Xbox Kinect

This year for Christmas I received the Xbox Kinect (plus Kinect Adventures).  I would recommend this product to anybody.  It comes with a copy of Kinect Adventures, which is a pretty decent starter game.  It is more than capable of keeping one occupied until they are able to spring for another game.  The only downside is that there are only five mini games, and variations on those games, so it can become repetitive fairly quickly. 

The Kinect itself has plenty of interesting features.  The first of which is of course the motion sensing technology.  It works great, and was able to pick up my movements with no trouble.  Pausing the game or exiting to the dashboard is as easy as holding my left arm at a 45 degree angle.  Selecting options is easy as well, requiring my hand to hover over my choice, while a time counts up to give me a chance to change my mind or make sure I'm choosing the option I want.  I'm sure the quality of the motion control will vary based on the programming of the individual games, but so far everything has worked wonderfully.

The second feature Kinect offers is the voice recognition.  Simply say "Xbox" while in the Kinect hub and a prompt of commands appears on the screen.  If you can read it, you can say it and the Xbox promptly obeys.  I have had no trouble getting it to follow my commands so far, and have never had to repeat myself.  My only wish is that it had more command options, such as powering down the system.  Also, I've noticed that while I can open and close the tray with voice command, if a game is in the tray, the only option is to play the game.  While, no big deal, because I'd be required to get up to remove the game regardless of what voice command offers, it was a little bit of a quirk.

The final and most standout feature in my opinion is the facial recognition.  I simply wave at the Xbox after turning it on and it recognizes me and logs me in under my Xbox LIVE account.  This feature is not perfect and the level of light in the area can affect it's ability to recognize an individual user.  To remedy this, Xbox offers users the option to go through the memorization process multiple times to allow for multiple levels of light and conditions.  For example, when I originally went through the facial recognition process, it was evening and the only thing illuminating my living room was artificial light.  The next day, while the room was filled with sunlight, I attempt to log in and the Kinect did not recognize me.  I simply went through the process again and now the Kinect recognizes me day and night.

Overall, I think the connect is a wonderful addition to the Xbox, and definitely advances it in the console wars between Xbox 360, Wii, and the PS3.  While, it is too soon to tell, I believe the capabilities of the Kinect has to potential to set Xbox miles ahead of the competition.

Review: Wii Fit Plus

Another item I received for Christmas is the new Wii Fit Plus.  I had seen this played at a friend's house when we had a Wii party after they bought theirs.  The new features were enough to convince me that it would be a great improvement over the original.  I tried it out with my mom Christmas Day.  She was the reason I decided to purchase the original Wii Fit, as her and my dad already had it.  Even she enjoyed the game significantly, and was asking to play it several times during the weekend I was in town.  Read on for my full review.

Our Xbox is Wireless...Finally!

As I've said in previous posts, our Xbox 360 was purchased for Christmas over a year ago.  We had not even considered purchasing the Xbox 360 until we learned that Final Fantasy XIII was to be released on multiple platforms.  Our biggest reason for choosing the Xbox over the PS3 is that it has the ability to stream Netflix movies directly to the TV. (This is something the PS3 can do now, but was not available at the time we were considering the purchase).  The streaming ability of Netflix is awesome, but we are not big fans of watching movies on the computer.  We had been procrastination on purchasing a wireless adapter, and failed to do so mainly because we just never thought to when we were out and about shopping.

This year for Christmas we recieved the wireless adapter for our Xbox from my parents.  Out of all the gifts we've received, this is the one we put to use first.  It fits securely in the back of our Xbox and stays out of the way.  We set up our Xbox Live membership, and can now watch any Netflix movie or TV show that is available for instant streaming.  Hopefully this will help with checking off some movies from the list I must watch for my 101 things.  This also enabled us to access downloadable contents for Dragon Age: Origins, and will probably provide us with the motivation to purchase some massive multiplayer online games.  I don't even know why we waited so long in obtaining this.  If you have an Xbox 360 and aren't online yet, I would recommend a wireless adapter.  No messy cords to trip over, and it is easy to set up.

Readers:  Any of you Xbox 360 users out there?  What games do you like to play online?  Any recommendations?

Review: Dragon Age Origins

This past weekend was a huge accomplishment for me.  I beat my very first RPG since Super Mario RPG for SNES.  Granted, I was 18 years old the first time I beat Super Mario RPG.  I'm not the most devoted gamer, especially when it comes to RPGs.  I will play until I get stuck, give up for months, and then come back again and feel the need to restart because I went without playing for so long.  It is a vicious, endless cycle.  Well, back on topic, I beat Dragon Age this weekend.  I had been playing this game quiet a bit, fighting it out with my fiance over who could play next.  This game was just amazing in my opinion.  Read on for the full review.

X-Box Wars

Last year for Christmas I bought my fiance an X-Box 360.  He played it a little bit, but found he didn't have time to obsess over it the way some boys do.  I play on it probably about as much as he does.  Neither of us had touched the darn thing in a couple of months until we heard of the game titled Dragon Age: Origins.  Sure enough, we purchased the game with some gift cards I received through work.  The second I started playing I was hooked.  Upon beating the game, I will need to post a review.  In the meantime, all I can say is that it is a constant battle over who can play.

My fiance's argument is that I had spent more hours on it than he, and he needed to catch up.  He was out of town for a weekend, and I'll admit that I played a little bit more than I should have.  Heck, at the moment I am typing this blog he is playing, though I had my turn this afternoon.  That is the problem with this game is that there is no way to play together, and he would rather not watch me play as I am ahead of him and he doesn't want to spoil the plot.  At the same time, I don't like to watch him play since he is more diligent at discovering party members and techniques that I just passed by in my haste to advance the story.

I haven't been this addicted to a video game since Donkey Kong Country came out when I was in grade school.  That was when I experienced my first and only case of Nintendo Thumb.  Of course, it was very minor, and went away the second I quit playing (which I did).  No blisters or anything, though I'm sure if I continued that is the route it would have taken.  Unfortunately, the difference between now and then is that I didn't have to share my SNES with anybody.