Microsoft Kinect: The AnandTech Review
by Brian Klug on December 9, 2010 3:20 PM ESTKinectimals
Kinectimals isn’t really a title marketed at me, but no doubt will sell Kinect to the younger crowd. The frustration in Kinectimals is really only one thing - there’s a big long cutscene at the beginning you can’t skip, and the disadvantage to not having a controller is that you simply lack controls to mash and skip ahead with. Even after the long cutscene, there's a monologue from about all the backstory. I guess I’m wondering how a child is going to sit through all that if even I found myself wishing I could reach out and hit skip.
There are driving minigames which employ the same two-fists-out steering techniques that Kinect Joy Ride does, and other minigames with underhand and overhand tosses which punctuate long periods of playing with your chosen animal. Actually interacting with your pet is unnervingly well done, but it seems like that portion of the game is frequently punctuated by events and circumstances that yank you away to do other things.
Kinectimals also has the only instance (at least that I’ve seen) of object-identification and profiling. Back in the E3 videos for Kinect, I remember someone scanning an object, then using it inside the game - unfortunately that’s all but removed in the Kinect being sold now, but there’s a tiny bit of it left in Kinectimals. When you select an animal, you’re given the opportunity to associate it with a real world object - a trinket, a picture, something within arm’s reach.
You can see me holding up the coaster here for training
The first thing I grabbed was one of my coasters (which I made from some old 10 cm wafer masks), which basically look like square mirrors or glass depending on what layer they were taken from (solder mask, e.t.c.).
Admittedly, that isn’t exactly the fairest of objects to try with this kind of recognition, but it was honestly what was on my coffee table within arm's length. That didn’t go down so well, so I grabbed something else, which did work. You can then hold this object out and select the animal associated with it.
Kinect Joy Ride
Kinect’s driving game is probably the least favorite title of mine in the Kinect launch roundup. When I first saw the Joy Ride demo videos online, I knew that the title would have to emply a significant amount of assists to actually get you around corners. For one, gas and brakes are completely out of the question, and Joy Ride is at least forthcoming about how the go fast and slow down bits of the game are totally handled for you. However, the game employs a substantial amount of auto-steering to get you around the track - your input essentially trims out the driving direction a bit more.
The steering gesture involves keeping two fists out in front of you, and turning an imaginary wheel in midair. You can lean and pull your hands back to charge a boost, and push forwards to temporarily go faster, but most of the actions that will determine your performance in the race are how well you drive over acceleration strips and do tricks midair from leaning side to side.
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brundleflyguy - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
"My guess is, if you are using a projector, you should put Kinect in front of you... if there is enough cable length."Yeah, I know. :)
My current set up is:
Wall<--4ft-->WiiBar<---6ft--->Me<---4ft--->Wii<--1ft-->Projector.
I can't get much closer to the wall or my shadow blocks the projected image. My question is: If I replace the WiiBar and the Wii with the Kinect and XBox360 (respectively) would that work? Or would I be too close/far away from some component? I know I can get an active USB cable to reach from the XBox360 to the Kinect.
JonathanYoung - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I think I used up my quota for seeing the word "itself" in an article.brshoemak - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Totally OT, but I loved the pictures last.fm showed for Xzibit - we just need active content to rotate 'yo dawg' taglines over it.GTVic - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I shall now title all of my comments with my name.melgross - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I don't have an XBox and aren't interested in getting one, so I'm no XBox fanboy. But, for all those complaining about various problems, just remember that this is a 1st generation product. It's the first device of its type in the consumer market. It's got its problems, but it does a credible job. A year or two from now, either MS, or Sony, or Nintendo, or Apple will come out with a new one that works much better, as always happens. But this seems pretty good for what it is in this timespace.Portablenuke - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Forget the Kinect, where can I get wafer mask coasters!?trip1ex - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I think the reviewer was a little too generous.First he's too hung up on the fact you can cheat on the Wii. SEems to be his basis for liking Kinect.
I don't think he called out Kinect enough on its drawbacks or the quality of some of the games.
See what the reviewer failed to mention is how sloppy many of the games are.
Take Kinect Adventures.
YOu have to jump way before you think you have to in one of the games. Pretty darn laggy. And there's jaggedy jumping animation as well.
Waving your arms to hit balls in another game was just so un precise. You basically swing in the ballpark and you connect. It doesn't leave you with a solid precise feeling. You don't feel connected to what is happening on the screen. There's something missing between your actions and what happens on the screen.
It's the same with plugging wiki-leaks in Kinect Adventures. You see where the leak is and even though KInect tracks your hand/arm fairly accurately you're still just reaching in the dark to plug the Wiki-leak. There is no preciseness or feedback to the gameplay. OH this leak is down here somewhere I will just move my hand down there in the general vicinity until the screen shows the hole is plugged.
The only thing I found Kinect did really well in Kinect Adventures was track me as I moved left and right to avoid obstacles in the "moving platform" game. That was the only solid part.
Overall I found the KA and the integration of Kinect into the dashboard along with the voice commands and hand gestures to be pretty sloppy. I think that after the xmas gold rush wears off this device is going to die out pretty quickly unless someone comes out with a killer app.
DanaG - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Is there any way to put the XBox 360 in a sort of "kiosk" mode, where the only way to exit games would be to push a button somewhere? I see online that there's some "kiosk mode" disk, but I have no idea what other features it would disable, and that kiosk mode is supposedly irreversible.DanaG - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I'd be interested to see how much of that latency is caused by the receiver and the TV. I've seen some TVs where even a computer mouse is laggy enough to notice even with game mode (that disabled itself every time you turned off the TV); I had to switch back from HDMI to VGA on that device.Please try connecting the 360's HDMI to a known low-latency monitor that can do 720 or 1080.
clasam - Saturday, December 11, 2010 - link
Could we get an update about the lag WITHOUT the Onkyo ? Thx!