Zero Punctuation: Kinect

[IamLEAM1983]

And thank you, Yahtzee, for saving me a motherlode of cash. I didn't care for the Kinect when it first came out, I cared even less once I saw its launch lineup, the only vaguely interesting title for it out there is Child of Eden...

So, yeah. Not buying extra hardware I'll barely even use. I've fallen into that trap often enough with my berjillion plastic controllers for music games I'm stuck playing alone.

Excuse me for a moment, I'll go cower in shame and self-loathing. Thank you.

 

[DolphinWacker64]

Seriously, the Kinect's recognition software is crap unless you stand WITHIN THE DESIGNATED AREA!

Isn't that a bit like saying your car's handling is crap unless you sit in the driver's seat?

You should watch Mythbusters, they seem to get good vehicle handling without even being in the car... of course they do it with a remote control...Damn it, I forgot where I was going with this. Mythbusters is awesome I guess...

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Goodness. I actually laughed. A lot.

It turns out, when he isn't making the exact same jokes/criticisms he makes about every single shooter ever, he's still witty and entertaining!

I'm glad I didn't give up on watching it anymore after all.

 

[ewhac]

We were denied the Mental Image of Yahtzee trying to play one of the dance games.

Be denied no longer [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/530-Little-Big-Planet] (seek to 03:01).

 

[Raso719]

Great vid, as always!
Next up do the dual shock 2 controller!

 

[ElPatron]

I can't help thinking motion controls will be brilliant in five to ten years when developers have got he hang of them.

Yeah, I remember that "in 5 to 10 years" everything was dropped in favour of some kind of new technology that sucked as well.

I bet we will drop 3D for some crazy 4D experiment that will never catch on.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I cracked up at the "Well hello there, Counselor Troi" wanking scene (though I'm more of a Dr. Crusher fan myself).

Yeah, about that. Uh.... source?

It's from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Deanna Troi is the psychiatric counselor for the Enterprise.

Spoiler

While she does do some actual counseling from time to time, her character's primarily there for fanservice. Personally, I always thought Dr. Crusher was more attractive:

Spoiler

I must admit though, she has a pretty unfortunate last name for her profession.

 

[shiajun]

What I'm talking about would be a game where the progression of motion, postures, and gestures would look more like a smooth ballet or practicing of connected katas. The entire game would be an act of learning how to connect the motions and learning which motions, postures, and gestures naturally transition into each other such to create a singular, practiced flow of motion. Precision of angles, speed, and timing would all be important to the movements. Such a game could not only be entertaining but also provide great exercise, as well as improve dexterity and coordination. One could use such games to do things like actually learning how to dance, learning some martial arts, or, as mentioned, just engaging in some fun exercise(imagine a sci-fi space shooter with some rhythmically pumping trance or electronica that you have to actually dance to control, and I mean really dance, not the elephant-stomping DDR-style dancing).

Dance Central is almost what you're proposing, but from your post I kind of guess you haven't played it. The only trait missing is having more dance styles than coreography type ones (salsa, tango, etc). I've seen dance moves form that game make it into real life parties, so people some people are actually learning to dance a little better and have better sense of rhythm and coordination just from that game. I don't know how one would go about learning martial arts without destroying your living room in the process, but hey, I'm no desginer.

 

[beetrain]

I'm surprised he quite liked Rise of Nightmares. From what I've seen of it, it looked pretty lame, even disregarding the Kinect controls.

 

[robotam]

He mentioned Giant's Causeway. OMGoodness.

Anyway, my xbox is in my room which doesn't have enough room for Kinect, but yeah I prefer Wii games when motion controls aren't overly used.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Both the Kinect and the Move look awful, play awful, and are painful to use if you're taller than 6'1, or heavier than 250, or some weird combo. The Kinect refused to register half my movements because I'm 6'4 and 145 lbs. It thought I should either be wider or shorter, and adjusted things as such.

I'm 6'3 and 200lbs and I have to stand far, far away for Kinect to work ok. I also need a LOT of room.

Unfortunately there are a lot of poorly conceived Kinect games out there that make a mockery of it, but games like Dance Central really shine on a platform like Kinect. It's still in it's teething stages at the moment so I think people need to cut it a little slack.

 

[Braedan]

The one thing that I see kinect benefiting from would be a peripheral along the lines of the Wii nun-chuck with no Wii remote. Sure everyone would scream "Ripoff of Wii/Move", but at least it will allow movement without requiring stupid body language, or holding a controller awkwardly in one hand. Also a start button would be nice. From the limited time playing on the kinect, trying to move about the menu by holding your hand over the screen felt like real life Fable. But even less fun.

 

[Spud of Doom]

It sounds like the usage of Kinect in Forza 4 would be pretty satisfactory for Yahtzee. Same goes for upcoming Steel Batallion and Mass Effect 3's inclusion of the thing.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Well this was certainly unexpected. Nevertheless, I still found it to be throughly entertaining.

I too think that motion control would be better off as something that would simply compliment the experience.

Take Dead Space: Extraction for example. It's a rail shooter and it is on the Wii. Thus, it makes sense for it to utilize motion controls.

Now take Donkey Kong Country Returns. It's a sidescroller/platformer and it is also on the Wii. Still, it wouldn't make sense for it to utilize motion controls.

So even though the Wii does have motion controls, the developers aren't trying to cram them into games where they don't belong. At least not anymore.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

Edit: Sorry about the double post. I thought the website had eaten my post somehow.

 

[TheFlyingMango]

I rather enjoyed Rise of Nightmares it was pretty fun for a movement controlled game, good workout too.

 

[rickicker]

To quote your Lords of Shadows review, Yahtzee, this Kinect review is "attempting to jump on the bandwagon so late that the band has completed three sold out world tours and sold their wagon to a scrap dealer." You should've ripped this piece of gaming abortion the moment it came out, man. But oh well, better to shit on it late than to shit on it never. XD

One of the BIGGEST hard-on I have against Project Natal is the fact that the end product seemed to be cobbled up together in waaaaaaay too much of a hurry to meet the Evil Empire (read: Microsoft) deadline. The demo showed so much promise, but for some odd reason, all of those promises took a swan dive into a pit of spikes filled with venomous snakes come launch day. What the HELL happened, Microsoft? Was someone asleep on the wheel? Or do you just feed on crushed hopes, broken dreams and tears of gamers everywhere?

 

[rangerman351]

To bad he didn't do The Gunstringer. It has fairly simple movements and you can sitdown while playing it.

 

[rickicker]

To bad he didn't do The Gunstringer. It has fairly simple movements and you can sitdown while playing it.

It kinda defeats the purpose of the Kinect as a new type of controller, doesn't it? Instead of working properly on select games, it should have, to quote a certain meme, WORK PROPERLY ON ALL THE GAMES. XD