I can’t summarize this in social media, so a blogpost it is.
PAX and some friends convinced me to go ahead and get a Kinect. Even if I personally can’t play a lot of the games due to my dwarfism, it’s going to be THE hit toy of family vacations and such. I hope.
I was having serious trouble getting it to see my hands properly until we ductaped it to the top of the TV instead of standing it at the base, so now I can finally post my thoughts on various games. And I can include EMOTICONS to deeply express my feelings!
Fruit Ninja :|
Terrible menus (your shilouette doesn’t give you a good idea of what you’re slashing) but the game itself carries over just fine from iPhone. My limited range of motion means few combos, but whatever.
Diabolical Pitch >:(
Download demo. Play tutorial. Third move the game tries to teach me flat out does not work. Delete demo.
Dance Central :/
13 seconds into the easiest song in the game and I can immediately tell this game is completely impossible for me to play. I can’t step side to side or swing my elbows the way it wants me to. Still, I got this one for parties more than for me.
Rhythm Party 8D
I feel kinda dirty for this, but… I LOVE this game. It’s a really dodgy Samba de Amigo clone by Konami, low budget, terrible music, very weird nonstandard Kinect UI, but… it senses my motions perfectly. I can full combo songs, since it can tell I have a limited range of motion and doesn’t put the targets halfway across the room. It’s a lot of fun and I’m glad there’s ONE dance game I can play and play well!
The Gunstringer :D
Works VERY well! I guess because it only focuses on your arms, it detects my motions quite precisely and aside from dual-pistol moments, I’m decently good at it. Bravo! It did scare my sister off though (“You mean I have to do two different things with two different hands at the same time?!”). I guess being used to dual analog stick style console games works in my favor.
Child of Eden :P
Hands down the WORST motion controls of the bunch. It barely detects where my hands are at any given time (hence, “hands down,” you see what I did there haw haw) and as a result, it’s completely unplayable. BUT… unlike other unplayable games, this one also works fine with a control pad. Score!
Overall :)
Kinect is not really made for me, and it shows. There’s just too much stuff which relies on a full sized human body with gangly limbs and full range of motion. That said… depending on how well the game is crafted and how the controls are set up, there’s enough here that works well to justify it. And for everything else, there’s fun for friends.
Ranneko says
Only really played Dance Central of that mix, but I really like that game. It gives you good feedback and has a nice teaching mode that can generally be skipped once you are comfortable with it.
Annoying that most of the games pretty much expect people in just standard shapes and sizes.
pixeljen says
I need to practice more with Gunstringer, I guess. It wasn’t so much the “using two arms” thing, that I can fix with practice. It was more about… the arm positions are so tense!
Fruit Ninja — you know, I don’t think I got a single combo either. Is this normal? Is it because I tend to move both arms and that sorta negates the one-stroke combo, maybe?