Retro|Spective 208: The Final Tour of Kinect

[Asura]

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?

Wow, first one I'd never even heard of. Will have to look this up.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 13 - Sonic Free Riders
The third entry in the Riders sub-series, the game recieved positive feedback for some of the added polish added from the prior game but overall scored poorly when the Kinect implementation was seen as having introduced series killing bad gameplay to the mix.





A Free Ride to Hell?

[Asura]

Game 13 - Sonic Free Riders
The third entry in the Riders sub-series, the game recieved positive feedback for some of the added polish added from the prior game but overall scored poorly when the Kinect implementation was seen as having introduced series killing bad gameplay to the mix.

A Free Ride to Hell?

As said before, for me, this was the absolute nadir. Rock bottom. The very worst game Kinect offered.

Might seem strange because if you look back, people weren't that harsh about it; but this is by far and away the best example of Kinect dross.

When the Wii came out, there were some genuinely great games, like WiiTennis, which made use of the waggle. While they might've often been shallow, many were genuinely fun, and critically, some of the better ones worked in a way that felt like something over older games; WiiTennis may have been technically simpler than Virtua Tennis, but it didn't feel that way at the time because it offered something genuinely fresh.

But there were also Wii games which did this badly, and I'd argue the best example was Sonic and the Secret Rings. In that, to do Sonic's mid-air attack, you had to "jolt" the controller; an action which (1) made your arms hurt after 10 minutes and (2) didn't reliably work, like it'd fail to fire off maybe, generously here, 1-in-10 times. Were this on a button, it would've been a significantly better game, but it was put on the waggle because that was the style at the time. It offered nothing interesting or fun or unique. It was just bad for the sake of supporting the controls.

Free Riders is the Kinect version of that. Even some of the Kinect's biggest missteps, like Steel Battalion, might've had poor controls, but they at least were trying something different or innovative, in their own limited way.

How many times, in the maybe tens of thousands of times you've gone to fire a shell in MarioKart, have you performed the action (i.e. pressed a button) and had it not work? Now eliminate any times you were using a broken controller and the answer to that question is near-zero.

Nothing is innovative about Free Riders. Pretty much everything good came from that it was a basic sequel to a reasonable set of games, third in the Sonic Riders trilogy. To that, it added Kinect controls, which kinda-sorta-maybe-worked, which is a polite way of saying they didn't work. And that's just not good enough. It's regressive.

It's a great snapshot of everything that was wrong with Kinect, just like how Dance Central was a great snapshot of everything right.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 14 - Spongebob's Surf and Skate Road Trip
Though a Nintendo DS version existed as well, the Xbox 360 version was Kinect only and let players explore Bikini Bottom and do some mini games under the guise of SpongeBob and Patrick recalling their past adventures. Middling reviews cited the game as being fun but very short lived.





Surfs Up?

[Neon Ignition]

Game 15 - Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor
Nothing heavy about this game as you used thin air rather than its two predecessors huge, many buttoned controllers to steer your mech. Due to the adaptation of the complex controls, use of a controller is still required but reviews tore into the game saying that despite this hybrid play it controlled awfully. For some it was scored bad, for others one of the worst games ever made but it remains one of the more unique efforts Kinect ever tried.




Beyond Redemption?

[Asura]

Bad - but as I said above when talking about the Sonic racing game, it at least scored some points with me because it was trying to do something different. It's essentially a big swing and a miss, but the swing is so big that you kinda have to give it props for the effort.

[Neon Ignition]

The final game bringing together a closure to Kinect's journey which if anything has highlighted that its huge success was lightning in a bottle - its huge sales bringing little of value to the table


Game 16 - Wreckateer
Developed by Iron Galaxy, this fantasy game sees players wreck structures launching projectiles with their motions. A summer XBLA release, the game wasn;t considered fleshed out enough to score highly but for what it was it scored reasonably well.





Kinect Gonna Wreck-It?

[Asura]

The final game bringing together a closure to Kinect's journey which if anything has highlighted that its huge success was lightning in a bottle - its huge sales bringing little of value to the table

Game 16 - Wreckateer
Developed by Iron Galaxy, this fantasy game sees players wreck structures launching projectiles with their motions. A summer XBLA release, the game wasn;t considered fleshed out enough to score highly but for what it was it scored reasonably well.

Kinect Gonna Wreck-It?

This one was a bit of a daft laugh. Not great by any means, but it was basically Kinect Angry Birds. There's actually a VR Angry Birds on Quest which is basically the same. Fine as a daft minigame with a few beers but nothing special.

[Neon Ignition]

I thought I'd reach the end of this thread with one of those nostalgia feels where the next thing I know I've bought a 360 and Kinect off ebay to go through a horde of titles but looking back I can't believe how successful Kinect was on the basis of... almost nothing of value

[Deuteros]

There aren't really any must-have experiences for the Kinect.

The Gunstringer is supposedly good. I like the idea of Happy Action Theater and I'll give anything by Double Fine a go. I had some fun with Mini Ninjas Adventures which is the only Kinect game I've ever played.