Kinect Adventures

Kinect Adventures – Early Impressions

Kinect Adventures is a adventure game that comes bundled with the Kinect motion sensor for free. Its a compilation of games such as 20,000 Leaks, River Rush, Rally Ball Reflex Ridge and Space Pop. Kinect Adventures was developed by Good Science Studio and published by Microsoft for Kinect exclusively for the Xbox 360. Kinect Adventures released November 4, 2010.

Kinect Adventures puts you through an initial but lengthly configuration process where you have to move chairs and other furniture around to make space. You also have to stand correctly in front of the Kinect sensor for sometime. The process was much longer compared to other Kinect games i played recently such as The Gunstringer and Forza 4. Maybe that has to do with those games being much newer? One thing is for certain if you want the best experience with Kinect Adventures make sure you have ten square feet available for two people. For one person you need less space.

Kinect Adventures’s main menu screen is broken down as follows: Adventures, Free Play (which i played), Play Online and Time Play. If you choose Online Play you can play agaisnt a stranger online (two people). I played Free Play just to get my feet wet since Kinect still is pretty fresh from my gamer perspective. I first choose Rally Ball and played some Sure Shot and Treasure Chest. Under each game there are various sub-versions of each game to choose from with different rules etc. For Rally Ball you basically use your arms and legs to whack and kick balls that bounce towards you hitting targets as if you’re in a hallway.

Let me tell you after a few games i was winded. I consider myself in decent shape but found myself breathing heavy as i moved from side to side kicking and swinging my arms. I knew i looked foolish but didn’t know how much till the photo was shown of my performance. Thats right, Kinect Adventures automatically takes your photo as you play and shows a brief slideshow after you finished the game. It was pretty funny if nothing less. From that alone i saw the draw of Kinect as a casual and fun device for the family. Some other quick things of note. You can change to your Xbox Live avatar instead of the defaults. Kinect Adventures automatically keeps tracks of different players statistics and their profiles.

I also played 20,000 Leaks which puts you in a leaking glass cage. You have to plug leaks as they pop up. You will have to use your feet even for this. I was bending down, moving left and right using my feet to plug leaks as they spranged up. You have to keep all leaks plugged for your score to increase and new leaks to emerge. Just about every game i played on Kinect Adventures had bad lag. For games such as Reflex Ridge its clearly apparent lag was an issue with limb movements, ducking and jumping. I would say that Kinect Adventures has the worst lag out of the all the Kinect games i played to date. Your rewarded either a Bronze, Silver and Gold star depending on your performance.

This article details my early impressions with Kinect Adventures. What i get as of now is a game that has lag but is fun to play and was a workout at times. Thanks for reading.