HBK619
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OK so it might seem strange for me to be starting this thread. But since I am in love with GiantBomb and whore myself out to their Quick Looks whenever one pops up.
In the after days of Kinect being released in the states GB had a big Live Stream Kinect event where they trialled 12 of Kinect's release titles (only a few off every launch title), from that 12 Quick Looks appeared.
So in preparation for Kinect's Australian release tomorrow I thought I'd give some impressions on what I've gathered from each different Quick Look so far as well as starting this thread. I'll do the write ups based on what I can see is the best to the worst (1=best, 12=worst).
1. Dance Central - From first looks this is easily the most polished experience on Kinect. Harmonix have their quality written all over it. From the slick and easy to use menu's (3 people new to Kinect almost instantly knew how to use the menu's) to the quality of the gameplay and visuals everything clicks well here. Good variety of song choice and there's a ton of songs here. Downsides seem to be that the coreography is VERY over the top and not really something that would ever be seen on a real dance floor (perhaps only if someone was dissin' your fly girl) also I just can't see a whole lot of longevity in this, I wouldn't see myself coming home and going "you know what, I feel like dancing some Poker Face right now"...longevity will feature heavily in a lot of these launch titles,
2. Kinect Sports - This is where you go "ohhhh Rare how far you have fallen". While this game looks for the most part to be quality it's so degrading to Rare that they've become a 'mini-game' developer. Soccer and Volleyball look a little repetitive and boring, not a whole lot of physical control going on either, it all feels very "DO THIS, DO THAT!". Track and Field, Table Tennis and Bowling looks pretty good and responsive, I also love the control of your avatar during the races and celebrations (would make for some hilarious moments). Boxing looks like a mix between good and bad, no real movement apart from just punching, doesn't seem overly tactical, looks like it'd get old fast. Again as with Dance Central, there's not a huge amount of depth to be found, apart from the mini-games you get here and the party versus stuff you're not going to be finding a story mode that you go through as a soccer star or as an atheletics superstar and become Usain Bolt. It's just not got a lot to hold you in there for hours on end.
3. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved - Looks sleek, very nice looking game. Love the menu's and the way you actually feel apart of the interactions with them. The scanning system is really cool, it'd be interesting to know how it works if the plans all work out and you get fitter, for someone like Jeff Gerstman if he was constantly slimming from this product would it still recognise him? Also would like to know how deep all the programs and plans are and how they change depending on how fit you want to get, etc. Probably has the most longevity as it stands because of the continual nature of the game and the way it keeps score of everything. Also has a great gamey feel as well, while not being in your face, so good for the n00bs and the more game oriented gamer.
4. Sonic Free Riders - TBH I am yet to watch past the 10 minute mark on this video, but am going on what I did see. I got bored of the QL pretty early on when Jeff was just doing the same boring tutorials and came to a halt with a jumping tutorial that made no sense (when the 'helper' says to jump at the wrong time, it's probably not going to ****ing help!). But all things going right in this game and I can sense a real 'Snowboard Kids' vibe to it. I loved Snowboard Kids and put hours and hours into that with my best mate. If this has much the same style (and the responsiveness seems good enough) then it'd probably move up a few notches. Will get around to watching the rest of the video tonight probably.
5. Kinect Adventures - Looks much more responsive and better than the first showings of this title. And the fun to be had is probably what pushes it above the others. But as with the previous two titles, there's not much depth, this one more so than most seems like it'd only get a couple of hours before giving up on it really.
6. Kinectimals - This is a lot more gamey than I expected. I went into this Quick Look expecting much of an Eyepet look at a game. Basically a Tamagotchi for consoles. But this turned out to have a lot more focus than I was expecting, I'm not actually sure whether this is a good thing or not though. Since it looks directly aimed at the younger audience there's a lot of fluff to really get through in the early parts of the game. I think a lot of kids would actually feel better with an Eyepet replica. There's a lot of throwing and knocking over skittles mini-games going on, which looks insanely repetitive and there's not a whole lot of difference with what toy your using (a rubber duck has no physical difference to a cricket ball it would seem). The responsiveness seems ok, there's good and bad about it, the throwing was off at times which includes both power and direction. But the interactions with the Kinectimal seems sound enough.
7. Kinect Joy Ride - Starting to move into the lower quality titles from now. Joy Ride seems to be borderline, probably a title you would pick up for a bargain price. It looks sound enough, but is VERY basic and simple. I liked the look of the mini-games and the competitive nature to it all would be a good fighting point. But it seems a bit tedious that there's no control at all over the speed of your car, it's either boost or normal speed there's no real in between and that would be very annoying when you're getting beaten out by AI or real opponents because the car isn't increasing in speed or slowing down when you specifically want it to.
8. The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout - Seems good enough for a fitness plan, as a game it is just all over the place. Some really weird mini-games at play that are fairly confusing and don't really replicate the movements on screen enough. There's a few confusing moments again in the workout section where you have a fat bloke in the background and can't tell if he's meant to be an avatar of your bloke doing what you are or whether he's just 'there'. Would only be worthy if you're looking to lose weight and get toned.
9. Fighters Uncaged - Looks responsive enough but boy did this get old fast. Within 3 rounds I was ready to turn it off, it's just not got a lot to the fighting. There's some good things technically speaking going on here, but at the same time it seems to be cut down way too much by a few other elements that just about break the game. The commentary, ****EN SHUT THE **** UP! The same lines repeated over and over and over and over again and even the exact same lines inter-cutting into each other several times.
10. Motion Sports - Motion Sports was cut short 15 minutes in when Ryan Davis COULD NOT get the horse to jump over barricades (LET ME RE-INTRODUCE YOU. HORSE MEET RIDER. RIDER MEET HORSE! **** THIS GODDAMN LINE BEING REPEATED 4000 ****ING TIMES DURING THIS QUICK LOOK! Surely Ubisoft had more than 1 line read for a stuffed up jump?!!!). Then we see a quick look at an American Football mini-game. And that's about it. It's hard to gauge where it's at but if we're comparing it to Kinect Sports I know what I'd be choosing.
11. DanceMasters - SO, SO, SO, SO, SO JAPAN! This game has very little appeal anywhere outside of Japan. The songlist is shite, the visuals in putting 'you' into the game is beyond terrible. DO NOT WANT TO GO NEAR EVER NOW PLEASE PISS OFF!!!!!!!1
12. Adrenalin Misfits - Another shite looking attempt at another game that already looks worlds better. Unresponsive, lacking in any depth, boring, dull, etc. etc. Bring out any word for crap and you have Adrenalin Misfits.
So that's where I see it so far and what I've gathered through the Quick Looks.
A few things that I didn't really mention throughout the impressions. But there's at least one thing that is showing up about Kinect that needs to be given a more focused look from the developers and maybe even just from a the SDK that MS hand out.
Menu's - These are handled in so many ways, from terrible to great. Dance Central, Your Shape and the worst title Adrenalin Misfits seem to have the 3 best ways of navigating the menu's. And they all do it in different ways. Dance Central has the picture of you in the top right which doesn't really mean a whole lot but you use your arm to navigate the menu and swipe left to select it. Your Shape literally has you in the game and you just put your hands where you feel the menu is and from there you get a slight zoom and it all just works very well and sleekly as much of the rest of the game. Adrenalin Misfits uses the simplistic model by which it measures arm prompts, just stick your arm out left or right to navigate the menu's left and right and stick it up to select it.
Some of the other games and the XBOX menu's tend to use things like mouse cursors, none of these seem to ever work well first time and takes a bit of tedium to get used to it (plus there's issues with the cursor moving to fast and going past the menu options you want to click on, etc.). At best they work the way you want it to but at the end of the day a controller gets through this stuff about 10 times faster.
There's certainly no real 'Minority Report' stuff going on like you'd perhaps hope beforehand and as such was hyped pre-release. But there's definitely the potential to clean things up and get them close enough to that level as long as they use one of the 3 options previously mentioned.
Along with the Longevity issues with all of these launch titles, the menu's are easily the most tedious thing if not done 'right'.
Since this is the biggest post in the history of mankind I thought I'd end it with two things that every cold blooded man loves. Women playing games (more specifically Kinect) in the nude.
Sort of NSFW (no actual nudity):
http://g4tv.com/videos/49814/Adult-Star-Kirsten-Price-Tests-Kinects-Nude-Filter/
Strictly NSFW if you click on the video linked in the story:
http://www.electronictheatre.co.uk/...red-on-a-saturday-afternoon-play-kinect-naked
In the after days of Kinect being released in the states GB had a big Live Stream Kinect event where they trialled 12 of Kinect's release titles (only a few off every launch title), from that 12 Quick Looks appeared.
So in preparation for Kinect's Australian release tomorrow I thought I'd give some impressions on what I've gathered from each different Quick Look so far as well as starting this thread. I'll do the write ups based on what I can see is the best to the worst (1=best, 12=worst).
1. Dance Central - From first looks this is easily the most polished experience on Kinect. Harmonix have their quality written all over it. From the slick and easy to use menu's (3 people new to Kinect almost instantly knew how to use the menu's) to the quality of the gameplay and visuals everything clicks well here. Good variety of song choice and there's a ton of songs here. Downsides seem to be that the coreography is VERY over the top and not really something that would ever be seen on a real dance floor (perhaps only if someone was dissin' your fly girl) also I just can't see a whole lot of longevity in this, I wouldn't see myself coming home and going "you know what, I feel like dancing some Poker Face right now"...longevity will feature heavily in a lot of these launch titles,
2. Kinect Sports - This is where you go "ohhhh Rare how far you have fallen". While this game looks for the most part to be quality it's so degrading to Rare that they've become a 'mini-game' developer. Soccer and Volleyball look a little repetitive and boring, not a whole lot of physical control going on either, it all feels very "DO THIS, DO THAT!". Track and Field, Table Tennis and Bowling looks pretty good and responsive, I also love the control of your avatar during the races and celebrations (would make for some hilarious moments). Boxing looks like a mix between good and bad, no real movement apart from just punching, doesn't seem overly tactical, looks like it'd get old fast. Again as with Dance Central, there's not a huge amount of depth to be found, apart from the mini-games you get here and the party versus stuff you're not going to be finding a story mode that you go through as a soccer star or as an atheletics superstar and become Usain Bolt. It's just not got a lot to hold you in there for hours on end.
3. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved - Looks sleek, very nice looking game. Love the menu's and the way you actually feel apart of the interactions with them. The scanning system is really cool, it'd be interesting to know how it works if the plans all work out and you get fitter, for someone like Jeff Gerstman if he was constantly slimming from this product would it still recognise him? Also would like to know how deep all the programs and plans are and how they change depending on how fit you want to get, etc. Probably has the most longevity as it stands because of the continual nature of the game and the way it keeps score of everything. Also has a great gamey feel as well, while not being in your face, so good for the n00bs and the more game oriented gamer.
4. Sonic Free Riders - TBH I am yet to watch past the 10 minute mark on this video, but am going on what I did see. I got bored of the QL pretty early on when Jeff was just doing the same boring tutorials and came to a halt with a jumping tutorial that made no sense (when the 'helper' says to jump at the wrong time, it's probably not going to ****ing help!). But all things going right in this game and I can sense a real 'Snowboard Kids' vibe to it. I loved Snowboard Kids and put hours and hours into that with my best mate. If this has much the same style (and the responsiveness seems good enough) then it'd probably move up a few notches. Will get around to watching the rest of the video tonight probably.
5. Kinect Adventures - Looks much more responsive and better than the first showings of this title. And the fun to be had is probably what pushes it above the others. But as with the previous two titles, there's not much depth, this one more so than most seems like it'd only get a couple of hours before giving up on it really.
6. Kinectimals - This is a lot more gamey than I expected. I went into this Quick Look expecting much of an Eyepet look at a game. Basically a Tamagotchi for consoles. But this turned out to have a lot more focus than I was expecting, I'm not actually sure whether this is a good thing or not though. Since it looks directly aimed at the younger audience there's a lot of fluff to really get through in the early parts of the game. I think a lot of kids would actually feel better with an Eyepet replica. There's a lot of throwing and knocking over skittles mini-games going on, which looks insanely repetitive and there's not a whole lot of difference with what toy your using (a rubber duck has no physical difference to a cricket ball it would seem). The responsiveness seems ok, there's good and bad about it, the throwing was off at times which includes both power and direction. But the interactions with the Kinectimal seems sound enough.
7. Kinect Joy Ride - Starting to move into the lower quality titles from now. Joy Ride seems to be borderline, probably a title you would pick up for a bargain price. It looks sound enough, but is VERY basic and simple. I liked the look of the mini-games and the competitive nature to it all would be a good fighting point. But it seems a bit tedious that there's no control at all over the speed of your car, it's either boost or normal speed there's no real in between and that would be very annoying when you're getting beaten out by AI or real opponents because the car isn't increasing in speed or slowing down when you specifically want it to.
8. The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout - Seems good enough for a fitness plan, as a game it is just all over the place. Some really weird mini-games at play that are fairly confusing and don't really replicate the movements on screen enough. There's a few confusing moments again in the workout section where you have a fat bloke in the background and can't tell if he's meant to be an avatar of your bloke doing what you are or whether he's just 'there'. Would only be worthy if you're looking to lose weight and get toned.
9. Fighters Uncaged - Looks responsive enough but boy did this get old fast. Within 3 rounds I was ready to turn it off, it's just not got a lot to the fighting. There's some good things technically speaking going on here, but at the same time it seems to be cut down way too much by a few other elements that just about break the game. The commentary, ****EN SHUT THE **** UP! The same lines repeated over and over and over and over again and even the exact same lines inter-cutting into each other several times.
10. Motion Sports - Motion Sports was cut short 15 minutes in when Ryan Davis COULD NOT get the horse to jump over barricades (LET ME RE-INTRODUCE YOU. HORSE MEET RIDER. RIDER MEET HORSE! **** THIS GODDAMN LINE BEING REPEATED 4000 ****ING TIMES DURING THIS QUICK LOOK! Surely Ubisoft had more than 1 line read for a stuffed up jump?!!!). Then we see a quick look at an American Football mini-game. And that's about it. It's hard to gauge where it's at but if we're comparing it to Kinect Sports I know what I'd be choosing.
11. DanceMasters - SO, SO, SO, SO, SO JAPAN! This game has very little appeal anywhere outside of Japan. The songlist is shite, the visuals in putting 'you' into the game is beyond terrible. DO NOT WANT TO GO NEAR EVER NOW PLEASE PISS OFF!!!!!!!1
12. Adrenalin Misfits - Another shite looking attempt at another game that already looks worlds better. Unresponsive, lacking in any depth, boring, dull, etc. etc. Bring out any word for crap and you have Adrenalin Misfits.
So that's where I see it so far and what I've gathered through the Quick Looks.
A few things that I didn't really mention throughout the impressions. But there's at least one thing that is showing up about Kinect that needs to be given a more focused look from the developers and maybe even just from a the SDK that MS hand out.
Menu's - These are handled in so many ways, from terrible to great. Dance Central, Your Shape and the worst title Adrenalin Misfits seem to have the 3 best ways of navigating the menu's. And they all do it in different ways. Dance Central has the picture of you in the top right which doesn't really mean a whole lot but you use your arm to navigate the menu and swipe left to select it. Your Shape literally has you in the game and you just put your hands where you feel the menu is and from there you get a slight zoom and it all just works very well and sleekly as much of the rest of the game. Adrenalin Misfits uses the simplistic model by which it measures arm prompts, just stick your arm out left or right to navigate the menu's left and right and stick it up to select it.
Some of the other games and the XBOX menu's tend to use things like mouse cursors, none of these seem to ever work well first time and takes a bit of tedium to get used to it (plus there's issues with the cursor moving to fast and going past the menu options you want to click on, etc.). At best they work the way you want it to but at the end of the day a controller gets through this stuff about 10 times faster.
There's certainly no real 'Minority Report' stuff going on like you'd perhaps hope beforehand and as such was hyped pre-release. But there's definitely the potential to clean things up and get them close enough to that level as long as they use one of the 3 options previously mentioned.
Along with the Longevity issues with all of these launch titles, the menu's are easily the most tedious thing if not done 'right'.
Since this is the biggest post in the history of mankind I thought I'd end it with two things that every cold blooded man loves. Women playing games (more specifically Kinect) in the nude.
Sort of NSFW (no actual nudity):
http://g4tv.com/videos/49814/Adult-Star-Kirsten-Price-Tests-Kinects-Nude-Filter/
Strictly NSFW if you click on the video linked in the story:
http://www.electronictheatre.co.uk/...red-on-a-saturday-afternoon-play-kinect-naked
