An awful lot of rain, three sets of people we'd asked for directions and a scenic (i.e. long) walk around the surrounding area later, we finally managed to stumble into London's Saatchi Gallery - the setting for Microsoft's Christmas Showcase, an event where Microsoft shows off it's wares for the upcoming festive season - which this year, mostly centred around Microsoft's new motion-sensing camera, Kinect.
One of the games we got to try was Kinect Joy Ride - a racing game that started out life as a free arcade game on the Xbox Live Arcade, that's now been reworked for Kinect, the new Motion sensing camera from Microsoft. Like anything with the word "Kinect" in the title - or, indeed, anything with a purple streak on the box, Kinect Joy Ride does away with the controller completely, instead letting you drive your avatar's car around with your arms outstretched, clutching at an invisible steering wheel - which is fine for a little while, until your arms begin to ache from holding them out for so long.
"It's more fun when you wave your hands in the air, like this!", as King Julian might have said.
To steer your car, you rotate your arms in the direction you want your car to go - like you're holding an invisible steering wheel. And while this does seem strange at first (and if you're anything like me, involves you zig-zagging across the track, bouncing off the walls like a pinball), it does get more straightforward after you've managed to adjust. Driving forwards automatically, all you've got to do is steer your invisible steering wheel, and the car on screen will do as you do. It's an impressive sensation when you've got the hang of it, although there is a learning curve while you're getting your head around not having anything in your hands.
As you drive round the track, you can collect coins and do tricks which will fill up your boost meter. To boost, you pull your arms back, and then push them forwards again, and your car should zoom off. Or in my case, it manages to turn itself round without boosting in the slightest, or it boosts straight into a tree. Which brings us to another problem - there is no way of breaking or reversing - which means when your car is boosting into a wall, and bouncing into it constantly, there's very little you can do to get it unstuck, except to try to steer your way out of it, as you get lapped by every opponent on the track.
If this was me, I would be crashing into the walls right now...
However, as comparitively easy to pick up and play as Joy Ride was, there are a few glaring drawbacks to Microsoft's controller-free way of playing games - not least the fact that in Joy Ride, there's next to no feedback on what the camera's actually picking up. With no way of telling 100% if your car's turning slightly due to your slight movements, or because the track was banked slightly, there seems little room for precision, because you don't know how exaggerated or not you've got to be - something which could have been remedied incredibly easily if there was some sort of on screen 'ghost' steering wheel, which rotated as you did, so you could see how your movements impacted the game's reading. Because of this, the game did feel a little unresponsive at times, as obstacles appeared in your path which you tried to steer around, only to see your avatar drive head first into it.
All in all, Kinect Joy Ride was actually quite fun to play (before your arms dropped off), and after the short adjusting phase, the controls were quite simple. Of the three Kinect games we played, this one was probably my favourite, as it seemed to work much better than the other two - and any racing game that is relatively easy to pick up and play and not overly realistic (I'm looking at you Forza), gets my vote.
Kinect Joy Ride has an RRP of £40, and is due out on the 10th November - the same day as the Kinect camera. On the run up to the launch we'll be running a 'Countdown to Kinect' feature, detailing everything from what games are out at launch, and what they're like, to an FAQ to answer to all your questions about Kinect. So make sure you keep checking back.
