X’10
Chapter 9 – Making a Kinection
By Jorge Figueiredo - August 27th, 2010
Spread around the venue were a few stations that had no controllers. Some folks who were at these demos were waving their arms all over the place and jumping up and down like monkeys; some were dancing with abandon; some were even doing Tai Chi and yoga. The common elements that they shared were curiosity and fun.
Kinect for Xbox 360
When Microsoft announced a “controller-less” people were certainly curious; how would this system work? Would it work well? I guess the answer lies with whomever uses it. I know that whatever I tried was a lot of fun, and while the system certainly has some limitations, there is potential for a great gaming experience, if some tweaks were done.
Overall, the system works well provided that the noise level is controlled and a crowd is not actively moving too much behind the people that are playing. The only beef with the system that sticks out in my mind is the lag between player motion and the subsequent motion displayed on the screen. Some people that I chatted with about it didn’t seem to mind the lag, citing that it gave them a bit of time to see their reaction. Others wished for a faster response time. Again, opinions are mixed, but overall, people seemed positive.
I will relay my experience with some of the titles that I found…
Kinect Adventures
Kinect Adventures is the title that will ship with Kinect upon launch; rumour has it that there will be 20 games contained within Kinect Adventures, but I only got to see three for the demo. The games within Adventures will be both single player and multiplayer.
The first game is called “River Rush”; you (or you and a friend) guide a raft down the river with your mad skillz. Sidestepping left and right moves the raft accordingly, jumping up and down causes the raft to do the same, allowing you to clear obstacles and collect points. Hitting the ramps also gives you an extra boost, allowing you to reach areas with more potential points to collect. I particularly enjoyed the end that shows you in various poses with funny captions.
Game number two, titled “Rally Ball” is a game in which you (and an opponent, if you wish) stand facing a wall of moving targets and wooden boards. You start off with one ball, which you swat at the wall; when you start doing well, more balls will appear. What is great about this adventure is that you can hit the ball with any body part. My only warning is to watch out for anyone standing beside you.
The final adventure is called “Reflex Ridge”; an obstacle course with a bit of a twist: you are standing on a strange mining cart. When the game begins, you (and your opponent, if you have one) make a pulling gesture (like skiing) to pull yourself through the gate and start the adventure. You make your way along the track ducking under swinging bars and jumping over other objects. This game is hilarious because of the mechanism to speed up your cart: continuously jump up and down. I think this game made me feel the most self-conscious in front of everyone, but only at the beginning. By the end I was trying to figure out how to not get hit in the face by those swinging bars. This was the game that made me notice the lag the most, but once you got used to it, there were not too many problems.
When I finished the game, I did well enough to get a living trophy. This ended up being me doing a dance and saying “yo” at the camera, which translated to my character on screen; a nice touch. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing Kinect Adventures; it does what it’s supposed to do: highlighting the potential of Kinect.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved
Ubisoft steps up their fitness game with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. In a nutshell, YS:FE is a fitness program that allows you to create your own daily regimen to keep yourself in shape. Ubisoft is working closely with the Kinect camera folks to ensure that the accuracy of their product is as high as possible. For instance, YS:FE doesn’t just track a few points on your body; it tracks a million points! This allows the user to get precise feedback on how they are doing (something that is lacking in a lot of fitness programs for consoles).
The demo was limited, but really did a great job highlighting why Ubisoft is such a fantastic developer: they really pay attention to the small details. For instance, your image can be projected back into the game (with a variety of effects); the menus are entertaining; the overall tone of the game is positive, even if you are not doing as well as you could be.
Customization is abound in YS:FE; you work with a personal instructor; you can try out individual activities; everything is done according to what you want out of fitness. The yoga and Tai Chi modules were great, not only teaching you how to do the poses, but informing you how well you are doing them; the game also shows you your position on screen, so it is not a stretch to fix yourself and improve your posture.
My favourite demo from the game was the brick-smashing activity. You stood in place and bricks would appear in front of your on-screen persona; you would then have to break them. Everyone that tried this demo seemed to enjoy it. The more you did, the more calories that you burned – neat!
This is just the tip of the iceberg! I am very much looking forward to seeing more of what Kinect can do!
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