It has since been copied by Sony with the less than successful Move for Playstation, which is an amazing piece of equipment, just sadly Sony’s gaming community spent so long slamming the Wii and defending the Playstation 3 that when they were presented with their own rendition of Wii’s technology, many of them just didn’t feel right embracing this change, and therefore, despite how terrific a product it is, didn’t.
Microsoft is looking to up the ante; why have motion sensor controllers when the player themselves are the controller? Thus, Kinect has been born.
With Kinect the gamer won’t have to hold a controller in their hands anymore, the ways and directions the player moves in will effect the game; is the gaming world ready for such a technological achievement? Yes, yes they are. Is the technology ready to make this achievement? Well, yeah, it is.
Going in to this review, I had heard some rather interesting horror stories from associates of mine who are, admittedly, Sony fanboys. I own a Playstation 2 myself and am well aware of the fantastic things that Sony has done for modern gaming, but I also know how viciously slandering their fans can be of other systems, so the tales of woe that they told me (without trying it themselves mind you) I took with a grain of salt.
A big thing I heard was an issue was the delay in response to movement. With the exception of Fighters Uncaged, a third person view brawler, I haven’t found any delay issues at all. The other negative I heard was that the camera breaks if you try to move it yourself by hand; I can also disavow that statement, as the camera is on rotors that will follow you around the room, so by no means should you have to, at any time, manhandle the camera unless you want to break it.
Negatives aside, I’ve had a very enjoyable time with Kinect and thought the technology was really cool. The voice recognition software is very impressive as I was able to surf through my XBox dashboard on just verbal commands. Yes some of the commands are a bit jerky right now, but I see no reason why they can not be easily patched.
Motion control in the dashboard was pretty cool to, as I could just point at what I wanted to go to on the screen and it went there. I was quite impressed with how adaptable the Kinect sensors worked. I have a rather small room in relation to the optimal demands of what Kinect would like, plus it’s not very bright in my room. Ideally Kinect would like the gamer(s) standing roughly eight feet away from the sensor in a well lit room, with my entertainment center against one wall and my futon against the other, I have about six feet of room to work with, and it’s a basement so light is a bit of an issue. Kinect compensates for this very well, and despite the confined space and less than optimal lighting, the responses were fast and accurate; because of a coffee table between me and the sensor, the cameras couldn’t pick up what my feet were doing, but by following the motion of my legs it made assumed motions with my feet on screen and a vast majority of the time it was correct.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, is Kinect’s answer to Wii Fit, and damn if it’s not effective. With great response to the exercises and stretches you’ll be performing, the game doesn’t have the frustrations that detracted from the very enjoyable Wii Fit. Another big plus is now, with you being the controller, you can hold weights in your hands during the exercises to optimize your workout without being at the mercy of holding a controller in your hand.
Kinect Adventures, the game bundled with Kinect, shows off the tech very nicely through various activities such as rafting, playing a full body version of handball and several other games. The rafting adventure is simple but a lot of fun, and surprisingly is quite a workout as I found myself starting to breathe a little heavier after the second course.
Kinect, simply put, is a lot of fun. Yes the initial lineup of games aren’t the greatest but with this powerful technology available I can see this really becoming more than just another motion sensor gimmick. With full video and audio chat, it will be only a matter of time before gamers start having creepy online chats via XBox Live while other Kinect sessions will feature entire families having fun going on adventures while another pair may be watching a movie and using voice commands to start, pause and skip without fumbling with a controller; I’m just really impressed that now I can play games and don’t have to once put down my beer.
Is Kinect the technology perfected and realized? No, it still has its minor bugs and flaws, but it is a very big step and will draw a lot of new audiences to XBox like the Wii did for Nintendo. Like most things I review, this is something that will be frowned upon by the hardcore gaming community while they play Generic Nazi Shooter 17, but to the rest of the XBox community, this is something you need to check out and will have a blast playing with… and those gosh darn Kinectimals are just so cute!
