Cheers! I’ve recently bought a Wii set, and it is a really great system. PS2 graphics aside, it really gives you a different kind of fun from the PS3. And it is really enjoyable to play a game with the whole family, even adding a few relatives would be fine. A good choice to buy it so far, well so far that is.
The thing is, I have been wondering if my choice over Kinect had been a right one. Recently I saw a Kinect demonstration at IMM. People were playing table tennis (GO WII SPORTS RESORT!) with their bare hands. The funny thing was, their hands were shaped like a bats. This may look normal to everybody, but if you change your vantage point you would see something different. This controllerless technology isn’t really that controllerless after all. An irony hidden well between the lines.
Of course, this is very natural. Since time immemorial, people have had been using tools to do various things, from cooking to writing to even personal pleasure. It has been wired in our systems to use tools for majority of the tasks that we do. So essentially what the Kinect does is it detects the “controller” that our hands are trying to imitate. That is where the limitation of Kinect lies, at least that is what I believe.
Just think about it. While it would be easy to detect equipment like tennis rackets and baseball bats, the challenge would be at objects that have more detail. Take rifles and pistols for example. I am not a technical expert, but I believe that the minute action of one pulling an imaginary trigger would be pretty difficult for the Kinect to detect. This means that shooting games might be out for Kinect. According to Gamespot, shooting games account for 38% of the Last 12 Months Top 50 PC games. It also accounts for 40% and 52% for All Time Top 50 games for PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. That is one hell of a market that Kinect might be missing out on.
Onto the next lucrative market – Role Playing Games. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft series have been great hits, among other free to play MMORPG games like Maplestory and Dragonica. Even single player RPGs like Dragon Age: Origins and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are now all time classics. But imagining RPG games on the Kinect seems to be a little tough. While melee weapons like swords and staffs might be possible, the tricky part lies with ranged weapons. Bows and guns have the same problem highlighted earlier, and it is puzzling as to how one will control a mage. Perhaps a wave of the hand will cast frost bolt.
With so many barriers of entry for the Kinect into the top 2 markets, it really seems to have a tough time ahead. Right now my eyes are on PS3 move.
Finally got my Xbox 360S with Kinect! What is with the quotation for the adventure? Read on and you will understand why. In this post, I will review two kinect exclusive titles namely Kinect Adventure and Dance Central.
Before that, let me start with the review on the new Kinect system.
Setting up
Personally, I find the set up of the Kinect relatively simple. This could be due to the optimal configuration of my furnitures in my living room. I have a rather good clearing of 2m x 3m in front of the Kinect. So the set-up is done through the ‘Kinect Tuner’ with relatively no hiccup. And I did the entire set-up without using the calibration card included with most Kinect Games.
Facial Recognition
You can log into your Xbox Live simply by facing the Kinect Sensor. This feature is kind of cool but given that I am the only one with account on my Xbox 360, such feature is actually redundant to me. But still, it is a neat feature to have.
Another point ot note is that when playing some titles that uses your Xbox Avatar, Kinect will identify you and the avatar in the game will change accordingly to your profile. I should also take the opportunity to praise the accuracy and speed of this recognition system. However, recognition only works well under good lighting condition. There was once Kinect fails to recognize me when I was playing the game in the evening.
Voice Command
My test with the voice command is that it isn’t very responsive. At times, I feel like a crazy person shouting ‘Xbox, Xbox, Xbox!’ when the machine is not responding. Probably because the guys at Microsoft tested it out with American testers and therefore cannot pick my my Singlish-like accent. But hey, I didn’t say ‘Xbox lah’ or anything of the sort. And the most weird thing is that voice command is only enables for certain locale. Selecting English (Singapore) will not enable this feature! But selecting English (US) will allow you to use voice command. Weird…So is Microsoft trying to say that we as Singaporeans don’t speak English that are good enough for Kinect to understand? Maybe the Ministers are right, time to speak good English…
Other than some hiccups, the voice recognition does deserve some credits as the user do not have to speak into the microphone but can simply give commands at where he or she is at. Another point to note is that Kinect comes with an array of four microphone instead of just one.
My Kinect ‘Adventure’
Ok, I am not going to review the game Kinect Adventure yet but will be relating my very own Kinect ‘Adventure’ here. After playing happily on the Kinect for 3 days, I invited my friends over and we all started prancing in front of the kinect sensor. Suddenly, the Kinect Sensor light turned from green to the red light of death and an error message pop out saying ‘Kinect Error’. We were just 20 minutes into playing Kinect Adventure so overheating shouldn’t be an issue. So I unplugged Kinect, restart my Xbox and plugged in Kinect again. Not working. I went online and got a suggestion to update my software and also found a ridiculous suggestionthat my Kinect is too cold (both on Kinect official site). So after the software update, my Kinect is still down! Microsoft! And the best part is, Xbox support line is only opened on weekdays and that means I have to wait two days (since it broke down on Saturady) before getting some help.
After some fruitless attempt at finding the problem online throughout the weekend, Monday finally arrived and I called to get the authorization code to exchange my Kinect. So I carry my Kinect and went all the way down to Funan’s Service Hub to get it replaced. Personally, I have no complain with the one-to-one exchange, I am just appalled by the fact that the set broke down within 3 days. Ok so much for my Kinect ‘Adventure’. So for those who experienced the Kinect ‘red light of death’, just called Microsoft and asked for a one-to-one exchange. Forget about trying to troubleshoot yourself.
Kinect Adventure
Finally the real review of Kinect Adventure. Kinect adventure is a game that comes with my Kinect sensor. It consist of 5 mini-games with various stages of difficulty. The games are a good starter to show players what Kinect is capable of. The mini-games includes:
1) 20,000 Leaks
In 20,000 Leaks, players got to plug the leakage of their glass cube using their avatar’s head, legs and even head. You will find yourself in some awkward positions and before you know it, Kinect will take some hilarious pictures of you.
2) River Rush
In River Rush, one or two players steers a river raft down a river. You can jump to lift up your float to reach for height. When playing with two players, do be careful as I bumped into my friends several times when I wanted to steer left and he wanted to steer right.
3) Rally Ball
Rally Ball’s objective is to destroy blocks down a hallway using balls which will bounce off your avatar. You can kick the ball, smack the ball and even hit the ball with your head.
4) Reflex Ridge
In Reflex Ridge, players stand on a platform that will move through an obstacle-laden wooden track. Players will have to duck, jump and move around to avoid beams that will come at you. To increase speed, you can jump on spot. One of the more physically strenous game in Kinect Adventure.
5) Space Pop
In Space Pop, the players have to pop bubbles that were appear from holes in the playing area. Players can hover in mid air and ‘fly’ by flapping their arms. This is the one of the mini-game that make full use of Kinect 3D capability. You will have to move back and forth in order to pop all bubbles.
While Kinect Adventure can provide some fun time for the family, the game is rather repetitive as there are only five fixed mini-games. I got bored after playing the games for two days.
GameTrader.SG rating: 6.4
Hurray for the good demonstration of Kinect’s Capabilities.
Boo for the lack of re-playability.
Dance Central
Dance Central is a new dance game by Harmonix, the team who brought you Rockband and Guitar Hero. Played this game with my mother and for once she was at some point of time coaching me some of the dance steps! I can’t believe I am saying this, but I actually needed help from my mum to play games!
In order for the player to learn the moves to a total of 32 songs, Harmonix includes a break-it-down mode. In this mode, you will learn each individual dance step of the particular song. You can choose to slow down the move if it gets too difficult for you. The entire dance is also splitted into a few segments. After learning the individual dance step in a segment, you will then chain them together.
I started with easy mode of Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’ and followed the dance moves with little problem. They are mostly simply dance steps such as side stepping and punching you arms in the air. Nothing my mum and I can’t handle. However, as we tried out the harder songs, some moves are really demanding considering my limited talent in dancing. I do get frustrated slightly when I keep failing in getting a certain move correctly.
At first, I thought a virtual ‘me’ will be dancing in the back drop mirroring my move, however, I was disappointed that there isn’t such a feature. Instead you get a tiny silhouette image of your body during the game. Also, the game does not really support two players dancing simultaneously together (as seen in earlier video demo of the game). In Dance Battle mode, which allows for two players, you take turns to dance in front of the Kinect. Hmmm…probably they want to avoid players hitting each other (see video below) as some of the moves required much spaces.
During the dance, there is also a free-style mode where you are free to dance to your heart content. Be warned though that the footage will be captured and stored!
GameTrader.SG rating: 8.4
Hurray for the accuracy of detecting players’ moves.
Zombie-themed games are ever so popular. Game developers just cannot stop producing such games. While I am not a fan of zombie games, I do enjoyed playing some of these genre of games. So below is a list of zombie games that I would like to share with all readers.
LEFT 4 DEAD 2
This can easily be the hottest game in LAN shop for the entire year. Had been playing this game at LAN shop with different groups of friend and the fun never ends. The sound track and ambience of the game (coupled with the dim lighting in LAN shop) creates the perfect environment for Left 4 Dead 2. My personal favourite? The Witch who will start chasing you after you inflicted it with the first shot.
The multiplayer mode also allows you to go 4-on-4 in a team battle. Each team will assume roles of either human or zombie. Of course, being zombie is always fun. Spawn as a Tank and knock you friends off into an acid pool. Jockey your friend into flames. Spit acid onto unsuspecting victims. A great game for a group of friends to play.
[PROTOTYPE]
Not exactly a zombie game but the plot of Prototype is typical of most zombie-themed game. An outbreak of an infection that cause mutation in a densely populated city, and you play the hero who tried to find a cure. Ok, I am not talking about Will Smith’s ‘I am Legend‘. But despite the not so original storyline, the game’s physics will truly amaze you when you first play the game. You play as Alex Mercer, a protagonist that possesses shape-shifting ability. He can change his hand into blades, claws, whip and hammer that enable him to boulder and slice his enemy. He can walk on walls, glide in air and falls from an height without sustaining damage.
If shooting zombie is not fun enough for you, you can crush them with tanks or blow them up with missiles in Prototype. Wicked.
Oh, you also get to fight these super agile mutated creature call Hunter. More gore and blood. This game is definitely not for the minor or people with Hemophobia.
Resident Evil 5
A long lasting franchise of Capcom, this latest Resident Evil installment introduced co-op playing for the first time. So instead of just one hero fighting against horde of undead, you get two! Playing this game with a friend really enhances the gameplay experience compared to having to explore a zombie infested place alone.
Ok, be warned though that unlike Left 4 Dead 2, Resident Evil 5 is about surviving. You have very limited ammunition and most of the time you’ll have to scavenge for them. Oh, and I really hate those dogs that can split its head.
Plants VS Zombies
Yeah! Finally a more family oriented zombie game! Pop cap which is famous for making casual game such as Peggle creates this wonderful game which I’ve spent countless hours on. Despite its simplicity, this game is addictive! Probably more addictive than most facebook games in my opinion. Nope, you don’t get much blood and gore for this game. Definitely suitable for the minor.
In Plants and Zombies, you have to ward off waves after waves of zombie which will try to invade you house. Instead of machine guns, chainsaws or Samurai sword, you have plants as your weapon! This plants pack a punch and do just as well compared to conventional weapons. In fact, I love this game so much that I will include a music video of this game for this post! Enjoy!
So that concludes the best zombie games yet. However, I do have to admit that I am not a fan of such games. Might have miss out some good titles. Do leave your comments if I missed out any good games.:)
