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Words can not describe how myself, Colin and Tim felt when we had our first go with Kinect at this years Eurogamer Expo. Our hands were sweaty with excitement as we made our way over to the Kinect booths. As we walk slowly we start to see what games they had on offer. While we wait for our turn we watched other people playing and disappointment started to seep in. We then stepped in front of Kinect and played motion controlling gaming for the first time. We walked away from playing with nothing but bad things to say about Kinect. And I promise this is nearly how it went except maybe not as much drama. After seeing Kinect in action I was the only person in the 16bits team to keep my pre-order and wait and see what the final product was like.

Kinect was a disappointment at Eurogamer Expo and left us all with sour mouths. After we all got PS Move and experienced such accuracy and control it didn’t look like there was any hope left for Kinect.
1 Day before Kinect was launched in the UK and the post has just arrived through the door. “Dance Central” was among the post which arrived today, excited about Kinect (even after Eurogamer) I tweeted this message:

The sound you hear when your tweet is uploaded was interrupted by a knock on the door, a man stood outside my door holding quite a big box and asked for my signature. I scribbled something in his machine and took the box into my living room and started to wonder if this could be Kinect (After being told my Kinect was being dispatched that day). To my luck Kinect had arrived but it wasn’t until that night I got the chance to try it out.

Now I’m sure you’re all waiting for the big question, Is Kinect any good? And in 2 words “It’s Amazing!” I am not going to go into too much detail about the different games as reviews for them will be up shortly but i will tell you want to expect.

After playing Kinect at Eurogamer the biggest downfall of it was the lag and it wasn’t lag you just forgot about. With games getting quicker and fast paced the last thing you want is a device which cannot read your body quick enough especially if you’re trying to play table tennis. Now whether Kinect was having issues seeing the players at Eurogamer (It was pretty dark) or we were using a early on version of the game I don’t know, but it was nearly impossible to duck out the way of obstacles while playing Kinect Adventures or turn a corner in Joyride. Now I’m not saying there isn’t any lag with Kinect at the moment as there’s is a slight delay but it doesn’t hinder you while you play now, I doubt your’ll even see it. With a developer announcing they have already got Kinect working with no lag who knows what we’ll see in the future.

Most of the games which are available for Kinect at the moment are very party/family or fitness games, there isn’t any FPS or epic RPG’s just yet. But some of the games which are out now are a lot of fun and perfect for the family at Christmas time.

The best thing about Kinect though is you don’t get just a new way to control games, you actually get a new way to control your Xbox 360. No longer do you need to fumble around to find you’re remote to control a video, you can just say “Xbox Pause” (which is so cool). If someone else in your house wants to sign in to check there friends list then they can just wave at Kinect and it can tell who they are (Once Kinect ID is set up) and log them in. Also how many times have you had to find batteries for your spare controller, well you’ll no longer have to worry about that either.

Kinect isn’t just a new controller for games but new way to control your Xbox 360. Not everything yet can be controller/viewed using Kinect so don’t throw away your controller just yet but give it a little bit more time and I am sure the rest will fall into play over the coming months.

Overall Kinect is a fantastic even if it does feel a little but playing with no controller. There aren’t many games for the hardcore fan but with news of them being in the pipeline who knows we might even see Gears of War Kinect style. With thoughts of doubt at the beginning I’m glad Microsoft pulled it out of the bag just in time for release. The only thing Kinect is missing at this time is the library of games for all gamers but that will come just give it time.

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