Kinect, who has it, used it, thoughts?

[Llama Juice]

So, my roommate's dad got the kinect (he works for M$, helped design the Kinect or something, so he got one for free with a special box and stuff, it's pretty neat :P) and let my roommate play with it for a while.

AKA it's hooked up to my 360 right now and I've been toying with it for a while.

I was wondering if any of you guys have played with it yet and what your thoughts are on it. Which games have you played and such?

I seriously just spent the last few hours playing Kinectimals, and when I started playing it I decided right then that I was just going to go along with the game, do whatever it told me to do and play along. I was going to try to keep a positive attitude through it, and not hate on motion control for a change.

Like I said, I spent the last few hours playing, so honestly I enjoyed myself quite a bit with it haha.

All OMG CUTE TIGER CUBS aside, the game was rather responsive, only failing at motion stuff very few times throughout the time I spent on it. The mini games in it (although very simple) were fun, and the pacing of the game was spot on.

I went into the game thinking it was just a play with a virtual pet game.... which.. in all honesty it is... but they have a point to it. You have to earn points by playing with your pet to unlock other areas to go to. These areas usually are "contests" where you have to do some sort of mini game type thing (racing an RC car, tossing stuff at things to knock it over, kicking soccer balls at targets, obstacle course run) and they score you. You have 3 different scores to shoot for (bronze, silver, gold) and these goals award you with more points to help you move on to the other games and such (AKA if you just get bronze then you'll have to go play with your pet for a while and just do random little tasks with it to make it happy and get points)

Overall the game is a neat game. I wouldn't ever actually buy it, but it's definitely a neat game and I'm glad I got to try it.

[iizahsum]

Did you name your tiger skittles?

I've yet to play with one, but I do want to.

[MXC]

Did you name your tiger skittles?

I've yet to play with one, but I do want to.

Pffft.

Named mine Reese's Pieces.

[Dwood]

At minimum, I want to try it. No TV in my dorm to play with. Computer does just fine for gaming needs.

[Llama Juice]

You'll need a massive TV to play Kinect with, as you NEED to stand like 6 feet away from the sensor to use it.

I named my tiger Bullet. It was a Royal Bengal tiger.

I used to have a Bengal cat, named bullet.

It died after eating the head off of my mom's bird.

E: What's funny though is at the top of all the leaderboards is "Skittles".

[p0lar_bear]

I like the technology behind it, and it IS very responsive and accurate (my uncle bought one for himself). However, I'm unsure from my point of view if this will catch and stay, or if it'll become the next HD-DVD player. I can't see anything besides these party games and fitness "games" coming out for it, but I'm not the most imaginative person I know, and the whole aspect of interacting with nothing tangible is awkward... at least the Wii Remote and Sony Move have a physical object that can give you something to touch with some sort of force feedback on it.

[BobtheGreatII]

I played with one with a group of friends. It was a lot of fun actually. I mean... I think it's going to be really neat for some better games. If they actually come out with them.

[Kornman00]

Finally, I've been waiting for a thread like this to post a link to this: http://kotaku.com/5687002/victor-declared-in-hack+kinect-bounty-hunt. In case some of you didn't hear, there was a bounty for anyone (including MS) to create a open source drivers for Kinect. This is it. I've looked at the code and can't wait for someone to go and clean it up and finish making it feature complete (the latter will probably take a lot longer heh).

[Llama Juice]

Wow, that's rather awesome haha.

Also, that lead me to this.

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That's awesome.

Anyhow, back on topic :P

@Polar... I haven't been much a fan of the Wii because of the weird controls mostly because you're still fairly locked down to what the controllers will let you do. The Kinect still has limitations on it of course, but the fact that... to use their silly catch phrase thing... I was the controller honestly made me feel more immersed in the game. That being said... there were a few instances where I would have liked something to hold onto (holding a "steering wheel" out in front of you wasn't very responsive at all and felt awkward). I could see the skateboarding demo thing working fairly well though... or even some sort of platforming game.

I think a platforming game would be rather badass using this thing honestly. There was an obstacle course thing in Kinectimals that worked rather well and was really fun.... and if it were longer would have actually been a really good cardio workout. I could see a platforming game work rather well.

[Dwood]

Likin' the 3d. Now if the guy had 2 kinects, each in a different direction?

[p0lar_bear]

@Polar... I haven't been much a fan of the Wii because of the weird controls mostly because you're still fairly locked down to what the controllers will let you do. The Kinect still has limitations on it of course, but the fact that... to use their silly catch phrase thing... I was the controller honestly made me feel more immersed in the game. That being said... there were a few instances where I would have liked something to hold onto (holding a "steering wheel" out in front of you wasn't very responsive at all and felt awkward). I could see the skateboarding demo thing working fairly well though... or even some sort of platforming game.

I think a platforming game would be rather badass using this thing honestly. There was an obstacle course thing in Kinectimals that worked rather well and was really fun.... and if it were longer would have actually been a really good cardio workout. I could see a platforming game work rather well.

I was talking to jcap about this not too long ago, and the conclusion I drew was, I'd like to see the bastard child of Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect. Each one has something about it that can kill immersion; in Kinect's case, there's no force feedback, and in Move's case, the most it can get is upper-body recognition via the wands and facial recognition.

Also, what could possibly kill this in my eyes is, as far as I can conceptualize, the controls are binary: either you can use just the Kinect, or you can use just a controller. Factor in the fact that Kinect ain't exactly cheap, and you've got a divided userbase. Unlike most new peripherals that can enhance traditional gameplay if you have it (hell, Guitar Hero was playable with DualShock and 360 controllers, and by the time Rock Band came out and forced people to use instrument controllers, most people had guitar controllers), it's either Kinect or bust for Kinect games.

[Llama Juice]

So you'd rather have Kinect games that can also use a controller?

Makes me think of DDR Extreme 2 for the PS2, Dance mat + eye toy mode. *shudders*

Would you rather them release some sort of small controller similar to the PS Move or Wii controller?

I see the kinect succeeding through tons of venues... devs can easily use stuff like the XBLA to create kinect games as a type of prototyping and such... or even just in their full retail games they could include a few "Kinect Enabled" mini games or something.

I guess the real questions is, do you see the GAMES being unsuccessful, or the HARDWARE being unsuccessful?

Anyhow, I was playing Kinect Adventures earlier (Which is the game that's bundled in with the system) and had a great time with it. The game is one hell of a workout. I was sweating all over the place and was getting into it :P

Kinect Adventures likes to take pictures of you.
Lots and lots of pictures.

Here's a small progression of my experience.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1126.snc4/148851_459037032335_503932335_5892981_8133325_n.jp g

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1173.snc4/154571_459036812335_503932335_5892972_5299443_n.jp g

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs604.ash2/155615_459036882335_503932335_5892975_7842054_n.jp g

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs975.snc4/76855_459036972335_503932335_5892978_566544_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1201.snc4/155302_459036992335_503932335_5892979_6823306_n.jp g

[p0lar_bear]

Software failure, mainly. The hardware has great potential. However, I don't have very much faith as far as implementation of innovation. New concepts today are very risky in an age of more established IPs and standards than you can shake a stick at; everyone has something to run and cower to in the face of something new and scary (and I will admit I'm no exception to that). There SHOULD be a few titles that are "Kinect-enabled" to ease-in people who aren't sold on it, that, like I said, are fully playable with a traditional controller, but to get the full experience, buy the Kinect (again, much like Guitar Hero 1-3).

[Llama Juice]

xuYWLYjOa_0

There's a lot of hype about this game on another forum I go to and I thought it was interesting just in terms of our discussion. It's a Rez style shooter game thing (made by the same guy as Rez I guess) and it's controller or kinect enabled.

The thing with something like this.. is that nearly everything is a form of innovation if they're using Kinect really. I mean, I'm not expecting anything too crazy or wild, but I am expecting a pile of good casual games for the system.

[Warsaw]

I could see Kinect taking off with serious games by having peripherals with IR tags that it would pick up, thus granting more accurate motion recording.

For example, we say we have a shooter. Now, it could simply detect you holding your arms up as if you were holding a rifle, but what if they had a gun peripheral which both A.) provides tactile feed back in the form of a rumble, a trigger, and something to grip, and B.) gives Kinect something to pick up on to generate the accuracy required for a game such as a shooter.

I mean, yes it almost defeats the entire purpose of Kinect, but the accessories are only there to enhance and titles would still technically be playable without the accessories. All the controls are still actuated by Kinect detecting your motion and the position of the tags relative to you (can it detect movement of individual finges?).

E: @trailer: that game would be amazing with both 3D and Kinect. I'd buy it.

[Llama Juice]

I don't think it can detect fingers, you see how low resolution the images are that it takes. I dunno if that's the actual res of the camera, but I don't see it being much higher res than that.

I mention that because fingers are small, and since it's a camera it could only see one finger if your hand is flat, parallel to the ground.... so it wouldn't know where the others are. It has problems if your arms cross over each other. It also relies heavily on the depth cameras to separate you from the rest of your room so it can get a good silhouette of you to throw a skeleton on.

[CabooseJr]

I got it yesterday. I threw out my arm while playing table tennis.

[Spartan094]

Kinect is pretty sweet and I enjoy playing it....it's just my parents took over my xbox :ohdear: should have seen this coming.

[Llama Juice]

Tried out the demo for Dance Central and again, enjoyed it. The game is a lot easier to learn than I was expecting, since the only "dancing" games I've played are Dance Maniax and Para Para Paradise (not going to count DDR/ITG/PIU/TM 'cause those are arrow smash games) and both of those games have much more of a learning curve to them.

I can't really say much about the game as it really doesn't have much to it. I mean... you choose what song you wanna do, then you can either launch the "Break it Down" thing to teach you the different moves to the song, or just dive right into the song (and probably fail it haha).

The thing to teach you how to do the moves is pretty slick, and does a good job of actually teaching you the moves. If I actually get a Kinect, this will probably be a purchase for me.

By the way, the Kinect Adventures game has demos for.. Kinect Sports, Dance Central, and Yourself Fitness (or whatever the fitness game is called) on it. When you're on the main menu (before you "start your adventure") go to the bottom left for the demos.

[Llama Juice]

@Polar

8fZJoKRjJBg

I know you wanted the bastard child of PS Move and Kinect, but is a Wiimote + Kinect okay?

[=sw=warlord]

@Polar



I know you wanted the bastard child of PS Move and Kinect, but is a Wiimote + Kinect okay?

you mean this? (http://kotaku.com/5694246/chinese-knock+off-marries-kinect-and-move)

[Delta4907]

KWbLOFGSEDo
This is pretty funny, and sad at the same time, watch the guy.

[Llama Juice]

Haha that's awesome... and sad. Yes.

Anyhow, this Kinect thing is impressing me more and more.

I just played (and lost) a game of table tennis online... and just.. the fact that it does motion capture you and your opponent is really really interesting. To see the avatars do their little taunts and victory dances that you know some nerd across the world is doing in their living room is just fantastic haha.

That was my first online table tennis game... and just.. even without using headsets you can tell what they're implying and such.

I started the match by pointing at the other player and then pointing at the ground and jumping on it. He started laughing and shrugged. Halfway through the game he got an Ace on me and started a little victory dance and... there's just something about it that makes it awesome haha.

I was laughing and smiling the entire time, while losing.... (5-11)

[t3h m00kz]

it's gimmicky and retarded. it's a PS2 eyetoy with fancier games.

Au4d5anfjnA

the menus in the games are fucking painful. after playing Diablo 1 and 2, I feel content in saying Kinect games have terrible UIs.

the hardware is unique enough, I'm looking forward to seeing some homebrew PC games or something, but as far as XBox games so far, I'm not at all impressed.

[Llama Juice]

Have you used it?

I say that because every experience I had with the eyetoy was horrible and didn't work well. Whereas I haven't had any of those problems with the kinect. If you wanna troll and say "OH IT'S THE SAME SHIT" then by that logic The Xbox 360 is just an Xbox with fancier games.

[t3h m00kz]

I tested it for three or four months

Also how is having an opinion in a thread asking people's opinions trolling

[Llama Juice]

Where do you work sir? One of my roommates tested it as well haha. He isn't much a fan of it either.

Also, I was assuming you were trolling because I disagree almost entirely on everything you said, and to say that the device is just a webcam is silly, then again to knock it for having "fancier games" just doesn't make sense considering that it was designed to have "fancier games" so.. it's doing it's job there.

I will agree with you partially on the menu stuff... but at the same time have you played Dance Central? The menu system in that game is awesome. I really liked the way they used the motion stuff to make the menus a lot more fluid and less "okay now hold your arm out for two seconds on this button."

The Kinect Dash is horrible though, not a fan of that thing at all. That menu is clunky and horrible and just bad to use. I pick up a controller if I wanna use the dashboard.

[t3h m00kz]

Tested in a microsoft building in Redmond. Don't know if your friend worked in the same place or not.. Millennium Campus

I've not had the pleasure of playing dance central yet. It does look interesting enough, from what I've seen... though so far the only game I've had any real hands-on with is Kinectimals. Selecting things in the UI is painful.. The UIs need refining, some better way to do things, at least something. I actually think the mo-cap device for the PS3 is doing it right with the whole semi-controller/motion detector thing they've got going on. seems like it'd allow for more movement precision and detection than the kinect could, though who knows, could be a buggy POS

[Llama Juice]

Kinectimals played way better if you just kinda let the game happen to you rather than you trying to force things on the game haha. That being said, I dunno if it'd be really fair to base your opinion of the unit on a game geared for little kids. I enjoyed it, but I tried to avoid the menus as much as I could by just doing whatever the pixie thing or my cat wanted. If you aren't playing with it, it'll bring you a toy and ask if you wanna play. When I actually would be going through menus it wasn't that great of an experience, but I assumed that kind of stuff would just get better over time in these kinect titles.

The dance central menus work where there's a list of stuff on the right for your different game options... so you hold your arm out to the right to hover over whatever option you want (there's no onscreen cursor) and when the one you want lights up, you slide your arm left (or reverse all that for anything on the left) It keeps with the feeling of the game and just feels better than the default menu stuff.

As far as the PS Move, all I've played with it was a tech demo nearly a year ago at GDC. The real difference is that the PS Move doesn't detect your whole body, it can kinda get your arms and face, but the rest of you just doesn't exist.

That and the idea of buying another set of controllers for a console isn't really all that appealing to me. I like that I don't have to go buy something new for every person I want to play with me for the Kinect.

All that being said, I'm not going to buy a Kinect until a price drop. The unit we're using is a borrowed one, so I haven't had to pay anything to play all the stuff I've been playing (which makes it THAT MUCH BETTER for me haha) I don't like the $150 price point, but I can understand why M$ is doing it. (Apparently they have $500 million invested in just advertising for this thing... so as a business they really do need to inflate the price a bit haha.) I'd assume a price drop next year for christmas, and at that point there'll probably be a handful of neat games worth buying the unit for.