I BEAT Tom Hanks on account that he was a no-show.
During E3 - the leading video games show - in Los Angeles last week, at a closed-door preview of Project Natal, Microsoft's prototype hands-free gaming freedom, Tom had booked a slot 10 minutes after my session.
I was disappointed, of course, that my favourite actor did not show up. But in the exhilaration of the game that followed, any fleeting feeling of the blues fizzled out fast.
I felt like a winner before I even began - being among the first in the world to experience Microsoft's new weapon in the ongoing console games war against Sony and Nintendo.
During the press conference earlier, a female Microsoft executive was seen punching the air with her hands, knees, legs, shoulders and torso to fend off the volley of virtual balls hurtling towards her on the TV screen in a game called Ricochet.
Her responses to the game ran so fluidly that I thought her moves were choreographed and that the game on screen was a prepared video playback.
I could not believe that the Project Natal camera was really tracking her entire body's response - at 48 points including her limbs and torso - as she hit the flying balls so accurately.
Until I tried it for myself. I flicked my right wrist to hit the stationary ball and it hit some blocks on the wall. The ball rebounded to the lower left-hand corner of the screen and I stuck my left foot forward but I was too slow; the ball flew past me. A new ball appeared and I flicked my wrist again. Again I missed the rebound.
Finally getting the feel of the game on my third attempt, I successfully hit the ball back.
Next, three balls flew towards me. Picture a hefty me doing a sort of star jump to hit two orbs rushing towards the upper left and right corners at the same time. Just as I landed, I raised my right knee to block the third ball coming towards me at waist level.
Then some 10 balls flew towards me. I flailed my limbs wildly. I missed all of them except for the last one. I pulled my right leg back and gave it a hard kick and watched the ball fly into the wall.
I was already amazed when Wii was launched two years ago. Swinging your controller instead of button mashing is a whole lot more fun, which explains why the Wii is outselling the Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 globally.
But having no controllers? It blows the mind. With the Xbox 360's superior high-definition graphics compared to the Wii's standard resolution, Microsoft suddenly looks ready to unseat the Wii's reign as the console king.
Bring out the next martial arts game, I say. Let me duck and dodge to avoid punches, then hit back with a flurry of blows.
And I can just picture incapacitating the enemy with one precise hit to his solar plexus and then decapitating him a la Sylar in the Heroes TV series by simply moving my forefinger from left to right.
Awesome.
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.
