- Nov 10, 2003
- 8,891
- Admin
- #1
What are your guys thoughts about Kinect? Are you thinking about getting it? If it really is $150, then that is pretty steep and might be way too high for me to justify it without some killer software for it.
Here's some reviews from people at E3:
Gaming is already sort of a weird cult. But Microsoft took things to a distinctly creepy new place at the reveal of its new Kinect motion control system at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. The much-hyped event was conceptualized and produced by Cirque du Soleil, and the troupe's whimsical granola aesthetic was in heavy play.
Walking through the doors to the sounds of tribal drumming, attendees were sent first to a row of tables, where Microsoft representatives handed them white satin smocks, complete with ballooning shoulder pads. The unquestioning invitees donned them and were ushered two-by-two down a black-curtained hallway, where more oddness awaited.
At the end of the hall, a low, wide-screen television-shaped hole was cut into a wall. Behind it, a gleaming nuclear family sat in a perfect living room, inviting us inside. I acquiesced, but not without some hesitation. The whitebread parents were creepy enough, but it was the two children that set my teeth on edge. They waved at me, all smiles, beckoning me in. What must they be thinking? I stepped through, my cultist white robe catching on the wooden frame of the Fourth Wall as I did. And then things started to get really weird.
Imagine a giant, darkened basketball stadium with robed figures filling the floor and seats. It looks like a staging area for extras in a Star Trek episode. Now suspend a leopard-print couch from the ceiling, and perch a family of three on it. Opposite them, a shirtless man in a loincloth sits atop a faux boulder while elven wood nymph types frolic at the edges. Green gauze, piles of plants and giant (and I mean giant) media screens line the perimeter. It's as if the people who design Rainforest Cafes got incredibly high together and decided to spend $1 million.
Speaking of enormous sums of money, let me back up. Microsoft has been hyping its new controller-free gaming initiative since the last Electronic Entertainment Expo. Since then, it's gone under the name Project Natal. And it was supposed to stay that way until this evening's E3 2010 reveal, where we would learn the finished product's new lineup (and hopefully a bit more about it). But thanks to an early slip in USA Today's online version, the name Kinect and a list of games was released in advance. Not a huge deal in the overall scheme, but the leak did take some of the wind out of Microsoft's white satin sails. When the name 'Kinect' finally materialized on an enormous vertical projection screen in the middle of the event, it served more as a period than an exclamation point for the audience, most of whom had already read about the new name on the iPhones they were asked not to bring to the event.
To be clear, the Kinect unveiling was not designed for super-gamers, most of whom still greet the idea of controller-less gaming with a skeptical narrowing of the eyes. It was, in a way, the anti-console launch. With its purposeful lack of detail and obtuse artistic posturing, it pushed aside most expectations of an E3 product unveiling. There were no speeches, no executives, no price points, no release dates. There weren't even any developer names or game titles mentioned. Instead of retail porn, attendees were bathed in image and metaphor.
What if humans regained their rightful places at the center of the technology experience? What if interactive entertainment took an evolutionary leap past controllers and other handheld devices? What if a young boy rode a multimedia elephant and climbed inside of a rotating living room full of multiple fun-filled families? Excellent questions, all.
Kinect was, of course offered up as the answer to all of the above, and the latter half of the event featured lengthy demos of several upcoming games for the system. The usual suspects appeared – kart racer, family sports medley, fitness program, virtual pet, etc. Some, like the endearing Kinectimals and a clever looking Star Wars game, seemed fresh and interesting. Others fell squarely into the inoffensive family fare category. Safe and likely fun, but not extraordinary.
Unlike most gaming events, the Kinect reveal was distinctly calm and atmospheric. It was less about providing information and more about, you know, standing around and doing whatever. Living in Seattle, I frequently see shirtless, dreadlocked hippie guys hanging out in parks. I often wonder, what do these guys grow up and do for a living? There are only so many organic grocery store jobs, after all. But now I know. They move to Montreal, join Cirque Du Soleil, dance around in unitards, and eventually try to sell me gaming peripherals. Small world.
My moment of zen came not as the burlapped elf men playfully dangled tin cans from sticks or when the show-closing music swelled as images of Xbox Live Avatars flew against a starry sky. For me, the highlight of the evening was watching Ninja Gaiden creator Tomonobu Itagaki walk into the event in his white robe, taking in the scene behind his traditional sunglasses. He looked around a few times, stood quietly for a few moments and then turned around and left.
Having just returned from the Microsoft world premiere event showing off the newly named Kinect camera for Xbox 360 (formerly known as Project Natal), we're left with a burning question. The games demoed at the event ran the gamut from driving a car to driving a boat to driving a mine cart -- all with graphics that would make a Nintendo Wii blush -- and cool hardware aside, who's going to want to play these games?
... However, as impressive as the event itself was, the first round of Kinect games demoed seemed, well, exactly like first-generation games.
... But after all those game presentations, we're struck by how similar they are to games we've already seem for platforms including the PlayStation EyeToy (which originated on the PS2 in 2004) and Nintendo Wii. The EyeToy is a particularly apt comparison as it also used only hand and body movements, not a control stick like the Wii or upcoming PlayStation Move.
Like the software titles for the EyeToy (and actually a good deal of Wii software as well), these are all good proof-of-concept demonstrations, but they rarely translate into compelling gameplay, or the type of retail software you'd want to purchase and play. With the advanced nature of sophisticated games such as Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption, or even ModNation Racers, does adding a new hardware interface mean the games themselves have to take a five-year step back?
... At the very least, even if the initial run of Kinect games seem overly derivative and more like tech demos than anything else, Microsoft knows the golden rule of appealing to a room full of jaded 20 and 30-something gamers. When in doubt, cut to Darth Vader.
CNET
Dean: There has to be something about kicking off one of the most anticipated E3 shows in recent memory and the pressure it must have on a company such as Microsoft. When Project Natal was first unveiled, it was a thing of mystery—nay, wonder. It was something I wanted to try, and it made me think about what it was to play a video game. I can safely say that after tonight, all those hopes and wonders were nullified.
When I heard Microsoft was doing a dedicated event for Natal, I figured they had something worth showing. Instead we got an entirely scripted evening of families playing party games that have little to no appeal due to their extremely derivative nature. Nothing about Natal's offering seemed genuine or original, particularly when the scripting went so wrong. Absolutely nothing shown was in real-time, and when they attempted to mimic what was happening on screen, it had all the believability of twins trying to match each others' movements in a mirror.
Couple the above with canned applause put over the speaker system to make it seem like people were genuinely impressed by the creepy avatars playing a Wii Sports knock off, and you've got yourself a pretty decent picture of what happened tonight. Everyone seemed bummed about the entire thing, and I am too.
I have one thing to say to you, Microsoft: you had better hope you can turn this **** around; you've hyped this thing up so much and it fell horribly flat tonight. I can't imagine anyone was happy with what they saw, and I have a hard time believing you're truly happy too. Hopefully E3 can only go up from here.
Amber: After an hour and a half of standing in line followed by another hour of sitting and waiting, Natal needed to be hella impressive to make up for my aching feet and back. Starting the "Natal Experience" by dressing me in a white sheet so I could participate in their Xbox light show didn't sweeten my mood. You'll have to forgive me, I'm running short on sleep here so I may struggle to be coherent but I think I can sum up my experience in a single word: bull****.
The show lasted over an hour but honestly, I couldn't tell you much about Natal because everything we saw was scripted. It was around ninety minutes of window dressing and high concept demoing writ large in deafening music, giant screens, and performers whose movements were mimicked twitchily by their digital doppelgangers. At least that was the impression the performance was supposed to convey. The games we saw looked like Microsoft branded Wii Sports with a splash of Mario Kart, except instead of waggle you flail at the air. I wasn't exactly impressed. Well, at least I got a plush tiger out of it. Oh yeah, and the fake elephant was cool.
Matt: We were promised an experience, and we got one, all right. It seemed fairly promising when we were still waiting outside the Galen for our chance to file in, but when they filed us through a TV-shaped hole into a living room with actors playing a family and ordered us to put on the Cult of Kinect robes—robes whose significance really sank in when the giant Xbox logo lit up and the LEDs sewn into the shoulder pads glowed green in kind—I knew something was horribly wrong.
Eventually, though, I just had to laugh. Between the glitchy Avatar reels running before the show and the obvious sync problems with the scripted videos, there was just so much B-grade cheese going on that I found I was really enjoying myself. Every now and again I'd catch a glimpse of a little game or application on the reels that seemed kind of interesting, but then they'd turn around and smother it with overlong, overproduced presentations or something just plain weird. I expect that when I look at the little stuffed leopard cub they gave me on the way out, I'll have plenty memories of hilarity to look back on. Natal—excuse me, "KINECT"—may not fare nearly so well. I wonder how the public will react when they get to see this insanity tomorrow?
