Tag Archives: games review

Kinect {Gaming Review}

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After calling the Playstation Move controller a Wii remote look-alike, I had a sense of apprehension picking up a Playstation eye-alike from my games store. Cries of ‘Traitor’ ‘Turn coat’ and even ‘Defector’ awaited me as I picked up the Xbox Kinect system.

Whilst these words might seem a little strong and perhaps a little un-warranted, everybody knows my devotion for the Playstation 3 Console. I’ll put myself out on a limb and say what most games players know – that on paper at least – the PS3 is the most powerful console. No one can deny that; the Playstation Systems for each step of the way have rejuvenated gaming and given new meaning to the term ‘Home entertainment system’. First redefining the CD, then DVD, then the Blu-ray HD gaming medium. Who can forget that prior to that we had games cartridges and then the awful loading times of Sega Mega CD and 3DO. But I am a techie, and word on the street is that the Kinect System not only rocks but takes it to the next level. So despite devotion I just couldn’t resist booking myself a room at the Xbox hotel.

Given my love for the PS3 I soooo badly wanted to report back that the Kinect System is rubbish, that it contains crap technology and is a waste of money. The truth is whilst I found that it certainly has its faults it is a remarkable effort and offers a taste of something promising to come through its hardware.

Out of the box the Kinect System looks like a sausage squeezed Playstation eye and there are two other cameras which are reminiscent of the earlier surround sound systems of the 90’s that you arrange on either side. They work together to build up a 3D picture of the room and your position within it. The idea is that Kinect knows how close you are and that sense of depth allows it to judge things like whether your hands are behind your back, or whether you’re kicking your legs out in front or behind, for instance.

Kinect comes with its own menu system, accessible from the Xbox 360’s dashboard. Inside this menu, you are able to access all of the Kinect-compatible entertainment features that are available to you. Microsoft wanted user interactivity from the get go and it is surprising how quick and intuitive it is. The Kinect experience begins as soon as you switch on your 360 allowing you to browse even the basic features of the Xbox 360 without a controller. Holding your hand out in front of you creates a hand icon on the screen. Moving your hand the onscreen icon moves with you to select the option you desire, then to select and you hold it there for a couple of seconds until it activates it.

Another innovative use of technology lies in the Kinect’s voice control command system. Using the onboard microphone you can control your Xbox using your voice alone.
Saying “Xbox” alone is all you need to get the Xbox’s attention and its there like an eager puppy. Once said a list of commands then pops up from the top of the screen. These commands are context sensitive so for example if you’re playing music or watching a video, these commands include play, stop, or rewind. A well nice touch.

his is much the way you interact with many of the games; either by using hand gestures, voice commands or body movements to make your on-screen character move or to interact with objects, animals or characters on the screen.

So on to performance and playability. There’s no denying that there’s some fantastic technology inside Kinect. Yet as incredible as it is, shortcomings soon arise in terms of limitations. If you’re expecting to play a game and have your on-screen character do exactly as you do with your body, quickly, and completely in-time with you – you’re going to be sorely disappointed. You just can’t do that in most games. I blame the marketing for this, because in every advert I have seen it appears as if the people playing the game and their on screen characters are moving synchronously with them. The reality of this just isn’t so; in every game I have played there is lag and copious amounts of it.

Take a game such as Fighters for example. It’s a 3D Beat ’em up game where you control your fighter by performing fighting moves in real life. Now this was the game I was looking forward to the most as what it bodes for future fighting games such as Street Fighter and the like could be incredible. However I soon realized that this was a delusion of grandeur as such was the significant delay between me unleashing my punches, and them being mirrored on screen that often I completed my move in real life well before the character did so. Not good.

To be completely fair though this delay is dependent on how fast you move. A slow movement, for example those in dance games rather than shoot-em-ups, has almost no noticeable lag at all. The faster you move, the more pronounced the lag is. A real question to this lag lies in what types of games will we be expected to play. It remains to be seen if and how shooting games will emerge on this platform. As I doubt most gamers will want slow moving titles or cuddly little animal games.

Talking of games there were a whopping 12 different titles available at launch – two words: triple wow. Compare that against the paltry 6 or so games offered at the launch of the Playstation Move. Indeed Sony should be ashamed.

Another area of concern for me is with the sensor. In the marketing campaign it said that the Kinect is capable of working out up to six players movements at the same time. The reality is far less – it didn’t take much effort for me and just four of my friends to ‘confuse’ it and during our games session, we also noticed a few glitches and moments of weirdness when the sensor had lost our position or just wasn’t registering our actions. Tut-tut. This is something that should have been ironed out long before release because if this had happened in the middle of a frantic game it would have added to our frustration.

Another issue is space – fortunately for one of my friends two thirds of his ground floor is a front room, but for some on affordable housing (like me) (also known as housing bunker options) will quickly find themselves in problems. Kinect requires plenty of playing space. The instruction manual recommends having 6 feet of clear space in front of the sensor for single-player games, and a whopping 8 feet of clear space if you’re playing with two people. Yep – it’s time to move your granny out of the way at Christmas, oops and the tree, and the in-laws, oh yes and the sofa. With all honesty I cannot see the average UK bedroom being big enough to accommodate Kinect. This removes the bedroom games players out of the equation and could see people relocating the Xbox to the garden.

The last area worth covering is cost; The Kinect Sensor isn’t cheap, costing £125 on launch. It comes with a free copy of Kinect Adventures – a title with lots of mini sub-games designed to showcase the various capabilities of the Kinect system. Tut-tut Sony for just including a demo disc with your Playstation Move – Shame on you.

However, if you think of it like this – Kinect can detect up to six people in a room, and supports two active players at a time. So that £125 brings with it two-player gaming from the get go. That compares favorably to the £127 you’d have to pay for the equivalent PS Move setup (with PlayStation Eye, two Move controllers and two navigation controllers). With that in mind in a weird way it does represent value for money.

So my final verdict?

It is really hard not to like or to appreciate the Kinect system, yes there are lag issues with some games and dealing with aforementioned space issues as well which could relegate some gamers. However it is impossible to deny Microsoft really did their homework with this and have delivered a solid piece of hardware which equates to a real swift kick to the shins of Sony’s mighty Playstation console. It is sad because in my opinion without the likes of Halo and a couple of exclusives the Playstation still had the higher ground and was still the technically superior machine. However, the hardware that Kinect brings changes the game. Like it or not, faults or not, Kinect holds futuristic possibilities. My verdict is that it is an ‘innovative’ rather than an altogether ‘intuitive’ piece of technology. Keep that in mind and keep your eyes open for future games and lets see what happens. I get the feeling you won’t be disappointed.

Rock Band 3 {Gaming Review}

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The Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises – are considered by many to be the most influential video games of the first decade of the 21st century. First released in 2005 it seemed as if air guitarists of a generation could finally unite. I remember the first time I picked up my plastic guitar and fretted along to a track. The whole idea of being a mini rock god in my bedroom just seemed to work.

However, that was a long time ago and a long time before they decided to milk the cash cow dry. Over the past number of years it seems as if we have been inundated with rock games. If I bought a new guitar each time a new game came out I reckon I would own about ten by now. To make things worse this year we have not one but two releases and you better believe it both are aiming to reach the number one spot on your Christmas list. I managed to get my hands on a copy on an early edition of Rock Band 3 to find out if I should still be rocking on.

As mad as it seems there is a reason for all of these games; Rock Band and Guitar Hero (and their sequels) are in fact the creations of separate rival software developers – Harmonix and Neversoft; and in numerous ways they have their own distinct diverse approach on how to make a rock and roll video game great and how to sell it.

Take Rock Band for example. Rock Band has always aimed for maximum playability with a large selection of pop rock type tracks. When they have gone for serious rock they usually pick tracks that are well known and they provide strong online support. Also in my view on the easier difficulty level the player is never actually really tested. Contrast this with Guitar Hero and Neversoft who seemed to cater mainly for the serious rock fanatics. Anyone who has played Band Hero will recognize their disappointment at going online and finding out that there was little if any online tracks to support their foray into popdom. Try too tackling Band hero on easy and your wrists will be sore. It might be a game but it doesn’t play nice.

Check out their titles too, once Neversoft and their publisher Activision realized that they had a market in plastic guitars they seemed almost like a bat out of hell-bent on riding the rock train until the wheels came off; delivering a new title almost every year – often with just new tracks and tweaks being the whole USP. Thank heavens for the term ‘market saturation’ because when the rock train was about to terminate at the next stop they turned their hands to the Vinyl and came up with the admittedly very polished DJ Hero. Out went the classic rock and in came the classic Hip-hop. Contrast this with Harmonix and the very incredible looking Beetles Rock Band – they always seem to go for quality over quantity.

To be fair to Neversoft they do have a flair for spotting innovative design because each new release of a ‘Hero’ has brought something new, however small and Rock Band 3 has capitalized on each and every aspect that they brought that worked. They also listened to their many fans

Game Play remains the same as before; successfully complete a song by using your controllers to strike the correct notes in time with note tracks shown on the game screen; or, in the case of the vocalists, to sing in the relative pitch to the original artist. Each player has a performance meter, which increases when correct notes are hit and falls when notes are missed; a band performance meter represents an average of all players. If a player’s meter should drop to zero, that player will temporarily drop out, silencing their part, and the band’s performance meter will start to drop. If the band’s meter hits zero, the band will fail the song and be booed off stage, and can either restart or change their difficulty level.

Rock Band 3 allows for several players, locally or for the first time online, to play the roles of lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals. I was pleased to see that Rock Band 3 had support for backup vocal harmonies with the lead singer (a feature previously introduced in The Beatles: Rock Band), and one playing an electric keyboard. (Yes it’s not just a new guitar you will need to buy this time).

Talking of which, it has often been a personal criticism that to plough the amount of time that you need to in order to get good at this game you are far better learning to play the guitar or drums in real life. Well this is a criticism put to rest because although this game is compatible with existing guitar controllers from previous Rock Band and Guitar Hero games. Mad Catz has just produced a new guitar controller, based on the Fender Mustang with real strings. Instead of five colored buttons, there are 6 buttons across 17 different frets, culminating in a total of 102 buttons to play. This idea is quite exciting me, as this game could redefine the whole term ‘fun learning’.
So on to playability. The game features a more in-depth career mode; and as before you can design your own character.

Reportedly the career mode includes over 700 career goals. The game also includes some 83 songs, ranging from Evanescence to Bob Marley and I was pleasantly surprised to see that all of my original downloaded content from previous Rock Band games transferred quickly and without additional cost. This gave me the feeling that this title is all about consolidating your Rock Band music. And that can only be a good thing. Tracks from the actual titles though such as Rock Band 2 required the purchase of a key but the transfer was quick and simple. I am always taken aback by Rock Bands online support and at time of writing there was over 2,000 songs available in the store for download. One word: wow. Developers of Guitar Hero should take note.

I found the game play to be rounded and a decent enough internet connection is all you need to ensure online play. Although, personally I found many tracks lacked sufficient challenge. The storyline was literally non existent – we all know the score: group of gang-banger wannabes decide to form a band and you have to help them scale to heights of success.

I do have a few gripes. Firstly the graphics – I was disappointed. Whilst functional they are no where near as polished as they should be, even if you were to take Band Hero which was out over a year ago and put these titles side by side graphically it would be stronger.

Secondly for me the sound mixer could have done with some refinement. For example I found it hard hear the vocal track if you are singing or vice versa. Guitar Hero 5 eradicated that problem ages ago. I couldn’t help but wonder why it is still here.

So what’s my view? – Well, despite its faults if you are going to get a Rock Band game then this is the title to get. In terms of game play and online support it has a much stronger, richer library. It is also the game you will return to and download tracks for and complete. More importantly it will keep you entertained without doubt through Christmas.

By Junior Smart