Kinect (previously Natal)

[Flabio]

Quick impressions:

Dance Central: Total genius, although I suck at it apart from the very easiest moves so far.
Kinect Adventures: Fun enough, lag is noticeable in a couple of the mini-games but not game breaking. Probably get bored of it quite quickly though, there's not much variety.

Not played Sports, Joyride or Kinectimals yet.

[MJ]

Gamestation text me today to let me know my in-store bundle is ready to collect from tonight's midnight launch and my posted on Saturday online order is now actually in transit, so they did sit on them until today, which was what I expected.

I have come to the decision that I will be returning the online order to the store for a refund, as it was my backup and I wanted to use my in-store credit towards the bundle, and I will not be purchasing my in-store order and will get a refund on my deposit.

I can't make use of the controls I was interested in and I have no interest in the Zune bloatware. You don't get a power cable with the bundle, which ties Kinect to the S and means I'll have to buy the $35 power cable, so probably at least £29.99 when they release the UK version, to be able to use it with my old 360. If I really do want it all later down the line, I might as well buy both solo items.

[nonny]

Got mine this morning and I have the exact opposite problem to everyone else using kinect. I have space to burn in my place but where connect tells me to stand as the sweet spot for game play is slap bang in the cone of light my projector is projecting onto the screen so all I can see is my shadowy noggin.

Grr. I thought I could stand a couple of feet further back than that but for now I put the sensor off to the side and tried it out. So far, it good and I am impressed with the reaction times. Lag is there but it is far more minimal than I expected and essentially you can pre-empt moves pretty easily. Only tried KA so far though, my other games arrive later this week.

[yesteryeargames]

any good deals about on the launch games

[EvilBoris]

Tesco are doing them all for £30

[MartyG]

I said I'd post my impressions after the NDA lifted ...

-------------

Moved to first play: http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/showpost.p...43&postcount=8

[hudson]

I was just about to ask whether or not I should take the plunge for this for our Xmas day gathering of friends (Wii bowling is growing tiresome), but the space required is something I cannot accommodate in my living room

[laruso]

Dunno about all this sold out hype, just walked into Sheffield hmv and bought one. They have around 20 or so in! I'll get to play it later.

[Skull Commander]

The mutants have spoken:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11724068

Selected "Highlights":

"Controllers have always been good but they're getting a bit old hat, and anyone will be able to have a go at this."

"It's better than the Wii - you don't have to hold a pad - you can sit there and drink a cup of tea while you play."

"You can just be yourself and the game will play through."

Never has this forum needed a facepalm smiley more than now...

[MartyG]

"It's better than the Wii - you don't have to hold a pad - you can sit there and drink a cup of tea while you play."

Well that's utter bollocks guess that sort of thing happens when you use a PR crib sheet - actually I had a number of issues with unintentional detection because of drinking tea. Or beer. Or wine for that matter.

[Spatial]

Never has this forum needed a facepalm smiley more than now...

[Skull Commander]

Where did that little fella come from?

[Brats]

The mutants have spoken:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11724068

Selected "Highlights":

"Controllers have always been good but they're getting a bit old hat, and anyone will be able to have a go at this."

"It's better than the Wii - you don't have to hold a pad - you can sit there and drink a cup of tea while you play."

"You can just be yourself and the game will play through."

Never has this forum needed a facepalm smiley more than now...

To be fair to the 'mutants', I've been quoted in magazines and online as one of these 'Joe Public' soundbites and my quotes have never been what I actually said. The authors always adapt it - they sort of ask for permission by saying 'Thanks, we'll just edit that down a bit, okay?'. The end result is that sometimes the original quote is mutilated so much it is completely out of context.

The soundbites in that article are very artificial - no-one actually speaks like that. I can imagine the guy who mentioned the cup of tea actually said something like "I have a Wii and whilst it's good, I have to put take the controller off my wrist if I need to pass over the controller to someone or have a drink. With Kinnect, one small thing is that I don't have to do that".

Note that the BBC 'quote' talks about a Wii 'pad'. I've never heard anyone refer to the Wiimote as a pad. I bet that's the BBC.

[charlesr]

Thanks for the impressions Marty. That 6-8 feet thing bothers me. My lounge is quite narrow. 6 feet is "standing on the sofa".... Sounds like it's a no go for me.

I was watching Newsround on cbbc yesterday and they had a review of it. Incredibly, it was really thoughtful. They talked about the lag as being quite noticeable so it probably won't replace normal controllers any time soon. And said that the initial crop of games was really average and a bit boring. I was expecting the usual frothing at the gills fest. So, well played kids journos.

[MartyG]

I have to move the furniture out the way to use it - you need to keep the area free of clutter too, not just for accident sake, but if you've got a lot of stuff about it can confuse Kinect.

The lag is more noticible in some situations than others - I haven't found that it ruins any of the games I've played, though you do notice it a little more as the difficultly increases on Kinect Adventures, especially if you're looking out for it. The dashboard revisions since the start of the beta did make improvements to detection and lag, and there's probably further scope as more data is collected, but it'll never be completely eliminated.