I’m leaning side to side, feeling a bit silly as I careen my body in front of an HDTV. But it’s part of the game, specifically Kinect Adventures, one of the titles to be packaged with the Kinect sensor when it launches in North America on Nov. 4.
At X’10, Xbox Canada’s showcase event for media, I’m trying Kinect for the first time. I’m controlling a rafting mini-game within Adventures, shuttling my avatar through rapids and flying between poles to earn points. When I move right, he moves right. When I lean forward, even a tiny bit, the raft turbos quickly for a few seconds. It’s a short race but already I feel a bead of sweat running down my back. Kinect isn’t for lazy gamers.
This might all sound familiar for anyone who has played Nintendo Wii in 2006. Like Wii, Kinect uses motion-sensitive technology to figure out when you are flailing your arms, for instance. But unlike Wii, Kinect takes advantage of your full body — when you kick, the character in the game kicks, almost instantly. It can detect when your head moves, when your torso pushes forward, even when you spin. I didn’t notice any disturbing lag between my movement and character movement.
“Now you can interact with your console in new ways,” says Craig Flannagan, marketing manager for Xbox Canada in an interview with DigitalJournal.com. He points to a Kinect game such as Your Shape: Fitness Evolved as software taking advantage of Kinect’s unique sensor — the game alerts you when you aren’t doing a yoga position incorrectly, or if your knees are too far apart. He says Kinect’s depth-sensitive camera sees human bodies in three dimensions and can even distinguish humans from non-human objects in its range. When a second player jumps into the area, Kinect knows another player is active and a second avatar automatically appear in the game.
Kinect will cost $150 standalone for existing Xbox 360 owners, and comes with the Adventures game. To buy Kinect and a new slim Xbox 360 console, it’ll set you back $300. No word yet on when Kinect will be released overseas.
Beyond Wii
When I try out the bowling game for Kinect Sports, it far surpasses the intuitive gameplay of Wii Sports. I don’t have to hold any controller (which should save many HDTV screens) and the sensor can detect when I want to add some spin to the throw. I have to throw the ball smoothly and quickly in order to get the best speed to nab a strike, which I accomplish three times in a row.
I don’t have time to try out Sonic Free Riders, but watching another gamer sweat it out careening the blue hedgehog through a race even tires me out. Picture MarioKart on amphetamines. The gamer has to jump and kick his feet to the side, like he’s beginning to ride a skateboard. Sonic sometimes falls into water and the gamer was forced to front-crawl to get the character out of the depths. I can tell this game will be a hit, but more for the athletic gamers than the couch potato variety.
Flannagan tells me the technology extends beyond gaming. Since I can play DVDs on my Xbox 360, with Kinect I would be able to control DVD functions with my hands or my voice. Kinect includes a microphone feature so I can get all Star Trek and say, “Play movie” or “Pause”. I can wave my arm to the right to fast-forward or raise my left hand to rewind. Flannagan says this distinction gives Kinect an edge over competitors, as well as making Kinect more than just a gaming device.
But let’s be honest, the key appeal for Kinect will be its gaming functionality. Flanngan said gamers will clamour to titles such as Dance Central, a Dance Dance Revolution copycat that uses the full-body experience to allow users to simulate popular dance moves. At the showcase event, I watched a guy try out Dance Central, spinning and grooving to keep up with a Lady Gaga track. He looked ridiculous, but geeks don’t care about such trivialities, do they? Besides, he’s getting a solid workout while racking up points. Take that, WoW fans.
My last stop at the Kinect tour is checking out Kinectimals, a game to let kids play with animals. They can teach them commands and compete in contests. I watch a boy try the game, petting the air in order to pet the cub on screen. The boy looks confused as his dad tries to explain how his hands need to be in front of the sensor. Just like when the Wii first launched, there’ll be a learning curve for newbie gamers, no matter what age, but once they get accustomed to the technology, they’ll be running, jumping, and sweating with the rest of us.
