenon. Since the early days of arcades, there have been sit-down racing and flight simulator cabinets that put you in the pilot's seat. Early virtual-reality headsets and gimmicks like the Nintendo Power Glove jumped the gun in trying to provide completely virtual worlds before sufficiently advanced technology was available. Even light-gun games gave some level of direct involvement by actually giving you a plastic gun to shoot at the screen (even though your movement is usually controlled automatically by the game).

To see the growing popularity of direct-involvement games, one has only to walk into a modern-day mega-arcade like Dave & Busters or ESPN Zone. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find any games in these arcades that don't have some element of direct involvement (outside of the odd Ms. Pac-Man or ticket game cabinet). There are games that let you pedal bicycles, games that let you ride horses, and games that let you go white-water rafting. There are games that let you hang-glide, snowboard, skateboard, street luge, Jet Ski, water-ski, and snow-ski. Even the classic direct-involvement light-gun genre has been updated with games that put you behind a sniper's scope or use sensors to detect how you bob and weave away from bullets.

Direct-involvement games are growing in popularity partially because they remove a large barrier of entry for those who are not intimately involved in the games business. My girlfriend had trouble figuring out how to perform the complex thumb movements required to direct Mario's water pack in Super Mario Sunshine, but she would have no trouble sitting down in a Daytona USA cabinet and just driving around the track.

But I think the key to this growing trend's popularity is the feeling that you're actually doing something when you play a direct-involvement game. Instead of living vicariously through a joystick and an onscreen avatar, you are actually taking part in a more-direct simulation of a virtual experience. In a review I read of Steel Battalion, the reviewer said that playing the game made him feel like he was actually accomplishing something. That's the appeal of direct involvement--the feeling that you are actually accomplishing feats that would otherwise be impossible (unless you're a race car driver, a police officer, and a mech pilot in real life).

The success of costly home accessories like racing wheels, deluxe DDR pads, and (to some extent) the $200 Steel Battalion controller shows that people are willing to pay extra for this level of direct involvement in the comfort of their own homes. In the future, technologies like lightweight head-mounted displays, motion-sensing body suits, and others could further revolutionize how we interact with the games we play. Who knows--one day we may be playing Quake 20 in our own, personal holodecks.

Regardless of the form it takes, though, direct involvement is the future of gaming. They'll probably never replace the hand-controller games we know and love, but they will definitely be a permanent part of the video game landscape of the future.