Spending a few hours with Kinect and finding your inner child

I got my Kinect set up and I'm just coming out of my first play session, having danced myself into a mild sweat on the virtual dance floor that is Dance Central (the original, because I'm cheap like that).

I will say a few things about Kinect that I have noted:

You can't really compare playing Dance Central on the Kinect
to any other console experience

1) It really is very cool and very different to be playing a game and controlling a console without any physical controls

It's a very peculiar experience for a lifelong gamer to suddenly have no object between me and the game.

Even if the technical performance is not perfect it's just a really interesting thing to try.
I'm glad I bought it, at least for just getting to have this experience and play games in a completely different kind of way.

If you are interested in the "evolution" of games as a thing in itself, then I think you should get a Kinect, simply to try it out for yourself and see it in action.

2) I feel that the Kinect makes playing games different enough that it deserves to get good games developed for it

As I said in my first point, it is a very unique experience to play the Kinect, and it requires games that are wholly designed for this specific piece of hardware, if it is to be an enjoyable experience for players.

But if game developers manage to crack the code, then I think there are plenty of innovative game ideas that could be made for Kinect, and that it would not really be possible to have on any other hardware platform.

3) Motion control gaming at this stage is still quite gimmicky and there is a real risk that my Kinect will go the way of my Wii (which has gone somewhere that I don't even know where is by now)

There is no doubt that the Kinect still feels very much like a "young" piece of hardware, both suffering from some technical imperfections and a lack of quality games, as developers either do not think it is a worthy investment to make a game for Kinect, or they simply have not cracked the code of how to make a good one.

I also nabbed me a copy of Kinect Sports
So now there is really no use for my Wii

In short

The Kinect right now feels like it is a potentially good idea.

Dance Central is a lot of fun and feels like it's a game that manages to capture really well what this hardware can be used for.

However, it may be that my Kinect will just end up as my "Dance Central game add-on", much like my Wii became my "Wii Sports game add-on", and that it will quickly end up in disuse once the novelty wears off.

But for the next few weeks I think I will be entertained.

And really, isn't that all we really ask?

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