A quieter holiday period for Microsoft's motion sensor, this one, in the absence of Kinect Star Wars. Still, over the course of the year there's been a smattering of games that make more imaginative use of the technology that the first flush of titles.
For more juicy Kinect jollity, check out our best Kinect party game and best Kinect fitness game features. Don't forget our original best Kinect game feature either.
Child of Eden
Tetsuya Mizaguchi's return to Rez, Child of Eden, was captivating, enchanting, beguiling and lots of other words that mean roughly the same thing. It may have been little more than a return to the formula that made Rez popular, and the high price may have put a lot of people off investing in what amounted to a one-hour interactive eye-gasm. That could be the reason it didn't sell very well, along with the fact that Kinect is considered casual, and Rez fans consider themselves to be pretty hardcore. If you can find it in a second hand store for a decent price, snap it up like a bargain lobster.
Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012
You can't hide the elephant in the room with a tea towel. Kinect has single-handedly created a market for fitness games on the Xbox and Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 is its Grand Poobah. Whether you're interested or not, you can certainly appreciate that some are better than others. Take Zumba - selling like non-fattening glucose, dairy and wheat-free hot cake substitutes, despite the fact it's a sack of misfiring balls. Then take Your Shape - a game that plugs directly into the need to distract you from the fact you're moving around with a barrage of information and facts. The overpriced DLC ads are a bit too prominent, but this is the one we'd use if we weren't drunk and lazy.
The Gunstringer
For a long time, it felt like no-one knew exactly how to translate regular control schemes into something Kinect-friendly. Twisted Pixel nailed one possibility with The Gunstringer, its puppet motions corresponding brilliantly to what's happening on the screen. The game pushed boundaries for self-referential charm, too, its auditorium backdrop populated by cheering, clapping members of its own development team. The worst thing about it? Well, it certainly sets the bar rather high for other Kinect titles.
Blackwater
Peel off the misguided subject matter, ignore the bizarre lionisation of a toxic mercenary service, and Blackwater's an extremely tidy on-rails shooter. The banter is stupid, but almost likably so, and the aiming and firing action cleverly builds Kinect's response times into the game. To make the first half-decent shooter for a platform deserves a measure of respect. It's just a shame that 505 Games chose such reprehensible stars.
Fruit Ninja
Kinect's take on mobile darling Fruit Ninja is extremely frustrating. On the one hand, it remains the best and most effective use of the hardware, with snappy lag-free responses. On the other hand, it boils down to slapping your arms around, scything through batches of fruit and avoiding the bombs. The free Christmas DLC is delightful - it lets you chop up a pudding with a candy cane - but there are no new modes. For 800 MP, it's probably twice as expensive as it needs to be, but it makes for a nice freebie with a new copy of The Gunstringer.
8 comments so far...
Decent_Jam on 30 Dec '11 said:
The fact that no one has commented on this yet is rather telling...
Child of Eden really sparked my interest an Gunstringer sounds good too, but I think it's going to take the leviathan that is Mass Effect 3 to drag me into converting to Kinect. I've been biding my time so far and haven't really given it much time, also what worried me is that at the moment I'm only renting a room in a house, and I have my Xbox up in my room, so there really isn't a lot of floor space, unless I stand on the bed, so would it even work properly...
Looking forward to it all the same though.
KernowDevil23 on 30 Dec '11 said:
Best game? No idea as I've not played any worth commenting on this year. Best use of Kinect? Voice search on the new dash. Woooooooo!
GHOSTY05 on 31 Dec '11 said:
Kinect sports 1 and 2 are the best games and thats all!
KernowDevil23 on 31 Dec '11 said:
Just received Kinect Sports 2 from LoveFilm so I'll give that a whirl and maybe re-evaluate my above post!
GHOSTY05 on 8 Jan '12 said:
If you want your ass kicking on darts then give me a bell sometime!
KernowDevil23 on 8 Jan '12 said:
That wouldn't be difficult mate. My mrs beats me on that!!!
CHIEFRAPTOR on 8 Jan '12 said:
The main reason i got Kinect to be honest was for the Halo Anniversary and Mass Effect 3 compatibility because i want to get as much as possible out of these games plus I also managed to get it for something like £70 which isn't bad :p
On purchase i got Kinect Adventures and also Child of Eden with it. Now kinect adventures is fine for playing with my girlfriend but to be honest i found child of eden quite boring and haven't picked it up for months, it just seems repetitive and the lack of checkpoints made me so frustrated that i eventually plugged a controller in just to complete the level!
Just ordered Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 for £18 and i'm hoping that i'll be able to play it consistently and that my achievement whoring may actually be helpful in keeping fit, i think that achievements for calories burned are genius and i'll end up playing more to try and get these achievements.
I'm hoping Rainbow Six Patriots will use the voice control as that was always fun when playing vegas and being able to say "breach and clear" etc, it never really felt like it got in the way as you would use it to prepare for situations and then could concentrate on playing as soon as you were in the room, it would be just a nice little touch.
What would be very cool is a online multiplayer focused kinect game, that may help build the kinect community and could even create a different niche of gamers who are maybe just starting out and don't get along with the kinect
GHOSTY05 on 8 Jan '12 said:
Yeah rainbow six with the voice control was brilliant, can you remember end war aswell that was good fun with voice commands.
I want more strategy war games for kinect