SCOTT MCCLOUD NAILED IT: GAMESRADAR PITS AVATAR VS. AVATAR
Though the results are a bit stacked, with some really curious selections of particular character creations (and the most horrifying Home ‘Sarah Palin’ you’ll ever see), GamesRadar’s Avatar Showdown has pitted the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3’s personalization features against each other to interesting results.
Not only does the feature near-scientifically prove the theory of the Uncanny Valley, it also perfectly highlights Scott McCloud’s point in Understanding Comics about the universality of cartoon imagery.
Microsoft did very well to find a happy medium between the Miis (which Nintendo itself also did well in allowing more flexibility) and Sony’s honestly fantastically misjudged Home models (now that it’s widely available, I basically dare you to create an avatar which you can comfortably look at and say “that’s me!” — send us comparison shots if you think you’ve succeeded).
There’ve been steps in the right direction on the first two parts (Mii masks in Animal Crossing, avatar support in Xbox 360 games), but obviously the killer app would be the extensibility of the former with the social networking of the latter.
All-Console Avatar Showdown [GamesRadar] [bonus links here and here to decent celebrity 360 avatars]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals, Xbox 360
