Kan You Kinect?

As some of you may know, I went to Boston as part of my break. We stopped off at a relative's house, who had a massive HD TV (like 64 inches!!) in her living room. She also had a Kinect. 

For those of you who don't know or haven't seen this device, it's a motion-sensing webcam-like box that you place on top of your TV (meant for Xbox 360 owners), and you stand in front of it and act like the controller! Now I'm no gamer, but this thing blew my mind!! It was a little tricky to operate at first, but after a few tries you could easily maneuver yourself around a game. 

The first game I tried was a dancing game, Dance Central 2. In this game, you imitate the cartoon dancers on the screen, the motion sensor detects your moves and gives you points on how skilled you are at following the moves. Check out a demo here. It's more fun to compete with another player or two, but I'm sure playing on your own is good practice!    

I couldn't help but be amazed at the graphics, especially how you could see yourself in the top right corner and could watch your own dance moves as you did the song. It was definitely an entertaining night, as we spent a good chunk of it making a fool out of ourselves with our funky moves! And because this gadget doesn't require any controllers (like a Wii), there's no real danger of hurling objects at the TV! 


Here are some things to note: 

1. There is no point owning a Kinect if you don't already have an impressive TV. While the effect was magical on the huge HD TV, there might not be much thrill on a much smaller TV. 
2. There are about 100 Kinect games, and the numbers are only going to grow from here. 
3. Many of the games, especially the dancing ones, are pretty good exercise! After a couple rounds of the dancing game we had to take a little break :)
4. The concept of you moving around as the clicker is a little confusing from some "less technology-savvy" people. But practice makes perfect! 

Overall, I rate this product 7.5/10. It's really fantastic at the beginning, but from what I've heard, there is not a huge variety in the games. But maybe that does not matter as much, because as we all know, technology is always adapting and improving, and new games could be right around the corner! And because this system involves motion sensors, it's most likely that many of the games involve around exercise, which is important in maintaining a healthy lifestyle!