Xbox Kinect - Matthew Kinton Reviews

The Setup

The setup of Kinect is very important in order for it to be working well. Firstly, it has to be away from the speaker of your TV so if your speaker is on the bottom it needs to be on the top or if your speaker is on the top it needs to be on the bottom, however, if your speakers are in the middle it can go anywhere you like. Secondly, it needs to be at least 2 feet off the ground, once you are all plugged in you are ready to go all you have to do is turn on your Xbox and it will guide you through the setup and calibration.

The overall tracking of the player is rather good, though slightly slow to respond as Billy Painter found when trying to play my very own Kinect. It’s also great fun to get the whole of your family and friends up and playing together; but be careful though because I have it in my bedroom and lack of space is an issue, make sure you have a wide space so that more people can play and enjoy the fun.

A useful feature is absolutely no controller, which is handy seen as though batteries are a big issue for me and certainly a lot of other people, all you have to do is wave and the Kinect sensor will automatically see you and sign you in, though sometimes facial recognition doesn’t quite work unless you have lots of clear lighting all around the room.  There is also voice recognition where you can tell it exactly what do, which also doesn’t quite work unless everybody else is silent in the room.

While playing the game it likes to take pictures and names them according to your actions this is rather a funny feature because you get to look at yourself looking stupid. 

Kinect is about £130, which is quite expensive but I would wait a while till the price drops, also because the games need to be more developed. I have only played one which is Kinect Adventures, this is good fun to play for a bit, but there are only five mini games to play so it can get quite boring after a while.