Microsoft Kinect: The AnandTech Review
by Brian Klug on December 9, 2010 3:20 PM ESTKinect Adventures
The title that ships with Kinect really has to be awesome, and luckily Kinect Adventures is pretty much exactly what I’d expect it to be. It’s sort of a bundle of simple games that lend themselves to full body control, and the whole collection is packaged up almost like a tour of various minigames.
Most of the minigames have already been shown off, but there are a bunch more to talk about. Blocking and bouncing kickballs in a virtual tunnel of sorts, an obstacle course with full body movements, water rafting, and another which involves plugging leaks in a virtual aquarium. They’re bundled together either in an adventure mode or through free play, and can have single player or two-player support.
If Kinect Adventures is analogous to Wii Sports, (in that it ships with the platform and establishes the baseline level of expectations for immersion), then the bar is set pretty high. Adventures leverages the depth sensor and full body tracking quite well, and all of the minigames require a lot of movement.
Adventures also leverages the color camera and takes pictures of you while you’re playing. Most of the time the photo events are marked with a camera coming up on screen and are carefully placed to coincide with some jump or large movement, and the results are generally pretty hilarious. Again here the color camera seems a bit noisier and lower resolution than what I’d consider ideal, and if you’re playing in low light you can turn into a smear if Kinect tries to take a photo of you while jumping. Provide lots of ambient light, however, and the results are pretty good. I’m a bit puzzled by why they seem to be smashed into the wrong aspect ratio when played back at the end of the game (sure, they’re supposed to look like Polaroid photos, but aspect-incorrect scaling is annoying), but the photos themselves are fine. You can then upload these to kinectshare.com and from there download directly or post to Facebook if you want to embarrass yourself. There isn’t any auto-upload functionality (thankfully) so you don’t have to really worry about photos of yourself playing in nothing but underwear uploading automatically.
In fact, basically all the media that’s recorded on Kinect (there are also videos recorded in several other applications, and videos encoded from motion capture) is cleared through kinectshare.com. I guess while we’re on the subject of motion-capture and media that’s uploaded we can talk about Kinect Adventures’ trophy concept.
Complete enough adventures, and you’ll get to record a trophy. This is essentially full body motion capture and audio, which some avatar is then set to. There’s a hamster looking creature for single player, and a shark for 2 player - I’m sure there are more beyond there that I haven’t gotten to as well. The concept and result are actually remarkably polished. You can then upload the resulting video to Kinect Share where it remains (like all media) for 14 days for you to download.
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Aloonatic - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I come from the UK, where we have very expensive homes that somehow still have average room sizes that are so small that Guantánamo Bay residents would think that their lodgings were spacious loft apartments in comparison, so I was wandering if anyone has tried tinkering with the placement of Kinect?As every inch counts (no sniggering at the back) has anyone tried placing this on a wall mounting above and behind a TV? I'm guessing that there might be issues with the TV itself obscuring the device's field of view, but it might just work if moved high enough?
Love the idea of Kinect, and could just about find the space as recommended on the box, but I am not sure that I have the room that Anand recommends. :(
Oh, and will Kinect be used on the next generation xBox too? Might have to wait for Kinect 2, which will hopefully work in smaller rooms, if there ever is such a device.
DesktopMan - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Original release Wiimote only had a 3-axis accelerometer. Motion plus didn't add a three-axis gyro until 2009. Even calling it six-axis with the gyro is stretching the definition of six-axis as it can't detect motion with constant speed unless the IR camera is pointing towards the motion bar. (Same is true for the PS3 "6-axis" controller of course. It's not six axis, it's 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyro.)DesktopMan - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Motion bar should of course have been sensor bar. Why is there no edit button ;)gvaley - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
There are all in all 3 (three) axes in a three dimensional world and this is exactly what we are existing in. Everything else is marketing nonsense.DesktopMan - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Quite. Though this is what they're actually somewhat referring to:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_freedo...
But neither wiimote with motion plus nor ps3 6-axis actually allows you to track all types of motion in 3 dimensions. So it's false either way :)
gvaley - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Imagine if marketers actually respected the principals of the language, "do not use a random expression in lieu of another expression just because it's shorter" for one. "Degrees of freedom" is quite different from "axes." All robots boo.landerf - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
Is the lag due to processing or camera frame rate? As i understand it the 360 does the processing with a cap of 10% cpu usage. So I'd then assume on the pc it could have better response time. Also can it be powered by usb 3 and or 2 on the pc? Without the need for the power plug.brundleflyguy - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
I notice in the review it says "On the other hand, there's no possible way that Kinect would ever work in the average dorm room - you really do need 9' - 12' behind the TV to play with two people." Do you mean "in front of the TV"?I'm wondering because I'm using a projector. The projector is about five feet behind me on the ceiling, and the Xbox would be about four feet behind me. The wall on which I projected is about 10 feet in front of me. Would this setup work for the Kinect?
Thanks,
Jim
Gonemad - 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.Those applications that take a picture of your face would be taking a picture of your... haircut?
Good point! Inquiring minds...
Now, from what I could understand... Kinect will fit right in places that have pool tables, basketball courts, large mess halls... places with plenty of room. My condo has a gym, it wouldn't be misplaced there. So much for enjoying private gaming at home. This thing would fit right in old style arcades!
On another note, kids jumping in apartments... think about that.
Well, the Wii had lanyards, to prevent damage to your TV. Can you attach lanyards to your limbs?
Trolling possibilities / funny ideas:
1- Your pedantic little brother rushes behind you, just to throw Kinetic off.
2- Your mom learns learns how to shutdown your Xbox by talking to it, if she ever reads this article.
3- Trash talking... with your hips. Girls know that pretty well. Do the chicken dance!
4- Not only air guitar and air drums... air orchestra. Air violin. FTW.
Scary thoughts:
1a. Hackers find a way into Kinect and can record you at home.
1b. You hack into your own Kinect and turn it into a full fledged PTZ surveillance camera.
1c. You find out that you can build your own Kinect with industrial cameras, and it will work 20 times better... at 200 times the cost.
1d. You find out that you can use Kinect outside a Xbox360, cutting costs in special cameras for industrial inspection (that cost above $20k easily).
1e. You find out you could have done everything Kinect does with a regular webcam, and a range finder pulled from a parking sensor, costing you just 10 bucks.
1f. Fighting games? Judo? Karate? Jiu-Jitsu? Tae-kwon-do? Be sure your boots are strapped tight. Roundhouse-kick your sofa's gotta hurt. Street Fighter 7?
SlyNine - Friday, December 10, 2010 - link
"Your pedantic little brother " are you sure you know what that word means ? Seems to me little brothers would be less then pedantic, unless your little brother is an egg head.