A Dad’s Eye View of Kinect
This is a timelapse of the first one hour and thirty-nine minutes of the life of my Xbox 360 Kinect system.
I am not a hardcore gamer. In fact, I haven’t owned a video game console in over ten years. As a dad of two young kids (6 and 4.5), I haven’t had the time or the inspiration to dive into some of the newer gaming systems. I goofed around with my brother-in-law’s Wii, but my youngest was too young to have a video game system be part of our entertainment diet.
So, when the Kinect hit the market, I was curious, but skeptical. Generally speaking, the greater the hype, the bigger the letdown. And half a billion dollars of marketing dollars buys you a lot of hype. So, I bought the Kinect and Xbox 360 with quite a bit of trepidation.
But after our first test drive with the system, we’re pretty blown away. My first video game system was an Atari. My kid’s is the Kinect – a system that recognizes movement and voice. It’s exciting to see what is going to happen with gaming in the years to come.
The Set Up: From package to play was only 27 minutes and that was with lots of questions and distractions from the kids and signing up for Xbox live. (And I’m still not happy with my Gamertag and Avatar.) We played Kinect Adventures, Kinectimals, and Kinect Sports.
The Kids: Both my kids are entranced by the system. My six-year-old had an easier time figuring out how to navigate the controls with her body. My 4.5 year-old had a blast, but was also easily frustrated when it didn’t react the way he expected it to to his flailing arms.
Dad: After the kids went to sleep, I spent another hour exploring Kinect Sports. I got a bit overly competitive with the AI (the computer) in table tennis and volleyball and have a sore shoulder to show for it. I loved the option of saving your game “highlights” (the view from the Kinect camera) to Kinectshare. But they should let you embed these videos. If so, you could have been treated to some serious Kinect table tennis action.
Mom: Mom had a good time playing table tennis and watching me make an idiot out of myself with the javelin toss. Let’s just say, its a good thing that we’re past the dating stage.
The Games (so far):
Kinect Adventures: This was a fun one and easy to get a couple of players involved immediately into the game play. I spent the least amount of time playing this game, so are planning on diving in more for our next rainy day session.
Kinectimals: This is basically an interactive story punctuated by some fun, full-bodied gaming action. The animals are amazingly cute and life-like. At one point, when our cheetah cub breathed and caused some “fogginess” on the glass, my daughter asked why the TV was wet.
Kinect Sports: The kids seemed to like speed bowl, which offered just enough instant gratification and results to keep them sending balls down the lane. All of the sports had some kind of unique movement associated with the sport that kept my moving, jumping, throwing, and running in place enough to break a sweat.
The long and the short: If you are really hardcore about gaming, it seems like the catalog for the Kinect isn’t quite there yet. It will be interesting to see the more adult oriented titles that are released in the coming months. I’m hearing interesting things about the Star Wars game. It’s an amazing starter system for a a first-time gaming family and would be a worthwhile upgrade to anyone who already has the Wii (Sorry, Nintendo). Looking forward to seeing all the hacks and new inventive games that fully leverage this incredible new sensor.
