Kinect Adventures is the game that comes with the Kinect Bundle for Xbox 360. Available with just the game and the sensor or bundled with an Xbox 360 S, gamers everywhere helped this product sell out quickly. Steve Balmer of Microsoft recently announced at CES 2011 that nearly 8 million Kinect bundles have sold worldwide. So, with so many copies of Kinect Adventures floating around, just how well does it live up to the hype?
Kinect Adventures is a 1-2 player game featuring 5 activities – Rallyball, River Rush, Reflex Ridge, Space Pop and 20,000 Leaks at four levels of difficulty. You can choose between Adventure mode (similar to a campaign), free play (play game modes you’ve unlocked freely), timed play or the option to play the activities online via Xbox LIVE.
In Rallyball, you hit a ball towards some crates at the end of the alley. When the crates break and the ball hits the targets (or clocks in timed play), balls bounce back towards you. You earn Adventure pins based upon how many balls you hit as well as how much time was left over upon completion of each of the three waves. The more pins you receive, the better medal you receive – bronze, silver, gold or platinum.
In River Rush, the player is standing on an inflatable raft, racing down a river. The player needs to move left or right to guide the raft through markers or jump to collect pins. As with Rallyball, and all games in Kinect Adventures, the more pins, the better the medal.
During the Reflex Ridge activity, players must avoid obstacles by either stepping left and right or ducking and jumping, in addition to jumping up, down and posing in different positions to collect pins. When you jump, however, it speeds you up! So, be careful! The faster you go, the harder it is to avoid obstacles!
The goal of Space Pop is to, well… pop the bubbles. It really is that simple. Flap your arms to fly all while moving left, right, forward and backward to pop all the bubbles. It looks easy. Trust me, it’s not!
Last, and in my opinion – least – is 20, 000 Leaks. I hate this game. You’re standing in a glass cube. Fish crack the glass. You use your body parts (head, legs, arms) to plug the leaks. It gets difficult, however, it really isn’t that challenging. This is probably the least exciting activity in the whole game! And yes, it really is THAT simple.
Kinect Adventures, overall, is an exciting game. At first, the basic levels of Adventure play are simple, and you start to think “I hope it isn’t this boring the whole time!” Then, it starts to pick up. You find yourself stepping, jumping, ducking and moving faster and faster until all you you really want to do is sit down. This truly is a workout! In fact, I added 2 pound ankle and wrist weights to increase the difficulty and tone some muscles while I played!
The game itself had no flaws. The music and sound effects suited the game well; the difficulty levels were reasonable; achievements and avatar awards were easily obtainable. The one flaw I had was when I would play activities that required more than one action at a time, the sensor had issues capturing the second or third action. However, I attribute that to the sensor’s requirement for lots of space and lighting, not the game itself!
I would suggest this game to just about anybody. Well, anybody without a heart condition – it really does work up a sweat! If you have a Kinect, I’m assuming you’ve at least tried Adventures. So, let me know what you think in the comment box below!
– Featured image courtesy of Xbox.com
