Retro|Spective 208: The Final Tour of Kinect

[Neon Ignition]

Game 06 - The Gunstringer
Using your left hand you control the Gunstringer character whilst your right hand aims your gun, with a firing gesture causing you to shoot at enemies. The game is effectively an on rails shooter set on a theatre stage with a western theme and was planned to be an XBLA title but was bumped up to full retail release for the device. It did score some weak reviews for its lack of depth but mixed in were some of the more solid scores also for a Kinect title.






Run or Gun?

[Asura]

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?

Yes, trash. Wasn't the absolute nadir (IIRC that was the Sonic racing game) but it was close.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 07 - Haunt
Using one hand to control a flashlight, players use their other hand to carry out motions to open doors and interact with puzzles as they work their way through a haunted mansion. Despite the theme of the game it was designed to be child friendly and features the vocal work of Tim Schafer, the title launched via XBLA so will vanish with that service and scored decently.





Good or Ghoulish?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 08 - Kinect Sports
Developed by Rare, this had three launches with the first containing six sports and eight mini-games. The common mix of football, boxing, table tennis and others were in the first volume whilst the second season release offered basketball, golf and skiiing. It was one of the better recieved Kinect releases, effectively recreating the Wii Sports appeal for MS's device. A third release titled Kinect Sports Rivals was timed for the Xbox One's release but missed that date, it arrived six months later but by that time Microsoft had already announced it was dropping the Kinect. This recieved mixed reviews adding rock climbing and jet ski's to the mix.








A Good Sport?

[Asura]

This one was fine. Like, it was playable and quite fun.

It had a few nice touches. For instance, when playing golf, to change clubs, you had to look up, reach forward (as if for the bag of clubs held by your caddy) and verbalise, so you'd say "5 iron" or "driver"*.

But, overall, it was worse than what Nintendo were offering at the time (it wasn't as charming or straightforward) if you wanted a basic party sports experience at home, and if you wanted more accurate motion tracked stuff, the Playstation Move solution was actually much better.

*Bit of an aside here, but fun tech fact that isn't often discussed. The Kinect contained a parabolic mic and software that could do a very clever trick. Firstly, if you spoke to it, it could use the parabolic mic to figure out where in the room you are, supplying a bearing in degrees based upon the facing direction of the device, and it was very accurate. Impressively so. It was also capable of, if multiple people were in the room talking to it, separating those voices in such a way as to know how many people were there, and giving you a bearing for each of them. And it was very good at telling people apart based on vocal timbre. Unfortunately most Kinect stuff that used voice had features based on speech recognition, which was pretty bad, so few people ever saw this feature, which was very impressive.

[wakka]

Asura I'm enjoying your summaries of these Kinect games.

I never owned one of these so it's interesting to learn more about it.

[Neon Ignition]

I owned a Kinect once, briefly and I'm finding myself struggling to recall if it ever had much use as I missed pretty much everything here

[Asura]

I owned a Kinect once, briefly and I'm finding myself struggling to recall if it ever had much use as I missed pretty much everything here

Statistically, everyone did.

The reason Kinect caused so much fuss (despite apparently everyone hating it) is that after release, Kinect was the fastest selling consumer electronic device ever. Faster than the iPhone, iPad. Faster than any console or handheld.

I laugh sometimes when you see people on YouTube call the Kinect a flop. It was a billion dollar success.

[teddymeow]

.

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?

I loved Dance Central, though I was pretty **** at it!! I'll never forget being flown to Boston by EA to tour the Harmonix offices and play it with members of the dev team. Proper epic!!

[Neon Ignition]

Game 09 - Kinect Star Wars
Planned to be one of the biggest titles for Kinect, this title offered four gameplay modes. Players could become a Padawan wielding a lightsaber, race podracers, jive in a dance off or face off against Rancors. The game takes place across the span of the prequel trilogy with body movement carrying out all of the actions in the game. The game became the first Kinect title to top the UK sales charts but reviews were weak averaging 5/10. Following this and other troubled titles, Disney would pull out of gaming the next year.




Feel the Force?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 10 - Kinectimals
Aimed at younger audiences, players play with and interact with a virtual pet by use of the Kinect camera. Feeding, petting, playing etc is carried out using motions with players raising one of 6 cubs. As much as that is the crux of the experience it scored reasonably well recieving some post-release DLC that focused on bears.






A Purr-fect Kinect game?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 11 - Ravin' Rabbids: Alive and Kicking
This Kinect exclusive entry into the once popular series was one of the most popular franchises arriving on the device. Another mini-game focused title, the game copied most other rivals in having motions carried out by players be how they compete in the games. It scored poor reviews however due to clumsy Kinect implementation.




Dead & Kicked It?

[Asura]

Game 09 - Kinect Star Wars
Planned to be one of the biggest titles for Kinect, this title offered four gameplay modes. Players could become a Padawan wielding a lightsaber, race podracers, jive in a dance off or face off against Rancors. The game takes place across the span of the prequel trilogy with body movement carrying out all of the actions in the game. The game became the first Kinect title to top the UK sales charts but reviews were weak averaging 5/10. Following this and other troubled titles, Disney would pull out of gaming the next year.

Feel the Force?

All crap apart from the dancing game, and as said earlier, that was literally just a jumped up Dance Central DLC.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 12 - Rise of Nightmares
Made by Sega, this was the first adult rated game released for Kinect and aimed to break away from the light mini-game offerings the device had experienced up until that point with something darker. A survival horror following a multitude of characters as the player uses motion controls to survive the horrors that are unleashed. The game had a shakey response in reviews with tricky controls being called out but some outlets were more positive about it.




Rise to the Occasion or a Nightmare?

[fuse]

Game 07 - Haunt

This came on my radar recently on account of Edge's history of NanaOn-Sha. Don't have much else to say other than this, just that it seemed sufficiently out of character that I didn't realise it was one of theirs.