The experts show us how Kinect Adventures is done
Although you won’t be able to buy the newest addition to the Microsoft games family until November, you will be able to play on it sooner … from this Saturday in fact. Yes, that’s right, the Xbox 360 Kinect is going on tour, and you’ve all been invited.
So, just to ensure that everything was above board, we here at the Beehive popped down to the Kinect Rooms in London’s Covent Garden this morning to have a snoop around and play on the new system … it’s work, honestly.
As regular readers will know, we tried the system a few months ago when it was still called Project Natal, and we liked what we saw – but if that got the gamer inside you excited, you will be positively champing at the bit to get your hands on one of these when you hear about how far it’s come.
Amongst the whitewashed walls, attractive young assistants in skin tight Microsoft t-shirts and the weird electronic modern art there was a games system.
First things first, we were handed a lanyard with a barcoded guest pass on it. You enter your details into a computer and scan the pass – now whenever you play on a game at the show - Microsoft can send you an editied video of you experience (mine isn’t quite working yet, but I’ll add it soon).
A well informed young gentleman gave us a demonstration of a few of the games before letting me and another fellow journalist loose on the ‘main stage.’
Feeling rather self-conscious I tried my best to jump over, dodge and duck out of the way of obstacles as I drifted down the river in a raft, the first of three games we played from Kinect Adventures, the base-level starter game that will come bundled with the system.
Although the demonstrators and Microsoft marketing execs were keen to tell us that all the games were still in beta-mode, they did not need to excuse themselves, these games were engaging, exciting and might I say knackering.
As my opponent stepped into the game (yep, it’s that easy, you just step in and out), I tried my luck at controlling a runaway mining train – yeah, I was good at that. Again, the more you want it (physically) the more the game will deliver as you grab with your hands for bonus points at the same time as jumping up and down for speed, and trying not to get side-swiped by all manner of nasty barriers.
At the end of each game, the system not only tells you who’s won, but it also delvers a sideshow of embarrassing Polaroid style snaps of your silly stances and expressions. This is a feature that we’re promised will feature heavily in many of the games – and when the full versions come out at the end of the year, you’ll be able to store them and if you so choose, upload them to Facebook and other websites for your friends to enjoy.
“It’s a bit like being at a theme park, but at home” one of the beautiful instructors told me , you know what, that’s a brilliant way of describing it, I’ll use those lines.
Some grooves going on with Dance Central
Well, if Kinect Adventures set me up, Dance Central knocked me down (almost literally, I was so tired by the end.) I was invited to become part of a dance troupe, as an instructor, myself and another journo strutted our stuff to Lady Gag’s Poker Face. If you’ve played any dance games before, you know what the deal is – but with Kinect, everything is just a little more intuitive.
When you ‘jump in’, the system immediately picks you up, assigns you an avatar, and just as quickly it begins noting how bad you are at dancing. Red circles appear around your avatar’s feet as you desperately try to get with the groove – when you see green, you can start to relax. When there’s a solo, it allows a ‘free dance’ mode and you’re invited to do whatever the hell you want – just when you think you’ve got away with your silliness, it plays back the video of your shenanigans … that pesky thing is too clever by half.
After a bit more technical jargon from the crew, I was led downstairs to the ‘game lounges’, they’re basically mock up living rooms which visitors to the experience will be able to book in 30 minute slots and bring up to 5 friends to try out the system and some samples of the games.
First up was Kinect Joyride, a high energy driving game. Hands out (like you are holding a steering wheel) the system locks onto your position and you’re away. At first it’s a rather disconcerting position to be in, stood in the middle of the room holding nothing and leaning into the bends to get point accumulating ‘drift’. However, after a few laps, you’re totally hooked, pumping your arms in and out to get the ‘boosts’ and spinning your whole body on jumps to pull of tricks.
There was also a half-pipe trick mode in the game where it was all about the stunts … after making a complete arse of myself in front of several onlooking Microsoft senior execs, I decided to go back to race-mode.
One of the Kinect lounges where you can hang out with your mates
Kinect Sports lends itself very naturally to the system, as you’d expect. I played the bowling game, which (as with all the games) was extremely reactive to every body movement, noting the subtlest of hand movements to employ killer spin and speed when you gave it some welly. It takes anything that Nintendo have done with Wii Sports and makes it look like a school project. I hit a strike, lasers filled the screen, the onlooking avatar crowd went wild and The Automatic started playing “What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster?” … my goodness, this would be a good post-pub gaming experience.
Although they’re not all on display yet, the Kinect Sports package, I’m told, will include a track and field set of games, volleyball, table tennis & baseball.
My final Kinect game of the day was on Kinectimals, a gentle but intriguing children’s game which takes the Tamagotchi into the 21st Century, and interestingly was the only game at the show that displayed Kinect’s voice recognition abilities.
Using the Minority Report style swooshing swipe screen, I chose to adopt a lion cub as my pet. I was then prompted to give it a name, I called him Barney. In ‘free mode’ I began to teach Barney tricks – how to jump, how to play dead, how to stand on his hind legs – basically whatever I did, he did too. At first Barney was rather poor, but he learns. If he gets bored and walks off, all you need to do is shout “Barney” and clap your hands, and like a real pet, he’s back with you.
Finally, once trained, I took Barney on an obstacle course, which involved me doing what he was doing on-screen. In otherwords, if he was balancing, I had my arms out and leaned left and right, if he was crawling through a tunnel, I was ducked down on the floor too.
My rubbish score and photo on Kinect Joyride
OK, after a while the fun of Kinectimals wore off for me, but I’m 30 – and it’s designed for kids. I think if my young niece was let loose on that game, she’d be on it for hours … the only downside is she might ask for a Bengal Tiger from Father Christmas next year – parents beware.
And so, rather exhausted I reached the end of my Kinect odyssey – a lot happier than when I’d started.
There is no doubt that this system will be a smash hit. It has all the “I’m not a gamer, but I like to play games” credentials that the Wii has, but for want of a better word, it’s better.
There’s no controllers to get in the way, there’s voice activation, full body integration and on a social level, if a friend wants to join in, they can just step into the room, and there in – no menus, no pausing, no fuss.
When the system is released in November, there are set to be 15 games available – most of which will be sports and fitness related.
Ubisoft have developed a game called Your Shape – Fitness Advanced which promises to knock the Wii Fit out of the market with its full body workouts and no bulky balance board.
Microsoft look like they’ve played a blinder here – but don’t take my word for it, go and try it for yourself.
Kinnect Rooms in London are on Russell Street just off Covent Garden market and will be open to the public from Saturday. For more details and to book your place, visit www.kinect.me The tour will also be travelling the country in the next few months. More details to follow.
You can preorder the Kinect and all manner of related goodies at HMV now
Oh, and here’s a little bit of video I took of some people dancing (and a man dropping his wallet!)
I’m sorry this is great and all but £130 is far too much for something that’s been done for years by both Wii and PlayStation’s Eye Toy. Who are they aiming this at? Wii owners? Why would Wii owners spend £300+ minimum on this (console + Kinect)? They already have a massive library of games. Are they aiming at hardcore gamers who already own a 360? What’s here for the hardcore? All I’ve seen is party games and I can’t see how this will enhance games like Halo or Gears of War. What about people who don’t own any console? Well surely they’d go for the Wii that is way cheaper and again has a massive library of games already available.
The only people that seem to be excited for this are games journalists, blog owners and Microsoft. I am genuinely confused at every aspect of this over priced eye toy.
Agreed with Mr Moody. The casual demographic is small to begin with, and already saturated with Wii’s. The fact they are bypassing the “hardcore” crowd entirely is a HUGE mistake, as they are the primary user base. The price is a bit steep as well. But, to add to Mr Moody’s argument, the xbox 360 had a motion camera already too. It was called the “MS Visioncam”. Essentially an Eyetoy ripoff (not essentially, more like exactly). Anyhow, unless they come up with a killer app for the hardcore audience, their primary demographic, they will end up with a huge fail. My prediction, next year these things will be $20 and dusty, next to the MS visioncams and the MS HDDVD drives.
Why you would be excited for a supernintendo when you already ownned de nes? for what reasons you want to acquire a nintendo DS when you have a gameboy advance with an unterminable library of good games or a nintendo 3ds if you have the old model? why the heck you would want a xbox 360 or a PS3 when you own a…ok.
£130 isn’t alot consider you get a game free (value probably around £29.99) and you don’t need to buy two controllers (for the wii it works out £50 per dual controller) It has depth perception as well as voice recognition. This type of technology has never been available to the home market and for only £130? thats a bargain if you ask me. There has been several articals that say Microsoft is the only company with the R & D (render and development) to bring this to the home market. I mean sony dont have dedicated departments within there business like Depth Sensor dept, Voice Recognition Dept, Motion Capture Dept and a hole lot more departments that microsoft have that are dedicated to technology and are now using for games. This has been in the making for 2 years now
But it’s not £130 it’s £130 and a new XBOX for the Wii crowd 5 think that’s a bit expensive. For existing XBOX owners it’s £130 for a system that seems to bypass them.
Kinect technologies are absoluetly not innovative sorry : Voice recognition is already in Sony’s Singstar series available with the PS3 and the PSEye is also able to handle facial recognition.
Furthermore, do you know that Gran Turismo 5 will release on november and that it will have head tracking while driving in cockpit view, using the £30 PSEye…? Also PSEye has got a 4mic array and is perfectly able to manage voice recognition.
Love your smile at the end… I’m smilin’ too… great tutorial! thank you!