Hands on with Kinect

Last week, a few Culchies had the opportunity to preview Xbox’s newest innovation. Stephen has been talking about it all week on ChronicReload, but here’s George’s views on it. Let us know what you think…are you excited or do you feel it’s just another gimmick?

- Darren

So Microsoft has a new addition for the Xbox 360 and if you missed the hype about it from the last two E3‘s (although it was called Natal at E3 2009) then this (rather sarcastic) parody video should give you an idea about it.

Basically it’s Microsoft’s answer to the Wii except you don’t have to hold a controller. In fact your whole body is the controller, except it’s not really, the controller sits in front of the telly and watches your every move and listens to your every word - kinda like a pet puppy except without the cuteness or the random defecation.

That

I recently had the privilege of trying out Kinect with some of Microsoft’s release games for it and I was impressed, the version that I got to play with was not the release version as it’s still being worked on, but instead the demo version that Microsoft brought to E3, as the demonstrators were quick to point out anytime I felt it wasn’t doing quite what I wanted it to do.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m familiar with the demo demons but every time someone looked the least bit less than stunned by Kinect’s awesomeness, it was the lighting or the people in the background or the pre-production version rather than just admitting that there may be a small learning curve with the controller. It took me all of about 5 minutes use to get comfortable with it, although I never really became comfortable with the whole jumping around & waving like a loon in a room full of strangers part of the experience, but I don’t intend to play in public too often and when I do it’ll be in the company of friends and/or after a few scoops.

So what was it like? First we were shown the Kinect Dashboard and how easy it was to navigate by simply waving things past or holding over an icon to select it. Grabbing the progress bar when watching a video and moving it forward or backwards to find a particular scene is a really great feature especially if you use your Xbox as an entertainment system as well as a games console.

We weren’t able to test the voice functionality because of concerns over the background noise at the demo event, so I’m not going to comment on that, other than to ask the question why does it have to be “Xbox pause/play/stop/forward etc.” rather than the classic “Computer pause/play/stop/forward etc.”? If you’re going to make a Star Trek inspired control method then you might as well go the whole hog!

We were also given the chance to play some of Microsoft’s launch games for Kinect - Kinect Adventures, Joyride, Kinectimals, Wii sports *Ahem* I mean Kinect Sports and Dance Central.

We were told Kinect Adventures will be included with Kinect when you buy it, which is great because it’s basically a collection of mini games to get you familiar with the concept of not having a controller of any sort in your hand. We only had two of the games playable, that weird handball/horizontal break-out style game (which is surprisingly fun and energetic) and a rafting game which takes your photo at points where you should be in mid jump or other embarrassing poses, which will be great so long as it doesn’t automatically post them to your facebook or twitter stream!

Joyride was originally to be released as an Xbox arcade game last year but didn’t and now we know why. You control a small cartoon-like car by pretending to hold a steering wheel in front of you which you steer with, there is no accelerate or brake but by pumping your arms you fire your turbo boosts, there are other subtleties employed with the Kinect system which lift this game from a slightly lame MarioKart rip-off into something unique as well, for instance leaning as you turn your “steering wheel” makes your car do a drift turn and so on. The control method really does make this game, if it were simply played on a pad it would be forgotten on release date, but Kinect adds a layer of fun that games like this need.

Kinectimals is essentially a tamagotchi for younger gamers, albeit with a lot better graphics and interaction. In fact it’s the interaction of this game that is going to make Microsoft the most money of any of the launch titles in my opinion. The game is purchased with a choice of two pets, if you want more you simply buy a new Kinectimals plush toy and show it to your Kinect and all of a sudden your plush toy comes to life, call me a cynic but to me this just seems like a way for Microsoft to extract as much money as possible from parents.

The game itself gives you a pet tiger, at least on the demo version. You can “pet it” by waving your hands at the screen, train it, by “showing it” what you want it to do, lead it through an obstacle course, but the one thing you can’t do is get it to chase the bunnies that seem to be always hanging about in the background.

Kinect Sports has promise, however again, I was a little disapointed that there were only 2 events playable. A hurdle race where you run & jump on the spot and a bowling game that is better looking and more playable than Wii bowling were just enough to make me want to see more of this title, but only just.

As far as showing off what Kinect is capable of the closest thing available at the demo was Dance Central and if I’m honest my ego couldn’t take the bashing my dancing in public would bring but from watching others who were willing to give it a lash I realised the beauty of this controller, it can be so many different controllers and more besides. Can a dance mat watch what your hands and arms are doing as well as where you are putting your feet?

So how do I feel about Kinect, it’s awesome, it has huge potential, but I knew that before the demo. So many people will think of it as just another Wii, great novelty value initially but soon after only getting trotted out when you have friends over. It has to be more than that. The demo games that I was shown and played were all a bit too Wii-like and if I didn’t know of some of the other games (Fable 3, Forza Motorsport, a new Star Wars game) that are due for release that will utilise Kinect technology, then I would be slating it.

Microsoft needs to do 2 things IMHO to make this launch a huge success…

Make sure that their big game partners have titles for the hardcore gamers on release day. This will stop the wave of negativity that follows online when hardcore users of any product are let down. And the other thing that will make it huge, is making sure that everything that can be done on the current dashboard can be done on the new Kinect Dashboard and integrate the new functionality.

If I’m watching the latest “Sent u a message” I want to reach up and grab the progress bar and do the same if I was watching a movie on Zune or via Media Centre. I want to be able to flip through my own music collection just like I can with Zune music. In fact if the latter is reality then I’ll buy it on release date just for that!

Want to read more? Check out Stephen’s previews on ChronicReload:

Kinect Preview Week on Chronic Reload

Preview: Microsoft Kinect Menu Control and Biosensor

Preview: Kinect Joyride

Preview: Kinect Adventures

Preview: Dance Central