Boktai - Light-Sensitive Gaming Previewed

Thanks to Shacknews for pointing to the IGN Pocket hands-on preview of Boktai, Hideo 'Metal Gear' Kojima's new Gameboy Advance action title, due out from Konami later this year. It uses a special light sensor in the cartridge, so you can harness sunlight to power up your character - and as the preview says, ".. this sensor can only detect sunlight...it won't recognize any artificial light." Overall, we get a much better idea of how the game works - too much sunlight, "and your gun will begin to overheat as you use it", but not enough, and "you can utilize [in-game] power areas that store excess sunlight" to keep playing. Intriguingly, there's also some serious Metal Gear leanings (enemies use line of sight, you can sneak past them, you can tap on a wall to distract them.)

people playing inside?

[Anonymous Coward]

well that sounds terrible. personnally, i prefer playing games inside, so i would hardly ever see that working.

also, even if i would be outside, i live in scotland, so i could hardly ever get lots of sunlight

I don't think...

[BigNumber]

I don't think this is what my mom meant when she kept telling me to stop watching tv and go outside to play.

Danger!

[Tux2000]

Don't these people know that gamers burn to ash when they are exposed to sunlight? That's why they hide in dark rooms with only artificial light and don't go out until it's dark.

No wait, that was vampires, not gamers, right?

Re:Danger!

[brave1]

Don't these people know that gamers burn to ash when they are exposed to sunlight?
That only happens in "older" versions of the Matrix. Just in case, better watch out for Monical Bellucci. She might have silver bullets AND Wooden Stakes!

Emulators

[David_Bloom]

I wonder how emulators are supposed to handle this...with all the cartridge 'addons' on so many games today, emulators will have tbe QUITE specialized.

That's Innovation For You

[Ese L0C0]

Sunlight required to play games? What are they gonna think of next.... Maybe they could come up with one that uses water......Hey wait a minute....(GBA+H2O=Bad)

In related news...

[hprotagonist0]

...hundreds of gamers move above the arctic circle to take advantage of the midnight sun.

interesting idea

[smorky]

it's interesting to see how this game will do - developers have always tried to put in gimmicks to make games unique, but this is a first. i think it's about time... sunlight is good for you!

I wonder how it works with the GBA SP

[Scyber]

Considering the cartridge is on the bottom of the unit, does that mean you will have to play outside and upside down?

Re:I wonder how it works with the GBA SP

[David_Bloom]

It isn't backlight-compatible either :-D.

Hahahaaa

[goldcd]

At last I have another use for that 800W Son-T Agro in my closet (if you don't know, don't ask). I will be all powerful *maniacal laughter*

response to the GameCube player?

[Shaleh]

The paranoid among us might see this as a way to come out with games that still require an actual GameBoy instead of the attachment for the GameCube.
I intend to own the attachment because I hate staring at a dinky screen even if they did finally add backlighting.

Not real thrilled.

[notque]

The novelty is intresting, but who honestly cares.

It would be different if it detected other gameboys in the vicinity, and changed the game dependant on that, but this is the sun.

Great.

I do this, with sun, something happens.

woot.

I see the sun every day, I don't see how I would be too impressed to have my gameboy notice the difference between sun, and no sun, and make game changes dependant on it.

Eh.

The next step in gaming:

[lightspawn]

Dude, we need the next gameboy/PSP to have temperature and humidity sensors so the virtual weather system in the game can match real life.

Oh, and the games should sample sounds from the speaker input, then play them back later.

---

Come on! The whole point of gaming is that you're in a DIFFERENT WORLD, one completely unrelated to the normal one. Any dependencies on real-life conditions is bad. Ask any parent whose kid stayed up late to catch the pokemon who only come out at night.

How

[David_Bloom]

How does it detect the sun? Could you just play it under a UV lamp?