The long-awaited Kinect Star Wars game for Xbox 360 is out today, and the reviewers are united in their opinion — but not in a good way for Microsoft and LucasArts.
Complaints include a lack of precision in the lightsaber controls, a general lack of imagination in the gameplay, and a disjointed experience in which players move from one type of action to another, one at a time, without truly integrating them into a unified set of motions.
“The net effect is a game that makes you feel less like an autonomous, badass Jedi and more like a participant in a really simple game of Simon Says,” writes Kyle Orland on Ars Technica.
Adds Brett Molina of USA Today, “Also, since players have a limited move set, the action can grow a bit dull after a while. Developers break up action with speedracer sequences or moments where a player might man a heavy gun and take out Empire spaceships, but it’s largely basic action sequences.”
Concludes Stephen Totilo of Kotaku, “The Kinect is, simply, a terrible interface for this game that replaces the fantasy of being a Jedi with the frustration of a game that seldom functions the way you would want it to.”
That’s a pretty representative sampling of the reviews.
And then there’s this, the Galactic Dance Off mini game. Watch if you dare, Star Wars fans.
Bottom line: Kinect no longer gets a free pass from reviewers or gamers for being a novelty, and games for the motion sensor are going to need to be better than this if Microsoft wants the Xbox 360’s momentum to continue.