Buried deep in every game-playing brain, beneath the froth of neurones, veins and synapses, there's a little bronze plaque bearing the words "No game involving lightsabers can possibly be all that bad". A more recent addition squats a few tissue layers above: "The sole, true and noblest reason for a motion sensitive control system is to let us wave lightsabers."
Terminal Reality's Kinect Star Wars puts both ideas to the test. What we've seen of the look-Darth-no-hands Jedi sim shows definite promise, but the implementation is a touch rocky, and with the promised Christmas release fast approaching the developer will need to work fast to address it.
Incoming fire may be absorbed by holding the blade out in front, or deflected at enemies with carefully timed swipes. Left hand, meanwhile, takes care of Force lifts and blasts: pull it back to charge a shot, or reach towards a foe to wrap them in a telekinetic embrace, then flick to one side to toss them away.
Ploughing through gaggles of Separatist droids, there are moments when the requisite Jedi blend of grace and power clicks. Terminal Reality has done a bang-up job on the Star Wars vibe, the zap and clang of blaster shots competing with some commendably John-Williams-esque orchestrics for mastery of the soundtrack. But these are flashes of nostalgic glory amid a murkier main event.
Lightsaber fighting is limited to simple horizontal and vertical swipes, with anything more complex, like a diagonal stroke from one side of your body to the other, sending the character model into paroxysms. It's difficult to establish momentum (aka "build combos") the way you would in a real sword fight, and the latency obliges you to slow Skywalker's cut and thrust to a series of vague, exploratory caresses.
If lag hampers offence, it kills defence stone dead. There's little chance of deliberately bouncing a laser bolt back to sender when you're operating a good fraction of a second faster than the dude on-screen. Fortunately, recharging health is available in generous quantities.
A broad-based auto-target makes latching onto a foe with the Force easy, but the automatic camera seems to have been drinking the same, sedative brew as the gesture system, struggling to frame anything that isn't directly in front and at medium range. Force lift is fun but not as emphatic as we'd hoped for: you'll try to punt a droid straight up, only for him to bounce and scrape like a bike skeleton dangling from a fishing line.
But there are those moments when everything comes together. Lightsabers leave mouth-watering orangey trails through metal, and deflecting a shot is satisfying when you manage it. Given drastically reduced latency and a more opened-out, better-meshed move suite, Kinect Star Wars could still lead the charge for hardcore gaming on the mo-sensing platform. We just hope the build we encountered is much older than it looks.
8 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 7 Jul '11 said:
Is it on rails, do you have any character direction?
OXM ETboy on 7 Jul '11 said:
It's more or less on rails, though you do get a measure of camera control by swinging in a direction or using Force throw.
Bezza89 on 7 Jul '11 said:
Bah! I wont be interested in kinect until a) a brilliant hybrid game is created or b) they figure out free movement
CunningSmile on 7 Jul '11 said:
I spend years studying Kendo and learning the '1,000 cuts of the blade' (sounds less dorky in Japanese) to fulfil my jedi fantasies and now I need to unlearn it because we can only swing horizontally or vertically?
In my best Duncan Banatine voice "I'm out."
Jensonjet on 7 Jul '11 said:
I love Star Wars. The original movie of course, not the franchise itself (sorry George, your first idea was the best, the after-thought of rebranding it A New Hope always was a poor idea!). Since the arrival of videogames I've been after a decent Star Wars game. The best I've come across was Dark Forces, back in the mid 90s.
I've checked out numerous demos, and always keep an eye out for the next Star Wars game. And the result, for me at least, is always the same. Every time I find myself asking "why can't we just get a really amazing Star Wars game?". Thirty four years after the arrival of the movie I've still only found one game set in that universe that's interested me. Sadly my only hope seems to be that I'm much younger than Mr Lucas, and one day he won't be around to ok games like this. Then someone else will oversee the franchise and perhaps they'll take more interest and demand better quality. Then maybe I'll be saying "here's where the fun begins", rather than "I have a bad feeling about this".
Decent_Jam on 8 Jul '11 said:
Anything Star Wars and I can't help but be interested but it's a shame they couldn't basically redo the Force unleashed with like for like Kinect movements, but I think that technology is still sci-fi, and the movement lag sounds pretty major which is a real shame, lag ruins a lot of good games.
I'll keep an eye on it, but I'm far from sold.
Cdr JamesCool on 8 Jul '11 said:
It doesn't look all that great. You only control your characters arms and the only way to move is to headbut the air apparantly. The enemies all seem to be suicidle as they wander towards you waiting for thier turn to be killed. They have guns, why on earth are they walking towards you?
Doesn't matter how this game turns out. Until Kinect shows it can play games where you move AND it has a major price reduction, I will be Kinect free for a long time. Also I need to see better games come out for it too.
Jensonjet on 9 Jul '11 said:
I think you may have a long wait Mr Cool. I read many a forum where people have been racking their brains for a good use of Kinect in non-party/dance/fitness games, and judging by what the industry's managed to come up with, I don't see it being used any better than it is today. If waving your hands about to move through menus is your thing, I think you're in luck. If you want to justify an extorniate price for a piece of kit that wasn't designed for hardcore games I think you might struggle. There's a massive difference in the way party/dance/fitness games are played and the traditional games, and that's to do with positioning. Gamers sit or lay over sofas and chairs. What's made gaming more popular than playing sport amongst it's fans is that it's non-energetic. I've nothing against Kinect, and understand why it exists - Microsoft won't control the world of gaming if it can't corner every market - but it and games developers need to accept it's not for normal games. As a menu controller it's fun. As a game controller it's about as bad as you could design... next to asking gamers to swing a door about the room to control a game!