Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor (Demo) review

[Silvergun X]

So I had a chance to try the demo out at a friend's house today, as I no longer have my Kinect. I know the game's been hammered something chronic by reviewers and the general vibe is that it's ****.

I say screw the general vibe. I thoroughly enjoyed what I played of the demo and it's left me wanting more.

The only inaccuracy I had in the game, was with changing between AP shells and HEAT shells - Pressing those buttons was fiddly, and could easily have been bound to controller buttons, but aside from that, everything worked 99.9% of the time when I wanted it to.

I found with the shell changing, that if I just moved my hand in front of me a little, instead of fully stretching out my arm, it worked flawlessly, but if I actually reached out to press the button, it didn't work most of the time.

Give your arms a gentle push forwards, you lean out. Move your left arm up, get your periscope sorted.

The gear shifting, VT powering up, ventilation, flashlight etc, all without a single problem. When it worked, and it worked quite often for me personally, the feeling of it was INCREDIBLE.

I'd encourage you guys with Kinect to at least give the demo a try, despite the bad reviews. You might actually have success with it.

(Disclaimer: I played and enjoyed Sonic Free Riders so take that as you will).

[EvilBoris]

I quite enjoyed the demo, but kinect kept freaking out thinking I was looking through the viewing port. That was my only control issue

[Neon Ignition]

The main appeal of the series to begin with was the controller and taking that away from the experience leaves the game feeling a little 'meh'. Had Capcom and FROM decided to fully rework the experience for the console there could have been a decent game put together but trying to wrap Kinect into it adds little to the experience. Easier to track down a copy of the original which can still be had for a decent price with some hunting.