Kinectimals – Featuring a small child and a cute tiger cub named Skittles, the purpose of this showing was to convey the interactivity between player and character. Skittles responded to a combination of voice and body movements and even reacted once the girl hid off-screen. Most certainly less contrived than last year’s Milo but the moment Skittles tried to lick the girl to the sound of, ‘Okay Skittles, that’s enough… that tickles. Bye Skittles, I love you’ did little to impress, even if it was intended as a sweet little touch. There are reportedly 40 animals to adopt and over 30 unique activities to mess around with.

Kinect Sports – What can we say about this motion-controlled sports game other than that we’ve seen it all before – years previously – on Nintendo’s Wii? It’s been created in collaboration with Rare, so it ought to innovate in at least some way. It ought to, but it doesn’t. The game includes hurdles, javelin, table tennis and bowling to name a few, although we question how far this will go to sway the casual market away from the likes of Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.

Kinect Joy Ride – Controlled by putting your hands in the standard ‘ten and two’ steering wheel positions, the possibilities offered for future driving games is something that excites more than the game itself. Tricks were performed following a ramp jump by spinning yourself around and thrusting both arms forward triggered the boost.

Kinect Adventures – The first demo showed off was Reflex Ridge, where body position, or more specifically the arms and legs were used to collect tokens. Most impressive was the way a second player could enter the game by merely stepping into view of Kinect’s sensor. The machine took pictures from key moments of the adventure and presented them once the game had finished. The second demo was by far the most painful and embarrassing moment of the show, or perhaps of any show we’ve seen; no memes such as ‘Giant Enemy Crab’ or ‘Riiidge Racerrr’ will come of it, only irritation and burst eardrums. The body movements of Shannon and Abby shunted the raft through the current, cloud-hopping and collecting tokens to the finish line – no word yet if the overzealous shouting of ‘wooooo’ and ‘watch the waterfall, watch the waterfall’ will make us play any better, but somehow we doubt it.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved – ‘Your Shape puts players physically inside the games environment. That’s actually me in the virtual world – including my sweater,’ proclaimed Ubisoft’s Felicia Williams as she moved her digital self around the game’s reactive environment. While the demo took far too long, sapping much of the energy that had come before, it did present itself as a decent alternative to the Wii Fit. With a wide range of exercises such as the peaceful Zen Master Class and the speedy Combat Training, this may well impress the Nintendo crowd more than any other title.

Dance Central – Offering a more fluid and authentic experience than Just Dance, Harmonix CEO, Alex Rigopulos stated, ‘It was essential to us that this game featured compelling and authentic choreography, so we worked with world class choreographers to ensure that every routine in the game is the real deal.’ With over 600 moves and 90 routines, plus the promise of a slew of downloadable content post-launch, there’ll be much to keep dance aficionados busy come the year’s end.

The Lightsaber Game/ Forza 4 – While very little gameplay footage was shown, the idea of finally wielding a lightsaber and playing a Forza title complete with digital showroom would excite even the most cynical gamer. Unfortunately, the Star Wars game failed to impress on our end, perhaps down to its on-rails nature. The ability to step in and out of a car and move around in the digital space using only body movements will be appreciated when Forza 4 hits stores.

Xbox 360 Slim

The biggest and most earth-shattering moment of the show was the announcement of the Xbox 360 Slim, complete with 250 gig hard drive and built-in Wi-Fi (to be available in mid-July). Sporting a glossy finish and sleek design, this latest model will be taking the place of the Xbox 360 Elite with subsequent price-drops to follow. Kinect-ready (previous models will require the Kinect power supply), a bundle is also to be expected come November.

We say:

This year, Microsoft’s keynote was one of two halves – the anticipated game reveals such as Metal Gear Rising and Gears of War 3, then the Kinect-centric side of things dealing with, well, we’re still not entirely sure. If Microsoft hoped to turn the tide and persuade core gamers that Kinect will cater to all people of all kinds, then they can mark this one down as a failure. Instead, what was shown was a step in the right direction for technology, which is getting more interactive, more convenient and (hopefully) more reliable as it progresses. After all, we wouldn’t want our shiny new Kinect machines to red ring now, would we?

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