Against my better judgment, I now own a Kinect.
I didn’t intend to buy one, exactly. It was a perfect storm of a need for a 360 Slim to replace my aging first-generation Elite and a coupon I received in the mail for a $50 gift card from a certain electronics retailer. I’ve spent the better part of the weekend putting the motion-controlled monster through its paces, and walked away – surprisingly – impressed.
Navigating the Dashboard is a bit clumsier than expected, but once the sensor successfully finds you, it becomes a lot easier. Netflix, Facebook, and many of the other promised Dashboard features are not yet supported by Kinect, so there isn’t a whole lot to do in the Kinect Dashboard menu other than sign in, start a game, calibrate, and view Achievements. Voice recognition works better than expected, and it produced no errors when navigating using voice commands. The response to player action isn’t perfect at this stage, but it is at least on par with that of a Wii Remote. As much as I hate to admit it as a hardcore gamer, there’s some fairly impressive tech behind the device. With future software updates, Kinect could easily become the most accurate of the motion control solutions for this generation (including the Wii Remote/Motion Plus).
I intend to run some experiments to see how I can “confuse” Kinect. Compared to the Xbox LIVE Vision Camera/You’re In The Movies (which could become uncalibrated with an errant sneeze), Kinect seems much more resilient to “real life” living spaces. That is, spaces containing different amounts of natural lighting, furniture, positioning of the sensor device, other people in the room, etc. I have tested out the device in both a crowded retail environment and in my own living room, and the results surprised me. Given how cautious Microsoft has been with impressions of Kinect being released to a gaming audience, I am surprised by how well the device holds up in real life environments (included the crowded retail shop, with people moving around near the device and lots of background noise). That said, I have a lot of space in my living room. Kinect doesn’t operate as well when there is less than 6-8 feet of space between the player and the sensor. People in small apartments may find the device more difficult to calibrate properly.
The pack-in game, Kinect Adventures, is more fun than I expected. A lot of fun, in fact. I played through many of the mini-games and found a few favorites that are certainly going to be a hit at parties. Some (such as the whitewater rafting) are far more physically exerting than others due to requirements of jumping and moving as opposed to standing still and gesturing. There is a good variety of activities in the pack-in title, but some are definitely better than others. Nearly all could be classified as glorified tech demos, but some (such as Rallyball and whitewater rafting) are a lot of fun – particularly with a group.
Will Kinect stand the test of time? At this point I’m undecided. I’m also not sure I want my hardcore experiences being mixed with Kinect’s more casual friendly gameplay in “hybrid” games. The device does what it was designed to do, better than people outside of Microsoft expected. It is certainly not the device that was christened “Project Natal” in the overly ambitious 2009 E3 announcement trailer, but nobody purchasing Kinect is going to care. Brace yourselves, hardcore, as the motion control revolution (no pun intended) certainly isn’t going anywhere for a long time to come.
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