Xbox Addict

New Natal Games Revealed

The L.A. Times detailed four games that Microsoft plans to use next week at E3 for showing off Project Natal. The games might more accurately be called "tech demos," since we don’t know which ones are destined to become available to consumers. Ricochet is the dodgeball-soccer hybrid we saw premiered at last year’s E3, but now it supports two players simultaneously. It also uses the facial recognition to automatically pull up the correct avatar, and the article notes the same feature could be used to prevent kids from accessing restricted games.

River Rush was outed by Parade Magazine (above) last week, but now we’re hearing more details. Players steer a raft past obstacles like waterfalls and rocks by jumping and leaning. Living Statue lets players record their avatars dancing and singing karaoke, and allows shameless players to e-mail the video to their friends. Finally, Obstacle Course imitates a summer camp, having the player dodge and jump their way through the stages.

Perhaps most exciting is word that third-party developers will be revealing roughly a dozen other Natal games on Monday and Tuesday. They’re all under strict orders not to reveal anything until after Microsoft’s conference at 10 a.m. PST. We’ll be looking forward to seeing what other developers do with the device, especially since they might be reaching more into the game arena than the "tech demo" one.