Transformers PES: The Future Of Video Games?

The Robot Athletic Meet 2007 in Tokyo has shown us the future of gaming, and it's not HD, it's real, honest-to-HAL 3D! The moment SPOnG's been waiting for since we first dreamed of electric sheep is on the horizon - Transformers PES!

Okay, so we've got over-excited here. In fact Konami has made no commitment to enabling you to control Transformer-like, Japanese soccer stars in real (robotic) life soccer-ball kicking action. We just (a) love the idea (b) demand that it happens (c) think it's more interesting than rugby; at least a robot could score a legal try.

The pictures show small humanoid robots going head to head on the footy pitch. Some of them are remote controlled, while some have been pre-programmed to respond to the ball's movement. Imagine - instead of sitting down in front of your 360 on your big screen HD TV with a few cans of Carling for a game of Pro Evolution Soccer, sitting down in front of your own robot arena!

Granted, the technology's not quite there yet, with the Transformers-alikes stumbling a tad, but Ken Senoh, chief organizer of the event, reckons it's getting there. "Today's robots are still toddlers, so to speak, in terms of their physical capabilities... But it's only a matter of time that they will catch up with humans and eventually outrun us -- just in the same way personal computers, which were slow and not up to par until just a few decades ago, can now perform various tasks much faster than humans."

Andy SPOnG, second best footballer in the world (currently out due to injury) said defiantly, "I'd take them on, because I'm programmed to never give up. As for love, robots will never beat me at loving."

Remote controlled robots, we reckon, might be the standard platform that Gerhard Florin, EA's head of international publishing, is yearning for...

^{Source: Reuters}