To say that Microsoft went all out this year at the E3 Expo is probably an understatement. Rather than just telling us the new name of “Project Natal”, they hired Cirque du Soleil to put on a custom 45-minute show, which took months of planning and included 76 performers. If you’ve never been to a Cirque du Soleli, let me tell you, it is an unforgettable experience. And I imagine this is what Microsoft was trying to do – stick in your head.
Kinect is Natal’s new official name. There’s a lot of hype surrounding the new controller-free device and many of us are curious to see if it flops, but we hope for the best. Microsoft showed off many games for the Kinect at the show, so let’s get to it.
Kinect: Star Wars
It’s hard to imagine a better use for the technology than a Star Wars game. Honestly, I thought the same thing for the Nintendo Wii announcement. Maybe I’m just a Star Wars freak. The game showed the player as a Jedi going through a stage of enemies and reaching the end to face Darth Vader. Players will be able to control the light saber and use their arm to “force push” the enemies.
Joy Ride
Take your Xbox Avatar for a spin in Joy Ride. Steering is controlled by pretending to hold a wheel and you can also do stunts by positioning your body and hands in specific ways.
Kinect Adventures
In this demo of an adventure game, players were riding on a raft and mind cart. The aim was to grab targets that showed up and you could control the speed by jumping. Kinect Adventures takes photos of you while you’re playing and will show you a compilation of them at the end of the level.
Dance Central
Is this the future of Dance Dance Revolution games? Who knows. The player’s goal is to match the moves shown on the screen. If the player does well, the song plays on like normal. If they screw up, then the music slows down and you receive instructions to redeem yourself.
Kinect Sports
Not surprisingly, Microsoft needs something to compete with Nintendo’s wildly successful WiiSports franchise and Kinect Sports is how they plan to do it. In the demo we saw volleyball, soccer, track, and bowling. Volleyball will support online play, though overall many game journalists are not impressed with this showing. The bowling game looked inaccurate and much of the game is automated, as in your players move on their own and do their own thing.
Kinectimals
This is a virtual pet game where you will take care of your own digital animal(s). In this demo the pet is a tiger, and you could interact with it by petting it, teaching it tricks, throwing a ball and other stuff like that.
This is neat in theory – and Nintendo has already proven the concept is profitable – but this game seems a little sad to me. Wouldn’t it be much better to just go play with a real dog? I know we can say the same thing about many other games – but the point really stands out to me with this game. It’s one thing to play in NBA Live as your favorite team instead of shooting some real hoops, but to pet a virtual dog is very strange to me.
Conclusion
This is just a quick look at some of the games shown. Nothing too impressive yet, but it gives us something to chew on. Personally, I’m not expecting the Kinect to do much more than the Nintendo Wii has already accomplished, but time will tell. Good luck, Microsoft.
