Review
Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do Review (Xbox360)
Now this is what Kinect was made for, just like the Wii before it, and to a lesser extent Sony’s golf-ball modelling Move. Forget your so-impressive-it-had-to-be-cancelled interactive Milo or the groundbreaking gestural story-telling waggle of Heavy Rain, 2K Play has selflessly stepped up to the plate and given us all what we really need on any fresh motion-control system: another shoddy collection of mini-games and recycled content filtered through visuals that only understand primary colours, and slapped into a fresh retail box to launch at an unsuspecting ‘family’ audience. It’s a series that sells by the bucketload with minimal development investment though, so the publisher’s motives are at the least fairly transparent.
The Carnival Games series has never been particularly ambitious, inventive or polished to a high standard, and that holds true for this Kinect version. There are twenty mini-games to select from, most of which allow for either turn-based or simultaneous multiplayer participation, and the overall goal is to win prize tickets which are traded in for various silly clothing items and props for your in-game avatar. Most of the activities are ‘free’ to play, with only a handful requiring prize tickets to activate - and those usually offer up higher rewards than their counterparts as a result. There are no additional structural modes or options and everything is available from the beginning, you simply choose your activity and get on with it. Refreshing simple, if truth be told.
To the developer’s credit, navigation is also somewhat straightforward, with bright chunky selection blocks and a fairly swift transition between screens. It doesn’t hold a candle to the elegance of Dance Central’s gesture-based menu swiping of course, but then little else on the Kinect does. With two players there is a little confusion as to which participant is actually controlling the on-screen cursor however, and Carnival Games incorrectly registered our positions on numerous occasions - leading to frustrating moments where selection would be passed from player to player seemingly with no reason. Even with the secondary player moving out of range, it still took a while to register motion correctly, which is a little baffling. For reference, there were no problems with other Kinect games under the same lighting conditions in the same room.
Fortunately those problems all but disappear within the twenty mini-games, with only a couple of moments where response times seemed to drop or motion was registered incorrectly. There is no one-to-one movement mapping on-screen, so it’s difficult to tell exactly how well the software is translating movement into gameplay, but at a guess it seems a similar level of accuracy is in evidence to that of the Wii version, with broad gestures trumping subtlety in the majority of situations.
As for the games, they’re predictably a somewhat mixed bag. The standouts are probably ‘Ring Toss, ‘Horse Racing’ and ‘Alley Bowling’, all of which involve a satisfyingly tactile arm swinging mechanic to launch an object at static targets. That each of these convincingly mimick the real activities is a testament to both their simplicity and the technology underpinning the Kinect, but let’s be clear, we’re talking complexity that never rises above throwing a ball or a hoop into 3D space in front of you. Entertaining in their own right, but never more than a five minute diversion (as with their real-life analogues).
Games that require a specific display of posture are also fairly well implemented, with the madcap ‘Monkey See Monkey Do’ exhibiting the most ludicrous use of the technology to make players strike specific dance poses to the Rednex Cotton-Eye Joe. ‘Crash Test Dummy’ tasks you with matching a pose to cover as many gold blocks as possible, whilst the ‘Mine Cart’ arms out of the carriage to collect trackside prizes mechanism will be familiar to anybody versed in Pat Sharp’s classic Fun House series from the 90s. It’s just a shame the twins never turn up to offer their own brand of shell suit cladded encouragement.
The rest of the games are either forgettable or simply too awful to go back to. ‘Rocket to Mars’ is so easy that you’ll see literally everything it has to offer within 10 seconds of starting, whilst ‘Pig Race’ is almost completely uncontrollable. Any of the activities that require any degree of timing to hit the wildly erratic on-screen targets suffer from the predictable motion-lag that comes along with this first generation of Kinect games, whilst the few non-action diversions in the form of a Wheel of Fortune and Zoltar-esque mysterious wizard machine are just plain dull.
And that’s your lot for Carnival Games on the 360. There are no difficulty levels, no online support, no party modes, no DLC, and no reason to switch it back on. To say that I wasn’t entertained would be a lie, as there’s enough charm in a few of the games to pass a couple of hours on a dreary Sunday afternoon - but that’s nowhere near enough to justify a full-price or even a budget purchase. There are better children’s games for the Kinect, there are better family games for the Kinect, but the sad fact is that this is probably the best mini-game collection the system has (Kinect Sports more in-depth activities not withstanding). Somebody clearly needs to plug that hole, and quickly.
Best Game Moment: Dancing to Cotton-Eye Joe like it’s the 90s
The Carnival Games series has never been particularly ambitious, inventive or polished to a high standard, and that holds true for this Kinect version. There are twenty mini-games to select from, most of which allow for either turn-based or simultaneous multiplayer participation, and the overall goal is to win prize tickets which are traded in for various silly clothing items and props for your in-game avatar. Most of the activities are ‘free’ to play, with only a handful requiring prize tickets to activate - and those usually offer up higher rewards than their counterparts as a result. There are no additional structural modes or options and everything is available from the beginning, you simply choose your activity and get on with it. Refreshing simple, if truth be told.
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| The interface is as garish as you might imagine |
To the developer’s credit, navigation is also somewhat straightforward, with bright chunky selection blocks and a fairly swift transition between screens. It doesn’t hold a candle to the elegance of Dance Central’s gesture-based menu swiping of course, but then little else on the Kinect does. With two players there is a little confusion as to which participant is actually controlling the on-screen cursor however, and Carnival Games incorrectly registered our positions on numerous occasions - leading to frustrating moments where selection would be passed from player to player seemingly with no reason. Even with the secondary player moving out of range, it still took a while to register motion correctly, which is a little baffling. For reference, there were no problems with other Kinect games under the same lighting conditions in the same room.
Fortunately those problems all but disappear within the twenty mini-games, with only a couple of moments where response times seemed to drop or motion was registered incorrectly. There is no one-to-one movement mapping on-screen, so it’s difficult to tell exactly how well the software is translating movement into gameplay, but at a guess it seems a similar level of accuracy is in evidence to that of the Wii version, with broad gestures trumping subtlety in the majority of situations.
 |
| The boxing is terrible |
As for the games, they’re predictably a somewhat mixed bag. The standouts are probably ‘Ring Toss, ‘Horse Racing’ and ‘Alley Bowling’, all of which involve a satisfyingly tactile arm swinging mechanic to launch an object at static targets. That each of these convincingly mimick the real activities is a testament to both their simplicity and the technology underpinning the Kinect, but let’s be clear, we’re talking complexity that never rises above throwing a ball or a hoop into 3D space in front of you. Entertaining in their own right, but never more than a five minute diversion (as with their real-life analogues).
Games that require a specific display of posture are also fairly well implemented, with the madcap ‘Monkey See Monkey Do’ exhibiting the most ludicrous use of the technology to make players strike specific dance poses to the Rednex Cotton-Eye Joe. ‘Crash Test Dummy’ tasks you with matching a pose to cover as many gold blocks as possible, whilst the ‘Mine Cart’ arms out of the carriage to collect trackside prizes mechanism will be familiar to anybody versed in Pat Sharp’s classic Fun House series from the 90s. It’s just a shame the twins never turn up to offer their own brand of shell suit cladded encouragement.
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| One of the more fun mini-games |
The rest of the games are either forgettable or simply too awful to go back to. ‘Rocket to Mars’ is so easy that you’ll see literally everything it has to offer within 10 seconds of starting, whilst ‘Pig Race’ is almost completely uncontrollable. Any of the activities that require any degree of timing to hit the wildly erratic on-screen targets suffer from the predictable motion-lag that comes along with this first generation of Kinect games, whilst the few non-action diversions in the form of a Wheel of Fortune and Zoltar-esque mysterious wizard machine are just plain dull.
And that’s your lot for Carnival Games on the 360. There are no difficulty levels, no online support, no party modes, no DLC, and no reason to switch it back on. To say that I wasn’t entertained would be a lie, as there’s enough charm in a few of the games to pass a couple of hours on a dreary Sunday afternoon - but that’s nowhere near enough to justify a full-price or even a budget purchase. There are better children’s games for the Kinect, there are better family games for the Kinect, but the sad fact is that this is probably the best mini-game collection the system has (Kinect Sports more in-depth activities not withstanding). Somebody clearly needs to plug that hole, and quickly.
Best Game Moment: Dancing to Cotton-Eye Joe like it’s the 90s
