Ars technica Kinect review

[Nostromo]

Here it is

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2010/11/buy-a-house-clean-your-floor-move-your-butt-ars-reviews-kinect.ars

The Good

* The hardware is easy to set up, with good instructions
* The games are simple to jump in and play
* Using your hand as a cursor can be fun
* The games make you move, and tend to be a good workout
* Voice commands are useful in some circumstances
* The camera can adjust itself to put you in frame
* Games still work in low light conditions
* It knows who is playing, and uses that account
* The effect is uncanny when everything works right

The Bad

* The menu system takes much longer than just using buttons
* The hardware sometimes has issues hearing you or seeing your movement
* The games are very similar
* Without buttons, you lose control in certain parts of certain games
* It starts at $150, which feels expensive
* There is lag. It's not terrible, but it's there
* The Kinect Hub doesn't do everything, or even most things

The Ugly

* Too many games used the "take pictures during gameplay" gimmick. We get it—playing games on the Kinect makes us look stupid. It almost feels like you're playing a game so the 360 can laugh at you

[Asher]

I won't be getting one unless there's a good game that comes out and uses it. Same with PS Move.

Chances are this will never happen. Nintendo is ****ing evil for their influence.

[Asher]

^^^

I now have a PS Move and a Kinect because the circumstances were in my favour. SO wanted a 360/PS3, I wanted a cooler/quieter 360/PS3. So I got the respective motion controller bundles and gave him my old consoles.

Spent a couple hours with each so far.

Initial impressions:
Started with the PS Move:

It's very, very Wii like. It's definitely quite precise with pretty low latency, but the Sports Champions game felt like a soulless Wii Sports with a little more accuracy. That's the only PS Move game I have, as the others look terrible...

But I'm kind of pissed off at the Move. The accessory gouging is insane. Navigation...extra......
The worst is the fact that many of the Sports games work far, far better with two controllers. It's nerfed enough without two that I feel like I'm being ripped off. I'm being forced, it seems, to spend $50 more just to get a 2nd Move controller for single-player usecases. This is just obscene to me, and until there's a VERY VERY good PS Move game coming out that needs it, I won't be buying two...I almost want to boycott the rest of PS Move because of this, but I'm already in the boat,soo...

It didn't help that when I tried the demo for EyePet, I was shocked at how utterly terrible the camera quality was. I mistakenly assumed that for $99, the stupid wand and the little webcam would at least have a HD webcam. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It looked awful, but even worse than that, the game was virtually impossible to control. My partner was at the part of the demo, very early on, where it tells you to "wiggle your fingers to make him pounce". We spent about five minutes wiggling fingers in every possible way before it FINALLY happens. All with a nagging narrator telling you to wag your fingers every 30s.

Kinect : Seems FAR more polished. The setup was a breeze, it was welcoming. It feels very fresh and even inviting. Others in the household not usually attracted to gaming at the least were extremely impressed, even with the Kinect dashboard and the voice recognition ("Xbox, open tray", etc). We have Dance Central and Your Shape, and they were both very well done. The Dance Central game in particular is a phenomenal showcase for the technology, and it also got my mother-in-law involved on the action because it was so inviting: and I assure you, she's NEVER played a video game in her life...

Again, only a couple hours in with each.

[Jon Miller]

I heard that Kinect was much better....

JM

[Asher]

Here's an awesome video showing what Kinect "sees"