10 Video Games That Were Sold On Lies

Speaking of Kinect, very rarely has an entire console or peripheral been sold on such a shaky foundation of ‘truth’. Such was the case with Project Milo, the Kinect’s prospective killer app, which was demonstrated by Peter Molyneux at E3 in 2009.

Molyneux announced that the tech would be used in a game called ‘Milo and Kate’, a story-driven adventure wherein players could interact with a young child and a dog called Kate. The child was shown responding to words and phrases in real time, as well as the emotional tone with which they were expressed. The game never actually saw the light of day, however, and the legitimacy of Milo’s AI technology still remains somewhat doubtful.

This was only the first in a long line of tricks and fibs that were used to sell the Kinect. Other examples include claims that Kinect would scan household objects for use in-game, the Kinect Star Wars E3 demo not corresponding with the movements of the person playing the game on stage, and the utterly false claims that Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor would function on even the most fundamental level.

Watching the Milo demonstration back, you almost feel sorry for Molyneux. “What this industry does with Natal (Kinect’s codename) will change the landscape of games that we play,” he says. In actual fact, we got a lot of voice command gimmicks, dancing Han Solo, and more plastic tat to store next to our Guitar Hero controllers.