Kinect Sports

Who doesn’t love a great sports game? In Kinect Sports, you can play one of 6 different sports, including Track & Field, Soccer, volleyball, Boxing, Bowling and Tennis. Whats more, you can play them through Microsoft’s unique Kinect hardware, which is a motion sensing input device that lets you play the game without having to hold a controller.

If you’ve ever played Wii Sports, it’s very similar. Instead of holding the Wii remote or standing on a platform however, Kinect Sports doesn’t need you to have any additional equipment aside from the Kinect hardware, which is very freeing.

Show off for your fans

One of the best parts of the game is performing the actual movements for the competition instead of pushing buttons or wiggling sticks. You have to throw punches and kicks just like you were really boxing, or pretend to throw a ball just like in bowling. One of the coolest features in the game is that when you finish a match, Kinect Sports shows a video of the character’s performance. The video is cut just like a professional replay in a real game, and it added a lot to the atmosphere. You can even upload this to Facebook so your friends can see.

The game also has great music, including “We are the Champions” by Queen, and other sports music classics.

Play against others

Another great feature of the game is playing against friends. In Kinect Sports, playing against friends is a lot more fun than playing against the computer. This is in part because it’s always more fun to play with friends, but also due to a minor issue with game play. Although the Kinect hardware does a pretty good job with picking up my motions while you’re playing, there is always a slight lag between your movements and the movements of the character. Against other players this is fine because they have a slight lag too, but the computer characters don’t have that lag.

This makes fighting against the computer kind of tricky because you have to anticipate the movements of the other character in an effort to make your moves before they do. Of course, this is only really a problem with sports like Boxing, where as turn based games like bowling are no problem.

Although the lag is only a problem in specific sports, it does make those sports feel less authentic because the lag really pulls you out of the game.

Pros

• Complete freedom of movement
• Polished look and feel
• Keeps you fit

Cons

• Lag between your movements and the ones on screen
• Some events feel less authentic than others