Wednesday 29 June 2016

Kung-Fu for Kinect (Xbox One) - Review

Kung-Fu for Kinect is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £14.99.

The Kinect has been pretty much abandoned by everyone but Virtual Air Guitar Company at this point, or it at least feels like it has. I am a bit disappointed to be honest, as this Kinect is SO much better than the Kinect we had with the Xbox 360. I wanted developers to think of new and exciting ways they could utilise the Kinect within more mainstream games, but unfortunately it never really came to be. Kinect is now the home of gimmicky games and people who like to shout at their Tv until it turns on or turns up. Though I've a feeling when the new dash comes out of preview even that will stop.

Kung-Fu for Kinect is exactly what you expect from a game with that title. You must bounce around your living room pretending you're a ninja to beat the myriad of enemies on screen.

My favourite thing about Kung-Fu for Kinect was apparent from the minute I started the game. It asks you to choose whether your character in the comic-style story will have a female voice or a male. You then are asked to strike various poses so that you can be placed into the comic book. It is a really cool way to immerse you in the game. The problem came when my children wanted a go. My son is an extremely tall 7 year old, but despite completing all of the poses a lot of the actual comic book pages were blank where he should have been. The game never wanted that he could not be seen and there were no options to make allowances for this, which left him feeling a little disappointed.

You punch and kick to mover yourself around the screen which works alright. The problem comes with the moves that require any form of precision. You are told you can perform a somersault by punching both arms at once, but this worked probably a third of the time. The rest of the time left you being beat up by someone as you made yourself mad trying to pull off a somersault so that you could gain the upper hand. Worse though was when you had to jump up to a ledge to reach the next part of the level, I found myself stood there for about five minutes trying to get the somersault needed. When I did it didn't end up where I wanted it to either. The Kinect does pick up the person playing very well though and animates it beautifully throughout the level. I found that the picture never distorted, even when my son was moving incredibly fast.

Kung-Fu for Kinect is a fun little game. It has it's niggles but let's be honest what games don't?! My son had a blast with it, but I wasn't so enthused truth be told. I found the lack of precision in the smaller movements infuriating, but my son was bouncing around that much he barely seemed to notice. I'd say that kids will definitely get more out of this game than adults, but who am I to judge? If you've been looking for a reason to dust your Kinect this might just be the game for you.

5/10 TRY IT!
A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

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