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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
72 Comments
View All Comments
Noriaki - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Yeah, I just meant the 350 part. Referring to it as the 360 S to distinguish it from the 360 Pro makes sense to me.Noriaki - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
PS: Thanks for the in-depth coverage. This is the first time I feel like I got a good idea of what having a Kinect in my living room would mean for practical things like where my couch lives.Aikouka - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Brian, have you tried out DanceMasters (DM)? I noticed you commented on how your girlfriend compared Dance Central (DC) to DDR where DanceMasters is actually created by Konami.I own DM and have played the DC game, and I have to say... you'd probably be disappointed in the DM menu system as it is a tad bit harder to control. Way too often I found myself skipping past the option I wanted (as all options move left or right) and you then have to raise your (right) hand to select it. The problem comes when it might see you move your hand out to the right and actually shift your choice over one right before you raise your hand.
The part where I think DM beats DC is the actual dancing. In the demo for DC, I found it awkwardly difficult to pay attention to the way the dancer was moving (left or right, etc) and the upcoming movement that was shown on the right side of the screen. When my brother and his girlfriend played, I noticed one huge trend... we *all* would miss the first dance move after they changed from one move to another.
This is kind of better in DM, because it uses arrows that signify how your hand (or hands) should move in a second or two. There are also circles that will appear on the screen and you must hit them with either your hands or feet (obvious depending on the location). The last movement is the "pose silhouettes" that appear on the left and right side and are green in color. They move to the center of the screen and when the two silhouettes combine, you are supposed to be in that pose. The only problem is that it's not terribly picky on what you do in between these three types of inputs and another problem is that it loves to put circles beneath your feet (so you keep moving), but they're hard to notice. I found this easy to combat by simply always moving your feet.
Overall, there's a huge difference in the style of music between the two as well, which influenced my decision. I've never been a "Top 40s" kinda guy and I've played DDR quite a bit, so I went with the game that had the music style I was used to ( and also considering that I've heard quite a bit of Eurobeat, which DM also has ).
The one thing that was always fun about DC was the "freestyle" section where it shows you as this sort of glowing silhouette and you just do whatever dance you want. At the end, it will play this back to you in a sort of time-lapse video (which you can then save).
To talk about a different game, I noticed some problem with jumping in Kinect... mostly in the rail-based obstacle course. Maybe I was just doing little hops and Kinect didn't register it... maybe it was a problem with the cargo pants (khaki color, so they're fairly flesh-toned) that I was wearing. It was pretty crazy though... at one point I had to duck down, so I dropped to my knees and then needed to switch sides, so I pulled out the Starfox-esque barrel roll! Kinect did actually sense that correctly.
The one thing I did notice is that it is *very* common in Kinect Adventures for it to yell at me about getting too close or too far... especially in the bubble popping mini-game.
Brian Klug - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
I haven't checked out Dance Masters, but I'm starting to think that I definitely should. I think at the time when I originally put together this list of games, that wasn't available and I overlooked it. I'll grab it and maybe update with a page or two.It's interesting how dancing games are quickly becoming something Kinect is very well suited for. I definitely agree about jumping and the clothing choice, I have a pair of cargo shorts that just don't work with most of the titles, and Kinect Adventures does yell a lot about position, agreed.
-Brian
GSJ - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
If only i could use this with my p.c.....ExarKun333 - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
I purchased the Kinect soon after the launch and I came to pretty much the same conclusions are Brian. The lag is there, but acceptable. More importantly, the games are FUN. MS did a great job with this launch. The hardware is easy to install and configure, and the games are easy to pick up on. I agreed 100% that the menus in DC are superior to the method in the Dashboard. Maybe an update at some time? :)knowom - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
267ms on a DAW would be completely unthinkable in fact most people that play or record music try to stay below 10ms.I'm just using that example as a clear easy to demonstrate reason to why 267ms is a abysmal amount of input lag you can completely rule out music based kinect games as well as any twitch/quick reflex input games or applications.
SodaAnt - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
In the comment about the laser probably being 650-700 nm, that is wrong. 650nm is the wavelength of a normal red laser pointer. Normal IR diodes lase at either 780, 808 or 980nm.Brian Klug - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Hmm it's on the fringes of what I'd consider visible, but 780 probably is a much better choice. I'll update.-Brian
mcnabney - Thursday, December 9, 2010 - link
Okay, I am probably the only prig to bring this up, but the distances required seem to be a problem for some not often thought of reasons.9-12 feet of clearance appears to be required, which means the sofa will need to be 15' back (unless you move it every time you fire up the Kinnect).
I would point out that you would need to have a 55"+ HDTV to fully benefit from the 1080p image from the Kinnect playing area, For regular game playing / movie watching on the sofa (behind the playing area) you would require a 100"!!!!! screen to fully resolve the 1080p image that the Xbox360 or a BluRay player is capable of displaying.
For this thing to really work in a robust media environment (and most living rooms) it should have been able to to work perfectly with the user standing 3-5' from the screen.