So I’ve been playing a few new Kinect games lately and I’ve been pretty impressed with how far they’ve come. I’ve always been impressed with Kinect from a technical standpoint, but I’ve been a bit wary of the games for it – after all, how much can you do without a controller?
Fruit Ninja was the first Kinect game I played and thought, “Wow, this is perfect.” It’s a simple mechanic, but the game is really fun – usually the only thing that stops me is the extreme pain in my arms from flailing them about spastically for half an hour (if I last that long). I had played Kinect Adventures, Kinect Sports, Dance Central, and a few other games, but a $10 XBLA game put the $50-$60 Kinect games to shame – and I expect to see more of that as more Arcade and Indie Kinect games pop up. (Note that I still enjoy all those games) I’ve been playing Kinect Sports Season 2, and the football and baseball games are really impressive. They’re not as detailed or complex as a full-fledged sports game, but they’re perfect for the format and audience.
In Football, you only play offense (defense is handled automatically and you’re just presented with the results). You start the game by receiving the ball. Once you’ve returned the ball as far as you can, you switch to the quarterback. You have four downs to score a touchdown – there are no more first downs. First, you pick a play (or let an AI coach pick one), then you crouch (like a quarterback) and can say “Ready, hike!” to snap the ball. Once you have the ball, you can pass to one of three players by throwing forward or to the left or right. If the player catches the ball, you take control of them and have to run in place to run down the field. You can’t really dodge tackles – you will be tackled at some point – but how fast you run determines how many yards you gain. If you score a touchdown within the four downs, hooray. If not, you kick a field goal.
This is a lot more complex than the original Kinect Sports, where most sports really only had a single “action” it was tracking. Bowling used your arms, soccer used your legs, etc. With football, it incorporates your entire body – throwing, kicking, running, and crouching. The closest the original got to this were a few of the track & field games like javelin.
Another big improvement in Kinect Sports Season 2 is that everything can be controlled with your voice. You can activate every menu item with your voice, so you don’t have to use the “floating hand” to select buttons. You see this in the new dashboard, but it’s really nice in a Kinect game.
I’m looking forward to seeing some new games that are a bit more immersive. As fun as Kinect Sports is, you still feel like you’re playing a Kinect game, and the action comes in spurts – extremely brief periods of exertion. I’d prefer to see something that keeps a moderate pace up for a longer period of time. Child of Eden almost does this, but it’s just not very fun with Kinect controls.