E3 2010: Microsoft Kinect Hands On Impressions

This year at E3 all three major console makers had unique showings, Sony had Move and 3D, Nintendo had 3D handhelds, and Microsoft had Kinect. While the line was really long to get our hands on with the first party titles, we didn’t run into the same waits at the third party booths where we had plenty of time to spend time with not only some great games, but spend time with Kinect.

Our game of choice to give Kinect a solid run through was Ubisoft’s MotionSports. When the game releases later this year alongside Kinect gamers will be able to jump into 6 sports games, Skiing, Football, Hang Gliding, Soccer, Volleyball, and Boxing.

We had a chance to try out Skiing and Football, while both were rather simple concepts they were fun and easy to play without a controller. For skiing you pretty much do what you would be doing if you were on a real slope. Stick your imaginary poles into the snow to get started, and then lean from left to right to steer between the gates. To gain more speed you crouch down. The control was surprisingly sensitive, and I never felt like my virtual skier was doing something I wasn’t.

Football was a bit simpler yet still required you to time your moves. As your virtual footballer runs down the field you need to juke, stiff arm, spin, jump, and duck oncoming defenders. While the timing was a bit odd, this was an arcade based game. Again the Kinect was able to easily turn what I was doing into the game. While football was no where as fun as skiing it’s still a game that will fit great into a gaming night with friends.

Overall I was really surprised with the easy of use, and the responsiveness of Kinect and Ubisoft’s Motion Sports. While the device is still only going to appeal to a niche crowd, it is a solid device and will offer a wide range of gamers lots of fun.

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