So as many of you who follow me on Twitter probably know from the pic I posted last week, I’ve recently gotten my hands on the Xbox Kinect system for a three week review, along with three games, Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures and Dance Central.
I took the review unit I received home last week and connected it up to my TV / stereo system in no time. It’s dead easy to hook up and connecting the Kinect sensor is as easy as plugging a wire into your Xbox and positioning the sensor in a spot near the TV where it can clearly see you (I put it on the tv itself. We’re rocking an old-school CRT TV monitor because, well, it was a hand-me-down from a late gran and we can’t afford anything else).
Here’s where things get freaky. Soon as the sensor is plugged in and fired up, it actively starts looking for you. It moves its little sensor-head (that kinda looks like Johnny 5’s head from the film Short Circuit) up and down until it has a lock on not only your body, but also exactly where it is positioned in relation to the sensor.
In layman’s terms, this means the Kinect not only tracks your movements from left to right, but also tracks your movement towards and away from the sensor (your depth, in other words).
I fired up Kinect Sports first and eagerly performed my stretches while the game started.
Fair warning at this point (courtesy of @HollieHepburn), put some clothes on. As much as you, like me, might look forward to nothing more at the end of your day than coming home, stripping down and getting to work on a bottle of fine scotch, just keep in mind that the Xbox takes pics of you while you game.
You can choose to share these pics or keep them private, but either way, they are stored on the device somewhere, and much like that porn video you shot for the fun of it one drunken night with your girlfriend at the time, they could get you in trouble…
We then proceeded to spend the next three hours, totally immersed in Kinect Sports, where we took part in everything from long jump to ping pong, using just our bodies and were both amazed at how responsive and accurate the sensor is.
Running on the spot makes your character sprint around a track, making a throwing gesture over your head launches a javelin, kicking makes him pass a soccer ball, a straight bowling gesture makes him bowl a straight ball while a curved one puts some spin on it – that’s some next level shit right there!
Needless to say, our first experience of the Xbox Kinect system was a lot of fun and the first thing we thought to do was call up all our friends and invite them around to play as well.
The Kinect is definitely more fun when you play with at least another two or three people. As a solo gamer it would probably feel a little lonely gaming by yourself, but hey, you can always take all your clothes off to make it interesting 
Stay tuned for more write-ups as I get more into the Xbox Kinect system and keep a special eye out for the Dance Central episode, which promises to be packed full of pictures of me and J-Rab shakin’ it like ritards on the living room dancefloor.
Good times.
-ST
