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Kinect Sports Review for Xbox 360

Kinect Sports Review for Xbox 360

In Rare form

Legendary British developer Rare has hardly been on a hot streak over the past few years. After getting bought out by Microsoft years ago, the company has produced a number of creatively engaging products, but nothing that truly captured the attention of gamers. Games like Viva Pinata and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts had plenty of awesome ideas, but they just didn’t connect with gamers the way their earlier creations like Goldeneye 007 and Donkey Kong Country did. Now Microsoft has tapped them to create the obligatory sports mini-game compilation for the release of Kinect. Surprisingly, this game may prove to be one of Rare’s best products in the last few years. It’s not deep or complex, but it’s positively dripping with infectious personality that uplifts what would have been a boring me-too experience in the hands of a lesser developer.

Kinect Sports screenshot

I was bemused with Microsoft’s decision to include Kinect Adventures rather than Kinect Sports as a pack-in game with Kinect. Both Wii and PlayStation Move launched with a sports compilation included with the console and it did wonders for their popularity. It’s only after playing it that I’ve begun to understand this decision. Kinect Adventures is not very fun. Kinect Sports is heaps of fun. The bottom line is that nobody would buy Kinect Adventures if it didn’t already come in the box. Kinect Sports might just be good enough to sell even without the pack-in incentive.

At its heart, Kinect Sports is like every other game of its ilk, including PlayStation Move’s Sports Champions and Wii’s Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. For some people (like me), that’s a good thing. There’s definitely an audience for these types of games. But after four or five great installments in this genre and countless imitators, a merely decent game would likely have been glossed over. Kinect’s Sports remedy for this: heaping doses of fun and personality.

Kinect Sports oozes with great little touches that enrich the entire experience. For instance, when beginning the game you are sent to a screen of just your avatar standing in the middle of a stadium surrounded by a calm crowd. Raise one hand and that side of the audience claps. Ditto for the other hand. Raise both hands though and the entire crowd erupts in a huge round of applause and roar of approval. And there you stand with your hands in the air like a triumphant athlete declaring victory while the crowd roars for you. It’s an amazing beginning, and it sets the stage for the game to come.

Kinect Sports screenshot

One of the great assets of this entire game is its expansive and fantastic soundtrack. Previous games in this genre had one main theme, and that was it. Kinect Sports has dozens of licensed songs from Queen to Lady Gaga. Rare’s favorite trick is to keep the music quiet until something amazing happens (e.g. scoring a goal in Soccer or winning a race in Track and Field) then blast a high-energy, awesome song to punctuate the moment. It works well, and never ceased to bring a smile to my face.

The games themselves are surprisingly high-quality too. Except for bowling, which is, well, bowling. I had zero hopes for a game like soccer when I first turned this game on, but I was almost instantly converted. I assumed it would be an ultra-simple shootout mode or something similar. But in reality, you play a simplified game of soccer. You move the ball down the field, play defense, pass, and take shots on goal. Many of the other games sport the same type of surprising quality.

Kinect Sports screenshot

Some games, like Track and Field, are fun, but aren’t very kind if you don’t have a space where you can be loud. It requires you to pound your feet on the ground as you run and then leap into the air. As I’ve noted a couple times before in other Kinect reviews, this kind of thing is anathema to apartment dwellers. So consider your living quarters carefully before getting your hopes up about Kinect Sports.

Kinect Sports screenshot

The Kinect camera also works well in this game. I had a lot of problems in some sections of Motion Sports that made me appreciate the level of control Kinect Sports offers. Many other games I’ve played on Kinect have had a hard time registering my jumps, kicks, etc, but here everything worked almost flawlessly. It stands with Dance Central as one of the better games at utilizing the camera effectively.

The graphics may have surprised me the most though. It’s not so much about how good individual things look, but rather how well some scenes are put together. I laughed myself silly when I saw my little avatar come strolling into the arena in Boxing as thousands of individual avatars cheered in the crowd. And that was before I noticed that I had two little avatar body guards, an older balding avatar trainer, and even an avatar ring babe accompanying me to the ring as pyrotechnics went off everywhere. This amount of polish is afforded to every segment of the game.

The only complaint I can levy against Kinect Sports is that there’s just not enough of it. While Sports Champions achieved depth by offering a huge amount of opponents and difficulties, Kinect Sports does no such thing. Without some friend/family to play with, you’ll probably run out of things to do pretty quickly. That said, I think most of the games are good enough to make you want to replay them many times.

I never would have guessed that Rare’s return to form would come as they released a game like Kinect Sports, but in this case they did a great job. It’s certainly not going to be a legendary game by any stretch of the imagination, but anybody looking for a compelling experience for their new Kinect unit would do well to give Kinect Sports a try, especially if you’ve got some friends or family that can experience the fun with you. It easily could have become a weak game that nobody cared about, but Rare gave it a special touch that elevated this game to the level of other great motion-sports games.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.0 Graphics
You see most of these graphics every day on the dashboard, but the presentation is absolutely top-notch. 3.9 Control
Kinect Sports does a very good job of utilizing Kinect to provide a solid control experience. 4.2 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The amount of songs involved in this game was truly surprising and the use of them to amplify great moments adds a lot to the game. 3.0 Play Value
There’s just not enough to do in this game. If you’re playing by yourself, you may only get a few hours of unique content out of this game. You’ll want to replay them, but it will only last so long. Families should have a blast with this though. 3.9 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Become a multi-sport athlete. Kinect Sports features six team-based and individual sports: soccer, beach volleyball, bowling, table tennis, track and field, and boxing, with many challenges for each experience. Getting into the game is as easy as stepping in front of your TV.
  • Kinect Sports includes a variety of fun game modes for solo, cooperative, and competitive play with levels to encourage and challenge players of all ages and skill sets. Sports Party mode allows you to compete against a friend, rally a whole room full of players into teams with everyone jumping in and out to catch a breath, or bring your team to victory.
  • Live your sports star dreams. Kinect Sports puts your avatar in the spotlight and lets you experience what it is like to be a world-famous sports star. Bask in the glow of the paparazzi fervor with your teammates after a big victory and deck out your avatar with stylish rewards for your proudest gameplay feats.

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