Kinecting With Folks

Justin here. I was lucky enough to receive an Xbox360 Kinect for my 28th birthday. It is a lot of fun for everyone. Our friend Bob came over tonight to see what all the mess was about and it already looks like he's got the fever.

A lot of people might ask, "why would I want a kinect when I already have a Nintendo Wii?" which is a valid question and one I hope to answer here in a few. The Kinect has a "Big Brother-like" ability to recognize your face, meaning it identifies a player when he or she just stands in front of the camera. In the picture below Bob is running the Kinect ID facial recognition program.

The facial recognition is actually a great feature for families to control kids' behaviors. For example, since the Xbox can tell which family member is playing, if you don't want your 6 year old to play a Grand Theft Auto type game the Kinect will know which child has signed in and not allow them to play. The Kinect also features an incredible voice recognition software. I've suffered from a nasty cold lately, and even with my nasally voice I was able to command the Xbox to pull up the recently added ESPN application. It live streamed USA vs South Africa in the Nelson Mandela Cup in Capetown. I did this all whilst under a blanket without moving any part of my body. Did I mention I was watching it live?

There are a few other features I have yet to try out like the Video Kinect, which is mostly due to the lack of friends who have Kinect. Right now I only have one other friend who has one, and we can't seem to catch each other online at the same time to try it out. However the Kinect itself is similar to the Wii in that it does get you off the couch to play it's games. Right now I have only played Kinect Adventures and Fighters Uncaged. Both will wear you out, but thus far we're still playing it and if this were a Wii, we would have stopped by now and not picked it up for 10 months.

Now its still important to note that not every game for the xbox is suddenly hands free. Halo: Reach is definitely still a controller based game and still a lot of fun if you enjoy the Halo series. The Kinect is something that will (fingers crossed) help get America into shape through aerobic exercises disguised as games. If you can try to get your hands on one.

Pin It