BISdom Kinect

Microsoft’s E3 press conference featured Modern Warfare 3, Gears of War 3, and Halo 4, but the thought that I’m left with is this: I guess I need to buy a Kinect.

Kinect was probably 90% of the 90 minute show. Even traditionally hardcore gaming franchises like Ghost Recon and Fable (no real surprise here) focused their presentations on Kinect support.

I guess I’m glad – because my vision of Kinect so far was one of a high-tech remote control with very limited use in gaming, but having never played Kinect before in my life and now having seen it acted out on stage, I’m mildly terrified about how Kinect games actually work. Or, more specifically, whether they do work in a meaningful and effective way.

Kinect’s slogan is “You are the controller,” but I’m wondering now whether any Kinect games actually give me any control over my controlled character. I’ve yet to see a Kinect game that lets players tell characters where to go.

So, for example, Microsoft demoed the Star Wars Kinect game that has long been teased as an early major Kinect title, and there was a teenaged male model playing the game onstage. Homedude swung a lightsaber (awesome), jumped around a little (whatever), and used some force powers (sort of cool), but all the while Anakin was running around Coruscant without any input from the player.

That seems like very shallow and limited gameplay to me. In other words, boring.

I’m hoping and expecting that Kinect games become more robust than that, but I’ve had that hope before. I don’t need to end up with both a high-tech scale and a high-tech remote control.

Event(s) of the Week:

This is a busy week. E3 runs through Thursday, the MLB draft is tonight, and the NBA Finals continue tomorrow.