is milo the future of gaming/technology?

One must always take care when writing about video games. To most people it probably seems like a pretty innocuous topic, but to gamers, it's quite a volatile subject. Sidestepping fanboys that will drop everything in order to take up the shield emblazoned with the logo of either Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft is a difficult task even when attempted by the most soft-spoken of writers. Soft-spoken I'm not.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is always an exciting time for gamers. E3 offers insight into the direction technology will be heading in the future and reveals some of the most anticipated games of the next year from the biggest companies in the industry. Being a gamer, I follow E3 fairly closely every year and I've always been excited to the point of arousal by some of the announcements, but never before has my jaw come unhinged and hit the fake mahogany finish of my desk. Such was the case with one of the most interesting announcements since it was announced that the Wii would use motion controls. I'm talking about Milo.

Milo is, essentially, a very sophisticated piece of AI in the form of a young boy. You interact with Milo by utilizing Microsoft's cutting edge Project Natal camera device. Project Natal allows you to interact with a game by using your entire body instead of just your sweaty, calloused fingers. If you're having trouble understanding what exactly that means: if you see a soccer ball coming at you, move your leg and you have kicked it. Milo incorporates facial recognition, voice recognition and even color recognition. What's most impressive/terrifying about Milo is that he has a memory and feelings. By identifying the unique tone of voice one uses when telling a joke, Milo will laugh. When using nervous mannerisms, Milo will inquire as to what's troubling you. And, probably the most jaw-dropping detail of all, when a reviewer told Milo that he was standing with Peter Molyneux (the developer of Milo), Milo sighed. As Milo's creator, I imagine Milo has spent hundreds of hours with Molyneux and the sigh is like, "when is he not standing around me?"

It's hard to get too excited about Milo because Peter Molyneux is developing it. Anyone who has taken an interest in gaming beyond shoving the disc into the console probably knows about Molyneux and sort of smirks whenever they hear his name in the news when he's hyping a new project. The fact is that Molyneux was something of a messiah many years ago when he was working on a game called Fable. He promised gamers a lot of things that he didn't deliver on. Fast forward to The Movies, same thing. Fable 2, same thing, though to a far lesser extent than Fable and The Movies. He always described his product with a wild gleam in his eyes, using words like groundbreaking, revolutionary, earth shattering, and urethra tearing. It appears as if Molyneux has learned his lesson, though. He kept his mouth shut about Milo for quite a long time (for him) and when he did speak about it, you could see he was excited about it, but his mouth wasn't frothing and he didn't say anything about trees aging with your character (a la Fable).

Molyneux has gone on record as saying that Milo would, indeed, be a game. I'm not sure if I like the idea of that. Milo is an eight year old boy and, by and large, I hate eight year old boys. It has also been revealed that if interacting with an eight year old boy isn't your cup of tea (which it isn't), then you also have the option of interacting with an eight year old girl named Millie. Awesome! Now I cannot wait. I'm kidding, of course. What has yet to be revealed is whether or not Millie just shouts nonsensical pieces of dialogue from Hannah Montana at you or sings Jonas Brothers songs out of key, as my inferior (i.e. human) eight year old sister does.

Even though Milo isn't finished and there will probably be bugs and glitches, that does not mean the technology isn't new and, to say the very least, interesting. I remember when the iPod first came out, there were a ton of glitches, but look at it now. The current generation iteration is barely recognizable when compared with the first generation model. It's gone from the size of a sandwich to slightly larger than a pack of gum. It's akin to looking at our early ancestors and then looking in the mirror. To me, Milo could symbolize something huge. Imagine playing an RPG where characters recognize you and your facial expressions and tone of voice guide social encounters. God, I moisten at the very thought! I'm not saying this will ever happen in my lifetime, or ever, but a nerd can dream, can't he?