Kinect Sports (Preview)

Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Microsoft Games Studios
Release: November 2010

With the release of Kinect for 360 looming, the team at Gamepocalypse sat down with Rare to find out a little more about their launch title Kinect Sports. Available in the demo we played were 100 metre dash; bowling; and javelin; and we were treated to video footage of football, which is presumably in an earlier phase of development.

The first thing you notice about Kinect is the sheer level of control that it allows over your character. In bowling, the player can select a ball with their left or right hand, and we were able to add spin, throw overhead, or merely marvel that when we moved our legs, the avatar moved too.

Although at first glance, Kinect may appear like an attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Wii, as soon as you play it you will see the difference. Where Wii Sports was fun between friends, Kinect Sports is genuinely challenging. The 100 metre dash left us out of breath, and gave me more of a workout than Wii Fit ever has.

Obviously, it’s still early days, and only time will tell if Kinect will become the 32x of the generation as some fear, but this is definitely an encouraging start.