Kinect in the Game Room

I am just glad this wasn't bundled with Kinect Joy Ride...

Yesterday, I wrote that the Kinect for the X-Box 360 (or any other "full-body gesture-based" gaming devices of the future) will never replace the game controllers and now that the device is sitting in my Game Room, my conviction is still as concrete as ever before.  The Kinect sensor comes with Kinect Adventures! which is a collection of mini games where you become a member of "The Kinect Adventure Team" as they travel the world looking for random things to do like busting blocks with balls or bursting balloons in zero gravity - I know, those are seriously adventurous! The game is fun to play but it's nothing too involving. Kinect Adventures! is really just there bundled with the Kinect to showcase what the sensor can do and it serves its purpose well.

A fancy looking camera that takes up a lot of space for itself and its applications.

Now let's talk about my Game Room versus the Kinect sensor. I actually have 6 feet of empty space between my entertainment center and my futon. The best possible scenario recommended by Microsoft is for you to have between 6 feet to 8 feet of room available. By the way, those marketing materials for the Kinect that show people playing it being just 3-4 feet away from the device are just pure lies: The Kinect will stop working when you are standing that close to it. In theory, my room should have been more than sufficient but upon setting up the facial recognition as well as a spooky smiley face card calibration, the camera still wanted me to move back into the 8 feet range to complete those settings, which in turn forced me to kneel on my futon. Things get a bit worse when I was playing Kinect Adventures! Even though during the initial setup, the game recognized that I was in the "good" zone of 6 feet - 8 feet is considered to be optimal even for this game - sometimes the camera just failed to see me while I was flailing around and jumping about. So right now, I am in the process of perhaps moving my futon further back, which is not a good alternative since that will almost block the access to my walk-in closet turned video game treasury. Realistically though,, I will have to just take the futon out of the room and replace it with something smaller. Even with this problem with space, I could still play Kinect Adventures! properly if not perfectly.

Unfortunately, "good" is just not good enough.

The Kinect's technology continues to impress me ever since I saw it being showcased at a local electronic store and having spent some personal time with it, I have to agree that the wizardry and magick behind it are quite impressive, especially when you see how it is able to track the shape of your moving body rather accurately. There is definitely a bit of lag before your action is replicated on screen but there were actually times when it seemed like the lag was nonexistent and that creep me out a bit. It could have been caused by the fact that I was just staring at the screen too intently and perhaps I was anticipating what I should be doing too much.

Purple is the color for fall 2010.

To me though, the PlayStation Move is definitely the best when compared to Microsoft's and Nintendo's "motion control" offerings because of its clever camera plus controller design. And oh, it doesn't require you to renovate your gaming space either. The PlayStation Eye camera can also be manipulated similarly to the Kinect, though with less body tracking accuracy, as showcased by Sony in EyePet and even the old Eye Toy games. The Wii-mote comes second and then the Kinect, third. But I know that I am being a bit too harsh: the games that will be utilizing the best that the Kinect could offer will be unique compared to the Move and the Wii-mote, even if it means less control and more muscle-pain.

FIRST IMPRESSION: 3 out of 5