Gamer, me?! You must be joking!

The title gives it all away. The beautiful people at Xbox South Africa decided that they would send me the Xbox Kinect to test out for a bit. I was a little gobsmacked, because if you knew me you would know that I am a little dyslexic when it comes to gaming.

I somehow manage to hit the square instead of the triangle or the B instead of the A and somehow forget to press the arrow keys while doing it. You get the picture.

Nevertheless, here I was receiving it at the office and thinking would it be possible to hook it up here?

Connecting it – easy! I even got my flatmates to help just to check how easy it was to connect it. I am geared up on wiring and so forth so that would have been the really easy part for me.

All set up smoothly and the tv even played nice with us. So let’s tell you exactly what I thought of it…

BRILLIANT!

Yes one word to sum it all up. This coming from a dyslexic gamer! Started off pretty easy, took a little longer to find me in the room and adjust, I think that’s due to my shortness or maybe not. Word is, it was due to the lighting in the room.

The guys sent through four games: Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures, Dance Central and Kinectimals.

You are the controller

My favourite is Kinect Adventures. But we started off with the Sports and the Dance. Sports was awesome especially the boxing. My flatmate and I had it out for a bit and its a good way to get rid of the aggression. I failed at the Dance, maybe because I was really not interested in it but the Adventures rocked.

Loads of teamwork and exercise. I have to admit that the next day after playing for a good 2 hours, we kind of got wrapped up in it, I could really feel as though my thighs and arms had gotten an extreme gym session.

Was hooked for the two weeks I had the Kinect, so much so I begged Xbox to let me have it for an extra week! They let me have it for another two weeks. Have to hand it to them, they made a plan!

In that extra two weeks, I borrowed a friends Kinect Fitness, which is an intense fitness programme. I was amazed at the accuracy of the programme and the work out I got. Who needs a gym?!

The Kinect was beyond all expectations. I had seen it at the launch but really did not get a full sense of its capabilities till now. I have played with the WII and attempted other gaming consoles including an Xbox, but the Kinect made a difference to my gaming experience. It’s easy to use and to follow the menu, not having any controls in my hand and thereby not pressing the wrong buttons and the fact that there were no cords pulled across our lounge has to mean that its perfect for the anyone, anytime.

It connects in a few simple steps to the wifi at home linking you up to the Xbox360 experience. I unfortunately did not try this out to its full capacity and did not game against anyone even though I was nagged by Faranaaz and Sameer to hook up with them.

The Kinectimals also did not appeal to me but it is aimed at a younger audience. The Adventure my fav as mentioned before and the Sports is cool especially if you want more people involved.

I have no idea how the Kinect will pan out in the long run but for me now, it was and has been the best gaming experience I’ve had in ages. And for it gets a solid 9/10. To all the true gamers, I am sorry if this fails you but for us n00bs it is the perfect platform to get involved in gaming.

Kinect Adventure – Image Courtesy of El33tOnline http://http://www.el33tonline.com/