Overly Positive

Those of you who’ve been keeping up with the E3 news know that one of the highlights of Microsoft‘s Project Natal motion control was a demonstration by Peter Molyneux, now the director of Microsoft’s EU studios. In this demo, we got to meet Milo, a representation of a digital AI which could interpret facial expressions and answer questions. Milo, in the form of a young boy, apparently hates doing homework, likes fishing, and thinks you need a pair of goggles to make sure your eyes don’t get wet while staring into a lake.

Now, as much as there has been buzz about this new and exciting development in not only motion control but also in game interaction, there’ve been a lot of people that have been cynical. This is partly due to the fact that the immediate thought behind many a gamer’s “between the ages of 17  and 34″ brain is how to ultimately make him into the most mentally deranged digital child on XBox Live. On this front, Molyneux has given us reassurances that when Milo is released , he will have limitations put into place to stop you from living out deep-seeded, id-motivated evil scenarios.

That’s too bad, Peter. Surely this is contradictory to your Fable series, where you could screw with villagers, your significant other(s), and just about anything else. Denying gamers the ability to transform Milo into a twisted little hellion is denying them an outlet for the unbridled rage that they must feel for being made fun of for having pictures of FFVII‘s Aeris all over their locker. The emotional scarring of repeated dunking into a toilet or of being brutally rejected by countless objects of their affection would have nowhere to go, resulting in the decline of civilization ™. I hope Molyneux comes to his senses in time to prevent the downfall of man by limiting it to only destroying Milos all over the world. Choice is a good thing!

Really though, most of the negativity comes from Milo’s relevance in the game world. Lots of naysayers have the audacity to say that Milo won’t have a place in the gaming world and that the whole exercise is a waste of time. Poppycock I say! Clearly a company like Microsoft wouldn’t spend millions and millions on a product that was either not ready to ship or would ultimately cause more harm than good in the world. 

Besides, there are tons of relevant ways in which this little Milo kid could be put to good use:

-Milo Security System: ADT better watch out, because alarms with simply annoying audio are so 1990′s. With Milo projected on screens and shrieking in an 8 year old English boy’s voice for their mummy, no thief will come close to robbing your house. And with default alert set to “I’m being molested!!!!”, you’ll have multiple authorities descending to your place of residence to stop the threat.

-Milo Parental Training: Once in a blue moon, geeks and gamers reproduce. If you have no idea what it means to be a parent, look no further than Milo, who you can raise and interact with from birth! Women can simulate breast feeding on the screen, men can be shown how not to be clueless when changing diapers, and as Milo grows, he becomes more and more petulant about getting his way, giving you the opportunity to mete out simulated discipline with the requisite save points. That way if you meant to choose a menu item and instead happen to accidentally backhand poor little misbehaving Milo, you can go back and try again. And they say the Sims are immersive. Ha!

-Milo Friend Simulator - For the lonely gamer or the programmer who locks themselves into their room to develop the next big thing, Milo is there to rescue you from your minimalist social needs. Milo will try to pat you on the back, console you when you weep endlessly about how no one will read your Kirk and Spock slash fanfiction, and administer “tough love” with a modified infrared-based electric shock peripheral. If you ever craved the company of people without the hugely inconvenient tasks of “phone calls”, “having tact”, and “direct eye contact”, then you have a friend in Milo.

So you see, all the negative people need to just get another perspective. Milo’s just another step in the inevitable march towards everything we’ve ever hoped and wanted for, and that smart people have already realized, and that is a real life Skynet. I’ve always wanted to live out a post-apocalyptic sci-fi future with a contrived story!

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• E3 09: Who the f*ck is Milo? (destructoid.com)