Previewer	Platform	Publisher	Developer	Players	Release Date
Richard Pilot	Xbox 360	Microsoft	Microsoft	1-2	November 10th

Kinect Impressions Part 3 preview

In our previous preview, we managed to get some more hands-on time with the Kinect third party titles. In this final article, we have a look at two more offerings from Microsoft before giving our final verdict on the launch line up and potential for the Kinect brand.

Kinect Sports

Our first game of the day was Kinect Sports. The press member ahead of us was just finishing a quick game of bowling, which we got to see. I was pretty impressed by how responsive it seemed. This was a much better example of Kinect. It was a pretty standard game of bowling, however, we did notice a few nice features. Throwing the ball overhead caused it to crash back down into the alley, make a dent on the floor as it went. Additionally, due to the controller free nature of the game, you can pick the ball up with either your left or right hand without recalibration, which we thought was a nice touch.

When we were finally allowed to play, we decided to start with some of the more athletic events. First up was the 100m race. Before the race began, both players (this was a split-screen race) were invited to perform a few stretches. The on-screen avatar reacted appropriately and there was relatively little lag. It was a little imperfect at times, i.e. if I touched my side or my shoulder the on-screen hand would clip through the character. These minor issues aside, this was a nice little concept for the warm-up section of a race. Once the actual race was underway, you had to perform an exaggerated running motion in front of the Kinect camera, with your knees raising quite high into the air. In order to make it seem like your run animation is correct, the game just played a standard animation for your legs instead of a true mapping to your skeleton, although you were still free to wave your hands in the air if you felt so inclined and the avatar would match that action. The race is over within about 10 seconds and I was eager for a rematch (after being bested by Editor Matt Bailey). After each race, the rematch/continue menu is shown and a large video playback from the Kinect camera shows you running on the spot like a madman. It was really fun and these little touches just added to it.

The second of our athletic events was the Javelin throw. Much like the 100m race we had just performed, we had to run on the spot to get our avatar to race towards the throwing line. As you run, you must hold your hand back in anticipation of the throw. There seemed to be a knack to the throwing, but once you got the technique right, the Javelin soared across the arena. There was also the possibility of fouling the throw by either throwing it outside of the allocated area (too far left or right) or by not throwing it until after you had crossed the line. In both these circumstances, the game awarded you no points to that attempt and after three attempts, you’re given the final score.

The third and final game we tried was the Football Co-op mode. This consisted of two teams of avatars and both you and the second player would be controlling the one team. It ended up being different from what I expected as you never interact with the game at the same time as the other player. Instead you take alternate turns in controlling the player with the possession of the ball. Additionally, you never directly control the players’ movement. As soon as a team member is in possession of the ball, the active player stops and you then get to control them. It makes for an interesting, if a little weird, game of football. There are two basic scenarios; when attacking, you have the option of deciding which direction the ball should be kicked in and when defending, you have to move the players body in order to intercept the attack. There are a few other rare scenarios such as a corner or when defending a goal, but the way in which you interact with the game remains the same.

Overall, we were extremely pleased with Kinect Sports. It may appear a little basic at times but these events never need to have true 1:1 mapping on your movement. The simplified interface allows you to feel like you’re achieving various activities without having you worry about get the angles just right. It seems to have the perfect balance between making a complete mockery of player input and total freedom of control, hiding the rest behind its streamlined interface.

Joyride

Finally, the last Kinect title that we were able to try at Gamescom was Joyride. Originally slated as a free racing game for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, it was revealed as a Kinect-exclusive title at E3 earlier this year. Essentially it’s a Kart racer, although there are no weapons or items here, at least not in the version of the game that we saw. There were four modes to choose from and we got to try out two, race and stunt mode. The race track itself was a twisting canyon circuit and was rendered in a nice crisp cell shaded art style. As a racer, you have control of the steering and can control drift, boost and stunts. Curiously, acceleration and breaking control were taken from you leaving you to worry about making the right turns, which is a good thing too. The basic Kinect gestures were easy to understand. The default position was to hold your hands out like you’d be holding a steering wheel, then in order to boost, you’d pull back then thrust into the screen. Finally, if you hit a boost pad and launched yourself into the air then you had the ability to perform a stunt by waving your hands in the air. The problem was there was a lot of lag noticeable in the game. Unlike some of the other Kinect titles we had tried this led to you almost turning in anticipation of a corner rather than turning when you needed to. This also meant that if you are about to crash into a wall then there’s nothing you can do about it since it will be too late for your car to react. For a technology that is already notorious for it’s input lag, it seems ridiculous that Microsoft would adapt a game that required precise control over your movement, particularly when it’s needed in real time.

The second mode we tried was Stunt Mode. This was essentially a skating half-pipe that you were driving your cars on. Hitting boost just before the ramp would give you enough speed to catapult yourself into the sky, where a series of point pickups were waiting you. Using your drift ability, you could also rotate your car in mid air to rack up some delicious combos. Finally, hitting one of the six bomb collectables would add a significant boost to your score. It was incredibly simple, but also a lot more fun because of it. Since you’re not worrying about the lag or when you need to time the next corner, you just had to concentrate on collecting a lot of points which simply involved boosting and drifting. We thought that Joyride had a lot of offer and could be a really good racing game if they solved the issue of input delay, but to sell it as a full retail game in its current state seems a little over ambitious. Potentially, some of the other modes could offer scenarios where lag no longer becomes an issue, like the stunt mode, but only time will tell.

Tech Impressions:

Throughout out entire Kinect experience, it felt at times you like you were really immersed in the experience but then other times, it just seemed like it was being used as a gimmick to sell yet another set of mini-games. What can’t be argued is that Kinect is an impressive piece of technology on paper. With full 3D body detection, head tracking, depth perception and multiple players handled simultaneously, it looks like theres a lot of potential in this device. The problem is that only a few of the games on offer have actually realised this and have managed to capitalise on it. A good percentage of the games being produced are mini-game collections, Kinect Adventures, Motion Sports and Kinect Sports to name a few. What the technology is really missing is that killer game. The Nintendo Wii had Wii Sports which sold gamers and non-gamers alike that this system could appeal to them. With Kinect, nothing has really impressed us enough to be defined as the standard bearer for this new device. We really enjoyed Dance Central and Your Shape but are these really the games that Microsoft want to use to define the Kinect brand? With Sony’s Playstation Move, many of Sony’s back catalogue are being patched so they can be used with Move. This widely increased the range of games that will be supported by their motion control both during and post launch. Where is the similar offering from Microsoft?

Of course, the biggest issue we had during our various playthroughs at Gamescom was with input lag. This was the most notable in action heavy titles, such as the skiing mini-game in Motion Sports or the race mode of Joyride. The problem is that this seemed to be happening in every Kinect game to some degree or another, it was just how well each game was able to hide this. This is down to the choice made by the developers and games can work even without true 1:1 mapping. This was demonstrated by Kinect Sports, which did have a certain degree of mapping, but it just wasn’t designed to be accurate and it doesn’t need to be. This can go too far, however; in a brief demonstration of Kinectimals, the game almost seemed to be look for specific gestures and didn’t respond if it didn’t detect them correctly; it seemed a little fake because of this.

Only time will tell whether any of these issues will be addressed. With any console launch, it takes a while for developer houses to get to grips with the technology at their disposal and the same statement is probably true with Kinect. We can only hope that this is done sooner rather than later, before many get turned off or lose interest.

At a glance...

Kinect Impressions Part 3 preview

Kinect Sports

Joyride

Tech Impressions:

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