Kinecting

I haven't really been keeping up with computer or video game technology, which is a little surprising since I used to be an avid gamer.  However, my tastes have strongly turned towards analog (board) games recently and I have dropped out of the most recent generation of console games.  I do have a Wii, but that was more for casual gaming and we haven't even turned it on for several months.

Anyway, this weekend we went up to Connecticut to visit my cousin's family.  It turns out that they had one of the new-fangled Kinect systems for the Xbox 360 so we tried it out.  I have to admit that I was pretty impressed---it's some slick technology.  I hadn't really heard anything about it beforehand, so it was basically new to me.  Unlike the Wii, the Kinect does not use any motion sensitive controllers that you have to attach to various parts of your body.  Instead, a sensor bar projects an array of infrared light at you which is then captured and mapped using a 3d detector.  Essentially, it's a full body motion detector, no controller needed.

This leads to some pretty neat effects.  For example, you just have to wave to push and pull different menus across the screen---very Minority Report-esque.   We tried out the Adventures game that places you as an explorer in various mini -ames.  The most fun one was an on-rails obstacle course where you're essentially on a moving platform having to jump or duck around obstacles while grabbing at coins.  We also tried the Dance Central game which was surprisingly fun.  It's the next iteration of the Dance Dance Revolution genre, except now the game tracks your entire movement against the set choreography.  The games were also surprisingly exhausting---it's a pretty good workout and you burn quite a bit of calories, certainly more than the Wii.  In fact, the next day we were sore all over.

However, there are some downsides to the system.  We tried the Sports game, but most of the games were hit or miss.  This is mostly because the Kinect system just doesn't seem to have a very high resolution or precision.  It was hard to have fine control your ball when bowling, for example.  The technology is a pretty big step forward, but I think that at this point it's a technology waiting for a great game.  It works well with games requiring exaggerated bodily movements like dancing or jumping obstacles, but it doesn't seem to work that well with games requiring fine control (although to be fair, I think you can train the Kinect to recognize you in more detail, but we didn't do that).  This is one area where the Wii does better, although it's one area where the Wii has inexplicably not taken advantage of.  The Wii technology can result it some highly accurate pointing and this has translated to some amazing shooter games like Resident Evil 4.  In fact, I refuse to play most console shooter games since I'm a dyed in the wool mouse/keyboard man from my old Quake days, but the Wii is one exception although sadly there just haven't been that many games taking advantage of it.

Still, I think this is an example of how when they put their minds to it, Microsoft can really turn out some slick technology and push the market.  It's just a shame that they don't do it more often.