Friday, February 25, 2011

Bust A Move With Kinect


The focus of my affection in December was my XBOX 360. I actually just got it in December which was a huge improvement from my regular XBOX. As you may or may not know, Microsoft rolled out the Kinect in November.

The Kinect is technically a peripheral that connects to the 360. There's a lot of comparisons flying around between the Kinect, the Wii, Motion Eye, and the Move which Playstation rolled out in the winter, as well.

To break it down, the Wii was ahead of it's time and revolutionized gaming. Different companies have tried to expand motion control over the past few years but nothing has found mainstream success. Kinect scans your body, no controller necessary. This makes it more interactive than the Wii because you can use (and score points) using your legs. Move uses a camera and a controller to track your movements which gets points for extra tracking, but then you are bogged down with buying extra controllers and by holding the controllers. To me, Kinect is a very natural process, it seems to recognize my movements and I can focus my uncoordinated body on the screen.

The biggest complaint by far is the playing field involved. I have this set up in my bedroom and I have about 7 feet inbetween the bed and TV and it was barely enough room to play. If you want to have 2 players then you need an even larger space. I raised the Kinect above the TV and that seems to have given me about an extra foot.

I love playing this thing and yes I do get winded. Kinect comes with Kinect Adventures which allows you to play a few mini games which are interersting. One thing I didn't mention about Kinect earlier is that the camera senses your position in the room so activities such as the bubble popping game allow you to move forward and backwards which is pretty incredible.

There are other games coming, of course with motion based gaming the fitness and sports games come first. There is a Women/Men's Health game called Your Shape Evolved, there's a Biggest Loser game, and there's an EA Sports game amongst many other games that don't have high ratings online. The game that's probably gotten the most buzz is Dance Central which I haven't played but I hear is incredible. There will probably be other games coming out that aren't fitness oriented but for now that's what's on the line up.

I had a friend in high school that would play Dance Dance Revolution as her exercise. While using these products for weight loss as your sole source of exercise may not get you far, they are fun ways to break up your day and are a great solution for people in a rut or stuck inside because of the weather. If you can motivate yourself to turn on the TV and do the programs then it will get you sweating and maybe even possibly sore.

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