Looking at Xbox Kinect Games

[Darmalus]

I was recently offered a kinect, so I decided to take a quick look at local offerings before accepting. The local offerings were rather poor, and I don't know if that is because that store just had bad stock or if the kinect lacks decent games.

All I am looking for is some sort of fitness game (all the ones in the store had "for kids" on them or were dance games) and something fun, and the only one in the store that looked promising was Kinectimals (sp?).

Any suggestions would be useful, the offer was unexpected and I've never looked at kinect games before.

[Losonti Tokash]

The Dance Central games are pretty fantastic, but I haven't gone and tried any of the fitness games. Stark swears by Star Wars Kinect since you get to be a rancor and there's plenty of fun games like Fruit Ninja. Other stuff like Mass Effect 3 don't use the motion controls at all but have voice recognition which works pretty well.

[Stark]

Kinectimals is very much a kids game that slowly bleeds you content over time; I found it pretty frustrating, despite the actual content being pretty cool.
Star Wars Kinect is a pretty successful game at what it does; you'll look like an idiot playing the Jedi game, but the dancing and the Rancor are awesome, and the Rancor thing will show you what parts of your body aren't fit anymore. :V

Obviously Dance Central is the best dancing game, and dancing games are cool as hell. If you have kids, Once Upon a Monster is amazing, since its like an audience-engagement storytelling Sesame Street game. The only good fitness game I've used is EA's Fitness Evolved 2, and sadly only the cover in Asia is any good. The game itself is accurate and features such hilarious events as being yelled at by a drill instructor and punching blocks like space mario. I liked the Kinect Sports games, too, but I think they're pack-ins with Kinect these days.

The most use I get out of it is driving my Xbox; they even finally made search work in AU, so no more clumsy dashboard for me.

[The Kernel]

The Gunstringer. Don't think, just buy it. Seriously this game is loads of fun and actually has a decent control scheme.

[Stark]

There's a free demo, yeah? I thought it was terrible.

I love any recommendation that includes the phrase 'don't think' though.

[Darmalus]

I was originally leery of dance games because of my memories of DDR (loved it, but my parents hated the constant stomping, and I have similar neighbors now) but I realized this is motion capture stuff, so they probably have more sophisticated ways of measuring your performance I assume?

When you say Kinetimals bleeds content, do you mean DLC or they just really drag out unlocking stuff? The kid at the demo machine looked like he was having a ball.

[Stark]

Dancing games just read your skeleton, so you dont have to stomp a button, but it can still be loud depending on your flooring.

Kinectimals is about exploring an island and doing things at each location to unlock more. It takes many hours to get access to everything in the game, and there's a lot of hand-holding for kids. The stuff you do is fun, but if you want to get more things to do its a bit of a grind for tricks/games/etc.

[Ford Prefect]

If you have kids, Once Upon a Monster is amazing, since its like an audience-engagement storytelling Sesame Street game.

I've heard a lot of good things about Once Upon a Monster. It's been tempting me into getting a kinect for my young nieces and nephews to mess with.

[Spoonist]

Kinectimals was pretty horrible, you had to wait and wait and wait before you could actually try somthing out, and then just when you think you will get to play you "level up" the story and get a cut scene with no opportunity to play around.
Garbage packaging of something which could havebeen fantastic.