Retro|Spective 208: The Final Tour of Kinect

[Neon Ignition]

Wave your hands in the air for the next installment - this time we're taking a journey back through time revisiting the key titles that are now very much locked up in shackles to the Xbox 360's motion control mega hit peripheral that managed to contribute both to elevating that consoles success and damaging that of the systems successor.




Retro|Spective 208: The Final Tour of Kinect


Set up by your TV, tracking your movements as you wave your arms through the air to control the actions of the characters, Kinect picked up on the success that the Wii had swept in and offered a unique alternative.

Game 01 - Dance Central
Recieving a total of four installments on the system, Harmonix's title used the camera to replicate the success of arcade dancing stage titles in your living room. The movement you make is carried out in time with the music, the better your performance the more the music pumps up. An initial line up of 32 songs and around a dozen characters make up the first game and out of the gate it was one of the best recieved series of Kinect essential titles.




Did it Make You Bust a Move?

[egparadigm]

Dance Central is good fun, the only dance game I’ve ever enjoyed. The downsides are a lack of living room space and, I guess, it’s not such a social experience if you’re behind closed doors.

[Asura]

Basically the best game Kinect ever had. I played almost all of them (long boring story) and very few of them were any good, most of them were straight-up terrible or worse versions of stuff available elsewhere (e.g. the sports games were better on Wii and Move).

Genuinely could get a person with no coordination to learn some basic dancing.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Pretty much the only Kinect game I ever played, and I had loads of fun with it alongside the friends I played it with.

I don't know if Kinect ever fully lived up to its potential but Dance Central surely must be the game that showcased such potential, imo.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 02 - Diabolical Pitch
Developed by Suda 51, this baseball titled mixed in the undead with the action and launched via XBLA. Scoring mixed reviews Suda never the less has its cult fanbase marking this as a title from the studio that is on its way out with players throwing their baseballs to KO zombies and score points.





Pitching to the Right Crowd?

[fuse]

Diabolical Pitch is also on the list of things about to disappear in the great XBLA purge. With it being a Suda thing I've had it bought from the start, but annoyingly never got around to playing it before the Kinect / 360s got unceremoniously shuffled out of my setup when I last moved.

Having spent no time with either, I will concede to popular opinion that Dance Central is probably the better game, but Dance Evolution's Bemani linkage is of more interest to me and is another I've got sat there unplayed. Wasn't there also a Dance Central segment in a Star Wars Kinect game featuring Star Wars-themed spoofs of pop songs?

From a perspective of wanting to keep these games alive, I don't even know where makes sense for them to be ported to. Ugh.

[Asura]

Wasn't there also a Dance Central segment in a Star Wars Kinect game featuring Star Wars-themed spoofs of pop songs?

Yeah, but it doesn't get talked about much because it's literally that - a Dance Central reskin for a minigame.

[Neon Ignition]

I never was a big Kinect fan but I coudl easily imagine myself getting onto a late in the day hoover up of stuff before it vanishes if it weren't for how much VR now fills a similar space

[Neon Ignition]

Game 03 - Happy Action Theatre
Developed by Double Fine, the intention was to make a title that could easily entertain a two year old. Making it an open ended mini-game title, the game contains 18 mini-games and can track up to 6 players at the same time. Most of these contain no set goals, merely existing as something toy like for players to interact with. The simple sounding premise worked though with high scores recieved for the game.





Happy Time?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 04 - Fable: The Journey
A game so controversial that it caused online fury and the loss of a regular forum member. Using your hands to cast spells, players defeat enemies and use XP to level up their magic and skills as the player rides their horse on a journey. The game had been led by rumours of a fourth entry and its reveal caused a backlash of frustration over what the game wasn't more so than what it was. Despite this, when thigns subsided and the game released it still only scored middling reviews at best but still remains the last major Fable title developed and released aside from some small scale projects.





A Journey Worth Taking?

[Asura]

No.

Simply no.

The game was unfairly maligned, admittedly - with the backlash having that tone of gamers being like children having a tantrum in the supermarket because their mother picked up Chocolate Fudge Poptarts instead of regular Chocolate Poptarts...

But it wasn't all that good (even if it's on the left side of the Kinect continuum that runs from "ok" to "dross").

[egparadigm]

Game 04 - Fable: The Journey
A game so controversial that it caused online fury and the loss of a regular forum member.

Oooooh, who, who!? I need my 2007-vintage bordersdown forum goss!

[Wools]

Oooooh, who, who!? I need my 2007-vintage bordersdown forum goss!

Flabio, who was one of the programmers at Lionhead.

It was a hard project working on Fable The Journey. Milo & Kate was canned by Microsoft so the dev team of Milo & Kate were gutted (I was Tools & Engine QA Manager on Fable 2, 3, M&K, F:TJ & then Designer on Fable 4) and we were forced to work on Fable The Journey. I think we made it in less than 9 months which was a ****ing miracle and due to some choice publicity by Peter, it gave the impression to the public it wasn’t an on rails shooter, which made it even tougher.

It was my last released game at Lionhead before working on design for Fable Legends / 4 before that was **** canned and I was made redundant.

Kinect was a cool bit of hardware but had unfulfilled potential. Milo & Kate was a stunning concept but we never got past Alpha and making a game of Fable’s magnitude by shoehorning in Kinect was destined to fail, especially in our timeframe.

Was a great game ever made on Kinect? Child of Eden would be my best pic but even that’s **** in comparison to Rez. I’m numb when I think of Fable The Journey, personally!

[egparadigm]

Flabio, who was one of the programmers at Lionhead.

It was a hard project working on Fable The Journey. Milo & Kate was canned by Microsoft so the dev team of Milo & Kate were gutted (I was Tools & Engine QA Manager on Fable 2, 3, M&K, F:TJ & then Designer on Fable 4) and we were forced to work on Fable The Journey. I think we made it in less than 9 months which was a ****ing miracle and due to some choice publicity by Peter, it gave the impression to the public it wasn’t an on rails shooter, which made it even tougher.

It was my last released game at Lionhead before working on design for Fable Legends / 4 before that was **** canned and I was made redundant.

Kinect was a cool bit of hardware but had unfulfilled potential. Milo & Kate was a stunning concept but we never got past Alpha and making a game of Fable’s magnitude by shoehorning in Kinect was destined to fail, especially in our timeframe.

Was a great game ever made on Kinect? Child of Eden would be my best pic but even that’s **** in comparison to Rez. I’m numb when I think of Fable The Journey, personally!

Aha! Yes it’s rough when unrealistic stuff is quoted in public and you’re left to deal with the reality internally. Had similar experiences in the charity sector RE promises to funders.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 05 - Fighter Within
A launch title for the Kinect, this fighter met with poor reviews out of the gate and some consider it to be one of the worst games ever released. Some reviewers used it as an example to argue that Kinect by its very design could never work as a technology.





Was it as bad as its reviews suggest?