With the surprise runaway success of the Wii, thanks in large part to its pack-in title Wii Sports, Sony and Microsoft rushed to make their own motion-sensing technology. Sony released the Move, essentially its version of the Wii Remote. Microsoft, meanwhile, released a body-tracking camera known as the Kinect.
Microsoft deemed that Kinect needed its own sports compilation, so it tasked one of its subsidiaries with the project. The company that worked on Kinect Sports was the famed English video game developer Rare.
Kinect Sports contains several sports including bowling, boxing, soccer, table tennis, track-and-field, and volleyball. Track-and-field actually constitutes five separate events including discus throwing, hurdle jumping, javelin throwing, and long jumping.
As long as you have a lot of room that allows the Kinect to detect your entire body, all of the sports work well. That's the main drawback of any Kinect game. A lot of room is needed. It will be a struggle to get the game to detect the entire body in a small room, especially with furniture in the way.
In this game, volleyball is my favorite, as it seems to be the event that works best even with only partial body-tracking. If I'm lucky enough to get it to detect my entire 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall frame, the other games are fun as well. Another drawback of the Kinect is that it has trouble detecting dark colors, so make sure you don't have on a dark outfit so that the sensor has the best chance to detect your body. Unfortunately, this trouble with dark colors also is seen with hair and even skin color. I have natural jet-black hair, and I have played many Kinect games with my hair completely cut off. People with dark skin tones have reported even worse issues, with Kinect not detecting them or cutting off entire body parts.
Kinect Sports is a fantastic showcase for Kinect. However, it also showcases the issues with the Kinect sensor. If you are tall or have a small living room space like me, most of the games aren't fun to play. Volleyball still works well with partial body tracking, but the rest, especially soccer and track-and-field, are unplayable. The Kinect also has problems detecting dark colors, which has been an issue for people with jet-black hair like me and has been even worse for people with dark skin tones. Kinect Sports is great when it works, but it is brought down by the limitations of the Kinect.
Final Verdict:
3½ out of 5
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