ABOVE: Kinect ($229, or $579 as part of an Xbox 360 bundle) lets you control games using gestures. Like Nintendo's Wii, it's great family entertainment, but grown-up gamers might get bored with the first wave of games a little too easily. Kinect Joy Ride,
ABOVE: Kinect ($229, or $579 as part of an Xbox 360 bundle) lets you control games using gestures. Like Nintendo's Wii, it's great family entertainment, but grown-up gamers might get bored with the first wave of games a little too easily. Kinect Joy Ride, for example (see Microsoft-supplied photo above) lets you steer using your arms, and veer to perform stunts, but with the game taking care of braking and accelerating, there's not a lot too it.
Your correspondent is having a wow of a time with Microsoft's Kinect accessory for Xbox - at least when he can get near the bloody thing amid his wife working out to Dance Central, or the kids playing Kinectimals.
Famously, the Kinect lets you control games using your body as the controller.
In the US, you can also use voice commands to control aspects of games.
That sounds like a useful addition because, for all the fun of the games, navigating menus in between with your hands can be slow going at times. The system is a tad slow, and you've got to remember the correct Kinect hand signals (not that hard when you get used to it, I guess, but the sluggishness of this approach still had me reaching for the old fashioned X-Box controller when adjusting game settings etc).
The NZ Kinect site even promises you'll be able to control movies playing on your XBox using your voice instead of the remote.
But, sadly, the Microsoft wonder gadget does not, in fact, speak New Zilund.
It seems the Kinect just couldn't understand the Kiwi accent, so the speech recognition feature was disabled here.
A Microsoft rep told NBR Microsoft boffins are working on a software upgrade that should incorporate support for Godzone's lazy vowels.
It's due in "spring" 2011, or what people in this part of the world call "autumn".
Australians, with their short, brutish vowels, which may or may not be the result of IQ-degredation that is a legacy of malnutrition during the convict era*, have also missed out, as have several foreign language markets (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and French Canada).
Check out Matt Greenop's Kinect review and ratings for some of the first games here.
My casual observation - as someone who's not particularly a console guy, but does have a Wii - is that Kinect graphics seem better than Wii, but the gameplay, on the whole, less sophisticated. Of course, it's early days for games.
Unfortunately I don't think Matt Heath's analysis on BFM was podcast but, amid a glowing review, the broadcaster did note that you can play most Kinect games with a beer in your hand.
The under-fives in my household don't drink, but they love the Kinect for different reasons. Like my other half, they're hooked.
Me, I'm sticking with Call of Duty: Black Ops on my more traditional hardware.
* Joking. Probably.
