The contemporary world is high on motion detection. Yes, it’s the small pieces of hardware devices from companies such as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo that have caught our attention here. These can easily make a human being go from an idly rigid couch-potato to a boogying ape with three limbs in the air. Ever since the gaming terrain was gifted with sliced-brick-like motion-controllers bundled with Nintendo’s Wii, there has been no looking back, or at least until now. With Microsoft’s new controller-free body-tracking sensor, Kinect for Xbox 360, you might literally have to look back if a game demands the action. It’s ad campaign seems to claim the new offering to be a remote mechanic that can make you feel bionic with the tagline: ‘You are the controller.’ So here we are ready to get our skeletons mapped and trussed by the depth sensing reference design of PrimeSense tucked finely into the Kinect. Following is our review-run with Microsoft’s new body-scanning mechanic that was initially codenamed Project Natal.
Microsoft has allegedly spent a mighty sum of over US $500 million for Kinect’s promotional campaign. So we ripped apart the aesthetically-appealing package that it was bundled in to jump right into the world of gestural interfaces and see for ourselves just how much substance it actually possesses. The device surfaces a glossy black finish and sits on a comparatively heavy resting stand that provides great foothold steadiness. Booting up the unit was fairly quick and we encountered no problems while the Kinect ran its first-time setup of analyzing available physical space as well as facial and voice recognition process. A point which needs to be made here is that if you intend on buying the body-tracking add-on, you will need plenty of room in front of where you plan on stabling it.
First we popped in a game that we thought had the ability to bring the best out of our kinesthetic senses, Kinect Sports. With a motion-sensing toy like Nintendo’s Wii or Sony’s Move, a title involving athletic sports has been somewhat of a destined consequence, and so is Kinect Sports for Microsoft’s peripheral. The game seems to be one of the best offerings available in the sports category with much attention given to enhance the end-user experience. In-game graphics were accordingly top-notch and we had no problem identifying any of the controls or executing them. As soon as the game finished coordinating with the Kinect, particularly, the process of tracking the infrared rays bouncing off us, we got teleported straight out on the field of in-game stadium.
Once you’re on the ground, you can Conduct Crowd by hovering your hands over different regions of the stand with groups of people reacting according to the cursor movement. Additionally, just in case you want to feel all-too-powerful, put up both your hands and the whole crowd responds with shrilling cheers. Kinect Sports includes three game modes, namely Party Play, Main Events and Mini-games, where you can enjoy a multitude of athletic games. Main Events includes sports such as Football, Boxing, Table Tennis and Beach Volleyball. Whereas if you don’t want to stress your muscles too much, you can dodge balls in Bump Bash or shoot balls with called upon body parts in Body Ball. However, the Microsoft Kinect seems to lack the ability to track fingers which would result in greater accuracy in few of the demanding games.
Kinect Joy Ride was the next game for the device where we experienced exhilarating rides on visually stunning race tracks. The title depicts a vibrantly painted world with cartoonish graphics creating a cheerful ambiance heaving across the virtual realm. Offering very simple to maneuver gestures and excellent steering control, Joy Ride lets players race and perform stunts with a car by gesticulating hands in a manner of grabbing a driving wheel. Gamers can enjoy fun-filled drift of several modes while outfitting in their avatar, with every event bringing them one step closer to unlocking new stages and sleek cars. Each registered victory done spectacularly will earn you fans. Subsequently, the more fans on your side, the faster you’ll be able to unlock the available content. We however wished that there were visual cues on the screen to gauge body-tilt angle or steering wheel rotation, at least a few of them for superior driving precision.
Who wouldn’t want to play with an adorable Royal Bengal Tiger cub without having to worry about dirtying their carpets? Interact with virtual animals, call them out of the wilderness, rub them on the back or scratch behind their ears in this unique pet simulation, Kinectimals. The game lets players choose from 5 initial cubs and then unlocks more as the storyline progresses. Kinectimals portrays a dreamy island of Lemuria where you crash land with your aircraft only to find yourself surrounded by these immensely cute animals that can be petted. The gameplay sequence is rather dawdling and lets players explore the free-forming environment along with their pets as they embark on a memorable journey of treasure-hunting. Once again as with previous titles, the Kinect allowed for a seemingly hassle-free interaction which was coupled with the game’s greatly intuitive UI.
Another Kinect game that we had an opportunity to get our hands on was Dance Central. Developed by the critically-acclaimed team at Harmonix who also delivered the much-popular series Rock Band and Guitar Hero, it carried a sort of finish that could hardly be paralleled by any other of its kind. Excellent graphics, engaging art-style, fantastic dance moves and an immersive ballroom-styled user-interface, the game shines out bright in all these aspects. The gameplay includes modes such as the single-player objective based Perform It or Break it Down that puts you in a step-by-step routine of several dance moves. Dance Central is a music video game which ascertains at least one thing that it is going to make you tremendously better at hip-shaking, save for the occasional embarrassments of course.
Whatever maybe the game, the checklist that you should be filling out before buying the Microsoft Kinect must include ample space of somewhere beyond at least 7 square ft. space on-floor and a lofty ceiling in your residential hideout. Likewise, if you plan on putting into effect any of the stretching exercises or similar dance moves, you are going to need a lot more, leave alone playing with partners or thinking of organizing a dance party if you’re short of space. In our opinion, the pleasure that the Kinect invokes by enabling players to experience the kind of augmented virtuality, even though merely tentative, is far more significant than the obvious imperfections or limitations that it seems to be flaunting. Moreover, the multiplayer aspect is a huge prompting feature which we think everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime.
The Final Word: The Microsoft Kinect conveys a promise of absolute open-air entertainment that has turned homeward, percolating right through your living rooms, delivering an utterly pleasurable experience. What vouches even more aggressively for the motion-sensor under consideration is its gesture-based interactivity and that it lets you play without relying on any form of non-essentials, no strings attached, unlike Nintendo’s Wii or Sony’s Move. While Wii grounded itself back in 2006 as the revolution that it is, Sony appears to have taken a more conservative approach towards crafting its Move motion sensor. The obvious physical and functional parallels between Move and Wii’s Remote are not very much concealed either. This is where the Microsoft Kinect wins with a daring streak, for breaking the ties, even though we think that this might just be too early an age for gestural interfaces to go mainstream. The company tags this innovative device at Rs. 9,990 is purchased alone with Kinect Adventures. The Xbox 360 4GB Console with Kinect sensor and Kinect Adventures is priced at Rs. 22,990.
Looks: 9/10.
Functionality: 8.5/10.
Comfort: 8.5/10.
Overall (not an average): 9/10.