The Thanksgiving vacation is over and I’m back up at school. That means I’ll be blogging regularly again and playing games and all that good stuff. Graev and I did do some gaming over the break. I posted our thoughts on Donkey Kong Country Returns in my last entry and just want to add that we’re four levels away from the final boss. It’s so ridiculously hard at some parts that we just threw ourselves at it repeatedly until we beat it. There were definite times when I had to take Diddy and just attach him to Graev who was playing Donkey Kong just in order for us to move in unison and give him a Jet Pack (DK can use Diddy’s when they’re joined). We still love it and highly recommend it.
I also got to play with the Kinect for the first time. We don’t have any real games for it except for Kinectimals and Kinect Adventures. Kinect Adventures is definitely just a tech demo like Wiisports. Kinectimals is cute though and I can see how little kids would really enjoy it. I even found myself enjoying many of the little activities that I could do like throw a ball or drive a RC car. I like how it integrates itself with a menu and allows for voice commands. I also like how the sensor/camera moves on its own. What you really want to know though is whether or not the Kinect is any good, right? Well, it’s decent. It requires a rather large space to use it — the entire free space we have in our big room is just “Good” according to the calibration and not “excellent” (in other words it’s half the space it really wants.) It’s also not entirely true 1:1 and at times you must endure wonky movement. It’s much better than the Wii’s motion technology, but I’m still skeptical that they would be able to pull off any true motion games really worth playing — unless you like that dance one, but I don’t. If any of these motion gimmicks have the potential, it’s Kinect.
I’d be happy to answer any questions you guys have about DKR or Kinect.
Have you tried the PS3 Move compared to the Kinect ? I’m really interested in these 2 stack up.
My friend that sits next to me at work came in with a broken foot today….he broke it playing with the kinect over the holiday..no joke.
@MMORefugee: I believe it. Some of those jumping games have you going at odd angles.
@Joy-Energiser: We’ll let you know soon! We haven’t had a chance to play with the PS3 Move yet, but we will.
I’d be interesting in seeing how the Kinect and Move stack up as well. Lucky I checked the comments, the last line there is misleading I feel – “If any of these motion gimmicks have the potential, it’s Kinect” led me to assume that you’d tried them all.
No, sorry, that’s just my theorizing that based upon the fact that you can indeed use your entire body to interact — AND VOICE — that there is more potential in Kinect. I’m simply speaking to their potential there.
Sony’s Ice Cream Cones may be the superior actual motion tech, but I’ll have to wait a couple weeks to let you know. I have high hopes for the one where players cast spells.
What are the sony ice cream cones? Plz explain. I heard some of the games are decent but others suk. thx
Love the write-up on the Kinect! Talk about potential, not sure if you’ve been following the hubbub about kinect-hacking but now MS says they are ok with it.
People are just buying the kinect device and using it with INCREDIBLE results on their pc!!! This stuff has been blowing me away in terms of what we are going to see in the future. Check out the stuff they are doing at:
http://www.kinecthacks.net/
I believe that Kinect has amazing potential if it goes in the right direction. Right now it is more family based with games for young kids like as you mentioned, Kinectimals. But there is a main problem. The hardcore gaming community, which takes up a lot of the users on XBOX, including myself. One way that I think it can target that group of people is making shooter games. If you have seen the movie “GAMER”, that is how I imagine it can be (not the using real convicts crap but the shooting using hands/body). If some game developer could take that concept and expand on it…. OH WOW! THAT WOULD BE AMAZING! And into the future we go! haha