Review
Kinect Adventures Review (Xbox360)
It's difficult to justify exactly why Kinect Adventures has been given that name. Of the five minigames available, only one really feels like an 'adventure' as such, while the others are more, shall we say, situations. Perhaps a more suitable name might have been 'Kinect Situations', or the most direct 'Random Kinect Minigames'.
Either way, Kinect Adventures does a decent job of showing off what we can expect from Kinect in the future. There's nothing incredible available here, and after only a few hours you'll have no desire to jump back in other than to show it off to friends - yet as a free launch title, it succeeds in fulfilling what it set out to do - show what Kinect can potentially do in several wacky environments.
Five short games are on offer, each venturing into different ideas and giving a feel of the entire Kinect experience. Rally Ball is up first, providing the most natural-feeling minigame. With a number of panels at the far end of a glass tunnel, the idea is to hit a ball to break the panels, then move your body to stop the ball escaping the tunnel, bouncing it back and forth until all the panels are destroyed.
It all gets rather hectic when a target it hit, and multiple balls fly back in your direction. There are definitely elements of fun involved, although after your fifth or sixth play through, there isn't really much else to see. Levels do become increasingly more difficult, but really there isn't much else you can do with the concept.
When we first previewed Kinect Adventures, River Rush appeared to be the least enjoyable minigame available. Yet in the comfort of our own space, this water rapids riding experience is actually pretty decent, thanks to some interesting tactical elements. Each level of River Rush as multiple paths to take, leading to different numbers of coins to collect. Finding special paths high above the water is actually pretty good fun, especially when you've got two players involved.
Again, however, as with Rally Ball, once you've seen a few levels, you'll quickly become bored. It doesn't help that all the levels look exactly the same visually, so eventually all the different levels and paths merge into one. It's quite a shame, and a few different environments could have easily fixed this.
Reflex Ridge is by far the most enjoyable of the lot. You are positioned on a moving platform, and duck, jump and side-step obstacles in order to reach the goal in the quickest time possible. The one-to-one precision is so wonderful here - we found ourselves becoming fully immersed in the game, as if we were in fact actually on that platform.
At certain points, there are also coins set out in specific shapes that require you hold your body in poses to grab them all. We're talking Y shapes, arms to the sides, arms in a tilt - there's plenty of variety and it's easily one of the best experiences you can have with Kinect at the moment. Two player Reflex Ridge is even more fun, playing out in a race fashion, and everything gets very competitive indeed.
Perhaps the most interesting game in Kinect Adventures in 20,000 Leaks. Your character is stood in a glass tank underwater, and fish are constantly bumping into the side and cracking the glass. By holding your hand out to the crack, you'll fix it and stop the water flowing. Cracks can also appear in the floor of the room, hence you'll need to move your foot around a fair amount as well.
At certain points later in the level, you are required to fix multiple cracks at a time - this can involve covering two cracks with your hands, two cracks with your feet and a higher up crack with your head! It's all very clever and probably one of the games that will have your friends smiling the most - but again, it does get rather repetitive and boring after you've played through it a few times.
Finally we get to Space Pop, the bad puppy of the litter. Space Pop involves flapping your arms to fly around the room of a space station, collecting orbs that are released from the walls, ceiling and floor. Keeping your arms held aloft will hold your character in place, while moving them down by your side brings your guy back down to Earth (so to speak). If this doesn't sound like much fun, that's probably because it isn't. At all.
Space Pop is boring and, even worse, does not show Kinect's potential at all. If anything, the Wii and Move could have probably done this particular game even better than the Kinect. After just one play through we didn't really want to give this one another go, and after the third play we wanted to reach into the game and remove it so we'd never have to go through that again.
Hence, the games range from fun to very poor, and this does not bode well for the layout of the game. The main challenges section asks you to play each game multiple times through, gaining better scores each time to unlock medals. In other words, you will have to play Space Pop many, many times if you want to complete the game. Even having to play the fun games over and over again becomes utterly tedious - surely there is a better way to put all these games together than simply making us play them on repeat?
Apart from coins and medals, there are also living statues available as rewards. These are very silly, allowing you to dance on the spot and record your voice, which is then translated into some sort of figure or animal, be it a hippo or a small team of dancers. Watching a hippo move awkwardly on the spot and shout 'meeeeeeeh' is pretty hilarious, although it does lose its appeal rather rapidly.
This is Kinect Adventures' main problem - everything available here becomes tiresome rather quickly thanks to a lack of variety and the constant repetition. Kinect Adventures acts as a decent way to show off your latest hardware purchase to friends, but beyond this there really isn't much reason to bung the disc back into your Xbox.
Top Game Moment: Plugging up the leak after a hammerhead shark cracks the glass in 20,000 Leaks.
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| This can only end badly... |
Five short games are on offer, each venturing into different ideas and giving a feel of the entire Kinect experience. Rally Ball is up first, providing the most natural-feeling minigame. With a number of panels at the far end of a glass tunnel, the idea is to hit a ball to break the panels, then move your body to stop the ball escaping the tunnel, bouncing it back and forth until all the panels are destroyed.
It all gets rather hectic when a target it hit, and multiple balls fly back in your direction. There are definitely elements of fun involved, although after your fifth or sixth play through, there isn't really much else to see. Levels do become increasingly more difficult, but really there isn't much else you can do with the concept.
When we first previewed Kinect Adventures, River Rush appeared to be the least enjoyable minigame available. Yet in the comfort of our own space, this water rapids riding experience is actually pretty decent, thanks to some interesting tactical elements. Each level of River Rush as multiple paths to take, leading to different numbers of coins to collect. Finding special paths high above the water is actually pretty good fun, especially when you've got two players involved.
Again, however, as with Rally Ball, once you've seen a few levels, you'll quickly become bored. It doesn't help that all the levels look exactly the same visually, so eventually all the different levels and paths merge into one. It's quite a shame, and a few different environments could have easily fixed this.
Reflex Ridge is by far the most enjoyable of the lot. You are positioned on a moving platform, and duck, jump and side-step obstacles in order to reach the goal in the quickest time possible. The one-to-one precision is so wonderful here - we found ourselves becoming fully immersed in the game, as if we were in fact actually on that platform.
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| Reflex is by far the most entertaining part of Kinect Adventures |
Perhaps the most interesting game in Kinect Adventures in 20,000 Leaks. Your character is stood in a glass tank underwater, and fish are constantly bumping into the side and cracking the glass. By holding your hand out to the crack, you'll fix it and stop the water flowing. Cracks can also appear in the floor of the room, hence you'll need to move your foot around a fair amount as well.
At certain points later in the level, you are required to fix multiple cracks at a time - this can involve covering two cracks with your hands, two cracks with your feet and a higher up crack with your head! It's all very clever and probably one of the games that will have your friends smiling the most - but again, it does get rather repetitive and boring after you've played through it a few times.
Finally we get to Space Pop, the bad puppy of the litter. Space Pop involves flapping your arms to fly around the room of a space station, collecting orbs that are released from the walls, ceiling and floor. Keeping your arms held aloft will hold your character in place, while moving them down by your side brings your guy back down to Earth (so to speak). If this doesn't sound like much fun, that's probably because it isn't. At all.
Space Pop is boring and, even worse, does not show Kinect's potential at all. If anything, the Wii and Move could have probably done this particular game even better than the Kinect. After just one play through we didn't really want to give this one another go, and after the third play we wanted to reach into the game and remove it so we'd never have to go through that again.
Hence, the games range from fun to very poor, and this does not bode well for the layout of the game. The main challenges section asks you to play each game multiple times through, gaining better scores each time to unlock medals. In other words, you will have to play Space Pop many, many times if you want to complete the game. Even having to play the fun games over and over again becomes utterly tedious - surely there is a better way to put all these games together than simply making us play them on repeat?
Apart from coins and medals, there are also living statues available as rewards. These are very silly, allowing you to dance on the spot and record your voice, which is then translated into some sort of figure or animal, be it a hippo or a small team of dancers. Watching a hippo move awkwardly on the spot and shout 'meeeeeeeh' is pretty hilarious, although it does lose its appeal rather rapidly.
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| Too many balls! OH GOD! TOO MANY BALLS!! |
Top Game Moment: Plugging up the leak after a hammerhead shark cracks the glass in 20,000 Leaks.
