Kinect Sports review

Formats: XBox 360
Format reviewed: XBox 360
Publisher: Micosoft
Developer: Rare
Made2Game Kinect Sports review score: 8/10

Motion Sports games started with the Nintendo Wii and turned into a bit of a phenomenon, with Wii Sports becoming hugely popular, although it probably helped that it was bundled with the console. Now Microsoft is after a bit of the action thanks to the arrival of Kinect, and perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that motion sports has been taken to a new level with the arrival of Kinect Sports.

The developer behind Kinect Sports is Rare, a studio responsible for games such as Kameo, Banjo & Kazooie and of course the original Goldeneye. Now Rare has decided to focus on Kinect and with its first title we take a trip to the familiar, with sports such as Table Tennis, Volleyball, Boxing, Track & Field, Bowling and Football.

Kinect Sports is aimed at a group of players, a family if you will - rather than the individual, this much is obvious from the minute you load the game and are asked to choose the players. Although you can play against the computer on your own and rank your character up (which is a great way to practice, and allows you to gain experience which will unlock Avatar rewards), playing with family and friends is the way to go.

As mentioned there are six sports to choose from and you can play with two players on the one screen at the same time (depending on the game type) or you can play with up to four players, with each taking a turn. The first game I was personally keen to try was bowling, this is probably the simplest of them all due to the fact that all you need to do is stick out your arm, pick up the ball and bowl. Its not brain science and in fact my one of youngest children was quite easily able to play along without any hiccups. The bowling is very responsive and works amazingly well, and you can even add in spin by bringing your arm across your body as you release the ball. I certainly had no complaints with this sport whatsoever; it does what it says on the tin.

The next sport I tried was my favourite, Football. Playing alongside my older son this time we took to the field as a team. When the game starts each player gets a touch of the ball, therefore if I passed it would be his turn next, whether it be to shoot, defend or pass. The thing with the football is you cannot shoot from anywhere, instead you are given the options of where you can pass, then when you are the last player you can shoot, adding in swerve and spin at the same time. In fact I scored a brilliant freekick with a swerving shot that even Ronaldinio would be proud of. Finally you also get to control the goalkeeper, which is fairly simple as you need to cover the target which represents where the shot is going. The football is excellent fun and certainly works a lot better than I thought it would.

Boxing again is fairly straightforward, you punch each others lights out and the first person to run out of health is knocked to the floor. Once on the floor you can punch the stars around your head to recover, however the more you get knocked down, the more stars appear, meaning you have essentially less time before the referees count to 10 and rules you out of the match completely. You can punch high and low, as well as being able to block, but this all explains itself really.

Beach Volleyball and Table Tennis are fairly similar in that they are straight forward and are generally representative of the sports. I didn’t think the table tennis was quite as strong as say, Sports Champions on the PlayStation 3, however for a family game its fun and accessible and that’s all that counts really.

The final sport is Track and Field; this is brilliant although it was here my daughter experienced some problems. Although she had no issues with Running, Discus, Long Jump or Hurdles, when it came to Javelin for some reason Kinect just wouldn’t recognise her movements, and ended up with the Javelin just being chucked on the floor. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong really, but other than this minor issue all of the sports seem to work well with children and adults alike.

One of the things I love about Kinect Sports is how accessible it is, if you don’t feel like playing anymore someone else can just jump in and take your place, it’s brilliant. All of the sports are also very easy to play, easy enough for a 4 year old and equally as easy I imagine for a 60 year old.

The presentation is very Wii like it has to be said, although at least the soundtrack is pretty good, with tracks from Queen and Robbie Williams to name a few. The graphics have a very cartoony, colourful look to them, though again this is a very family orientated game anyway.

As far as other multiplayer goes, Rare has included a Party Play mode. Party Play basically splits the players into two teams, in which you take turns between your teams over six rounds of various mini games and sports. The mini games are borrowed from the party mode and standard mode and include games such as trying to bowl in one to trying to hit volleyballs with predetermined body parts.

Overall, what you want from a family part game is for it to be instantly accessible and to be easy to play for both children and adults, and thanks to Kinect this is exactly what Kinect Sports provides. It’s not going to win any awards for originality or ingenious gameplay, but it will reward those who buy it with good fun every time they play, and surely that’s all that counts.

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