Kinect Sports Rivals
Have you
ever wanted to actually be in a game? Not just immersed in the experience but
actually apart of the game? Well look no further than Microsoft Studios' Kinect
Sports Rivals. Not only is this a fully immersive sports game, but it scans
your body and actually put YOU in the center of all the action instead of some
silent protagonist or faceless hero! So what does this gaming experience have
to offer? There are 6 exciting and amazingly designed activities, a 'team story
mode' and endless hours of fun and excitement all while getting in a bit of an
exercise on the side! So lets get into it shall we?
Starting the game.
When you
first launch Kinect Sports Rivals, you will be greeted with an opening cut
scene followed by the 'champion creator.' This is where you get put into the
game. Using the Kinect, the game captures your body figure, size and facial
features just to name a few items and creates your own unique character to use
for all of the events! Of course, you can always change this or customize these
features whenever you would like!
The Events.
After
creating your champion, you would think that it would be time to dive head
first into your favorite activity such as shooting or bowling right? Wrong!
Unfortunately, like most games, you are forced to do "training" in
each game type to unlock the next sport. Not only do you have to do training,
you also have to do at least 1 event in the sport you just trained for before
being allowed to play the next sport.
Now, this
isn't a major issue because you should
eventually play all of them anyways, but when I buy a sports game that has
multiple options of things to do (i.e. Wii Sports) I expect to be able to pick
and choose which one I start with or which one I do or do not want to play.
That being said, I enjoyed the banter from Coach when he is 'training' you as
well as the way the events flow together. But, you cant like everything all the
time, so lets get into the details on each sport. On each section, I will first
go over how each sport uses the motion controls than get into the 'review' part.
Wake Racing
The motion for
this sport is like holding handlebars, you hold your hands straight out away
from your body leaving your right hand open. To accelerate, you close your
right hand like you are grabbing the handlebar and to decelerate, just open
your hand again. To turn, you push one arm toward the screen and pull the other
back towards yourself, again, just like turning a bike! Keep in mind, the hand
that comes back towards your body is the direction you turn.
This sport
is very exciting but also challenging in the fact that you are constantly
holding your arms straight out for up to 5 min at a time. In playing a few
races one after another, sometimes I would get lost and forget that I was
supposed to be controlling the vehicle like handlebars and instinctively
reverted to a steering wheel motion. Along the racing aspect of the sport,
there are also ramps, mines and power ups involved! If you choose to use them,
the ramps will help you perform tricks to build up your power ups & speed. If
I'd rate just this sport, id say 3.5 out of 5.
Climbing
This sport
is fairly self explanatory, raise your hands above your head, make like a
monkey and climb! Need more detail? FINE! You alternate raising and lowering
each hand while grasping as you raise your hands as if you were grabbing an
invisible hand hold. If there's a gap you crouch down and jump than grab the
next set of hand holds!
Just like
the last sport, climbing is exhausting as dicks! Honestly, I haven't sweat that
much since I was in high school running 'the mile' in gym! While not
exceedingly challenging, it very rewarding when you make it to the top after
putting in so much physical effort. This is one of those games that you play
where you wake up in the morning and go "did I get hit by a bus last
night?!" That being said, climbing would be a very good tool to use in an
exercise regiment right along with many of these games! Overall, id give it 4.5
out of 5!
Target Shooting
Ever had an
imaginary dual with a friend in elementary school? Well, this game uses the
same principal. The good 'ol index finger and thumb in the shape of a gun just
point and shoot... In a manner of speaking.
In target shooting,
the goal of the game is to hit targets and avoid being hit by a specially
activated turret. The turret can only be activated after successfully hitting a
number of targets thus 'charging' the turret. However there's no
"shooting" actually involved in the game. By that I mean there is no
action to make the gun shoot its pretty much point at a target and watch it
disappear. Don't get me wrong though, its still pretty fun but id like a
trigger or something when I shoot!! Overall, id give it a 3.5 out of 5.
Soccer (or Football
if you're across the pond)
So here are the controls as they
were explained by Coach. Kick towards the screen with the side of your foot to
do a low pass, kick with the front of your foot in an upward motion for a high
pass. When shooting, time your kick with the ball & swing your leg sideways
for after touch or to put 'spin' on the ball.
With that
said, this is what actually happens, pass, pass, shoot straight to the goalies
hands, repeat... Unless you have a living room as large as an actual soccer
pitch, this sport in Kinect Sports Rivals is ABSOLUTE CRAP!!! It took me almost
2 hours to beat the training mission and than the required story afterwards
just to get to the next sport! I'm hoping the reason it so crappy is the fact
that I don't have a huge amount of space in my living room so as not to
unfairly review this section, ill just leave it at that.. Review status... 1
out of 5
Bowling
Just like
most other bowling motion sports, you grab the ball, pull back and let go! You
can also either swing your arm inward or outward for a bit of curve or flick
your wrist to add spin.
We now come
to the coup d'état, the alpha to the omega, the Charlie to the Team DBAH,
Bowling! This is obviously the best sport in the entire package! The reason I
purchased this game was mainly for bowling, and it doesn't disappoint! Unlike
other motion sports bowling games, this one doesn't appear to have a 'cheat
motion' where you can get perfect strikes all the time which is awesome! Obviously
this gets a 5 out of 5.
Tennis
Again, like
other tennis motion sports games, you throw the tennis ball up with your off
hand and swing with your power hand to serve. While the ball is in play, you
can use forehand or backhand motions to return the ball. Along with that, you
can slice downward for a drop shot or upward for a top spin shot
At first, I
completely forgot tennis was included in the package but was glad they included
it! Though you don't have very much control over your champions movement, its
fairly simple to learn to time your return shots. One thing that's a bit
irritating is it doesn't always serve how you want it to and its a bit buggy as
far as the motion capture for the serve. But again, very fun to play and very
tiring for your arms, overall 4 out of 5!
Rivals
There's one more feature I haven't been able to try out
which is Rivals aspect. This requires a friend to have the game which you
compete against and earn Rival stuff (again I haven't tested it so I'm not
exactly sure)
So there it is!
In summation, forced training sucks, Bowling and Climbing
are the 2 best sports to play out of this entire game, soccer is shit and wake
racing, shooting & tennis are pretty good when you get bored of bowling and
climbing! There are a few additional modes I have yet to play for each sport but
for now, we'll just leave it at that!
Overall I'm going to give the game 4 our
of 5, its fun, its healthy and it gets you off the couch while still actually playing
games!!! If you have an Xbox One I'd highly suggest getting this game ASAP (and
maybe challenging me to a match!)
I hope this was informative and entertaining! Leave a
comment with any questions you may have!!!
Halfrican OUT!
Labels: Kinect Sports Rivals, Review, Xbox One