Looksley's Line Up: DSi Motion Tracking Game Coming to U.S.

Nintendo today confirmed that it will indeed be bringing the downloadable face-tracking DSi game above -- which drummed up quite a bit of buzz when I first featured it here in February -- to the US on May 17th as Looksley's Line Up. I'll write up my long-overdue impressions of the game closer to the release date, but suffice it to say for now that it is a bit magical, provided you can operate the game under its own persnickety ideal conditions. Proper lighting, proper distance from the DS and slow, smooth movements are key to sustaining the effect, but when you get it right, it's not that far off from your own private Winscape -- like the first, rough iteration of an amazing far-future technology.

• [staria]

  They can go to hell! After I sell my DSi, they decide to bring to the US games for it?!!

• [Anonymous]

  @staria
  Hey it’s your fault for selling your DSi, there’s other game innovators already out.
  Flipnote Studio, Castle of Magic, and the upcoming Photo Dojo show the abilities both the touchscreen and camera can do.

• [help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread]

  Will it work for all skin tones? I’d guess that, since Japan’s population is pretty homogeneous, it wouldn’t have a problem in that market if it failed to pick up on darker-skinned faces. But I’d be pretty disappointed if they failed to make sure it worked for all players of the international versions.

• [help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread]

  I also wonder how they actually recorded this ad… I’m sure the bulk of the professional recording equipment would obscure the DSi’s view of the demoer’s face, and every workaround I can come up with just seems too silly (ie mounting a mask on the camera, prerecording the gameplay).