It is Monday 8th of November and I’m here with a blog entry a little later than I originally hoped to be. For the past two or three weeks there have been some big releases, but with the US release of the Kinect came a whole slew of new games and a whole lot of coverage on them. It didn’t feel right posting without soaking up the maximum amount of juicy Kinect journalism possible, and only I consider myself now in an adequate position to administer your weekly dose of blog (note: Gamer_152’s blog is only intended to be taken as a suppository).

Anticipation

I think it’s fair to say there’s been a lot of lead-up to the release of the Kinect. It’s hard for me to believe that it was only back during E3 2009 that we were seeing ‘Project Natal’, and Peter Molyneux up on stage showing off his potentially mind-blowing proof of concept. I remember thinking at the time that Microsoft’s move only made sense, with the way the Wii was selling in comparison to the 360 and PS3 there was no way they weren’t going to join the motion control battle, none the less they appeared to have found a somewhat clever way to do it.

Anger

Somewhat predictably online discussion about the console hasn’t run that smoothly. Just as there was backlash to the Wii when it started the motion control “revolution”, there were plenty of “core” game enthusiasts everywhere, angrily mashing their fists into their keyboards in fits of rage over the release of the Kinect. While I understand the concerns of some people over the introduction of motion controls to gaming, I think to a certain extent this frustration over a new wave of gaming better suited to casual gamers is born out of selfishness. A lot of people, me included, are very passionate about video games, so when the general public start seeing something that has so much significance to us as just a small amusement that might be fun for an hour or two at parties people get annoyed. I believe people also become somewhat aggravated when they see something that is very deep and complex for them contorted into something simple and palatable for the mainstream, as they feel the thing they love is being misrepresented. Don’t get me wrong, I do empathise to an extent with these points of view, but everyone has the right to have fun with video games and treat them as significantly or insignificantly as they wish. I enjoy a good meal, that doesn’t mean I have to be a gourmand.

Besides the alteration of the perception of games in the public eye that casual gaming has brought, I think people are also worried about the motion control craze encroaching upon the gameplay of the kinds of games they enjoy. I think it’s been established at this point that most casual game enthusiasts don’t want core game concepts in their games, and vice-versa, so I don’t think there’s legitimate reason to panic over the possibility of new line of Frankensteinesque half casual, half-core games, I.e. Mass Effect 3 probably won’t include a hula hooping mini-game. As for the possibility of the casual game market destroying the core game market, that’s not going to happen any time soon, for developers making casual games is very different from making core games and the core games industry is still worth billions, there’s no way any company are going to just let it roll over and die. If Nintendo can release something like the Wii and still be bringing out quality Zelda and Mario games for their platform I think that’s more than enough of a sign that console manufacturers know just how valuable your Call of Dutys and your Halos are. I may be preaching to the converted here but I just wanted to clarify my feelings on all of this and try and show why I have nothing against motion control gaming.

The Kinect Cometh

Despite all the forum rage and debate, the Kinect is here, and I must say from a technological standpoint it’s pretty amazing. For a while there was speculation over whether the Kinect was actually crashing and burning as a project for Microsoft; it did seem that every time they showed it their general attitude was “We know this doesn’t really work but our new prototype is much better”. After hearing them say this so many times I’m not entirely surprised that people started to get suspicious, but I think we can safely say that this thing actually does work. The only reports of lag I’ve seen have been from 1UP who say that there is a noticeable lapse in reaction to your movements, but not anything any worse than you’ll find on the Wii or the Playstation Move. Honestly, trying to conceive of the algorithms that must be behind this thing makes my head hurt, but conceptually the Kinect is cool as hell.

Figuring Out Kinect

I’ve always maintained that however good or bad your hardware is, it’s the quality of the games that count, and with Kinect it seems to be that there’s some stuff which doesn’t look bad, one game in particular that looks great, and some stuff that looks sort of terrible, with the worst of the lot seeming to be games that are unresponsive or games where actions in real-life don’t seem to match up to actions on-screen. One thing that struck me with a lot of the launch titles was that while most of the menus in the games were flashy, a lot of the time I looked at menu elements and thought “Well I’ve only been thinking about it for a couple of seconds but already I can figure out a better menu system than this”. I say this not just to highlight that menus in a lot of the Kinect launch games may be quite a slog for casual gamers, but also because firstly; I think it reflects that even with months of development behind the launch titles of the Kinect, there’s still a lot developers are going to have to work out about making games for the Kinect, and secondly; I believe even for casual players the lack of any kind of controller can be a disadvantage in certain situations.

Looking at that first point again, I think perhaps a more telling sign that there’s still a mountain of untapped potential within the Kinect is that the launch titles are more or less the same kinds of games we saw on the Wii. You have the dancing game, the sports games, the fitness games, and the minigame collections. It’s not that I don’t think those games don’t pull off some of that stuff well; Your Shape really could be something that came straight out of a sci-fi story, but we’ve had motion control games for almost four years and while some of the stuff we have now is cool I think the Kinect could go to some really original places, even if any of those places aren’t going to be especially deep.

One thing I was surprised by is that there actually seems to be more of a sense of progression and structure in these games than I was expecting. Up until now most motion control games have steered clear of experience bars or unlockables, but I don’t think these are concepts that should be reserved exclusively for the RPG-loving core gamers. If you have a casual game that you think you can make most players keep coming back too (and if your game is any good chances are they will), then throw in your unlockable items and your simple levelling system. I’m not a fan of Zynga’s Facebook games, and I know they’re not quite the same as motion control games, but if there’s one thing they have proved it’s that that casual gamers can be into basic RPG concepts.

A War of Motion

So I think we all know that Kinect is going to be big, anyone who thinks differently is fooling themselves. As you’d expect it sounds like Microsoft have poured a ridiculous amount of money into marketing, and Kinect has appeared everywhere from day time television to burger boxes. However, for everything the peripheral can do, it seems there are some limitations to its capabilities. Firstly, the Kinect is only capable of recognising two players at a time. Not a huge deal, but if you consider that this peripheral is likely to be popular at big social gatherings it could be a little restricting. Secondly, it requires a certain amount of space in people’s living rooms for use and I think this is the much larger problem. I don’t know the size of the average area of open space in a living room, but figures for how much space you need for Kinect suggest about 6-8 feet, creating this unusual situation where whether you can play certain video games is dependent on the size of the room you’re playing them in.

Whether this thing is going to be as big as the Wii also remains to be seen. I think Wii has a leg up by being the first motion control console on the scene, but even if the Kinect beats the Wii on launch figures, one of the most shocking things about the Wii was the way it seemed to continue to make huge sales month after month. How profitable the Kinect will be compared to the Wii is something I really feel unable to analyse, and I feel like it’s really one for the Michael Pachters of the video game world. At any rate I don’t think the price tag is going to scare too many off, Nintendo underpriced the Wii and with the Wii in such demand £180 was a steal for most. If people really want to play Kinect then they’re going to be ready to fork out the £250 (or the equivalent for their country) for the peripheral.

Bam! There It Is

So there you have it, just about every thought I’ve ever had about the Kinect up to this moment. Here in the UK we’ll be seeing it out in stores November 10th and while I’m sure I’ll want to cringe at many of the amateur reports showing morning news presenters grinning stupidly as they try out some Kinect Sports mini-games, I do hope the Kinect helps bring just a little bit of the entertainment we get from video games to the public at large because when it comes down to it that’s what games are about, entertaining people.

Thank you for reading this gargantuan blog, a special thanks to UncertainOtter and Aetheldod who were particularly complimentary about last week’s blog, as well as Claude who gets props just for being our resident Wii-loving maniac. Good luck, have Skittles.