Very positive impressions of Kinect Sports: Season 2

Eurogamer has some new impressions of Kinect Sports: Season 2 up, and they're very positive. From their preview it really seems like Microsoft's Rare Studios understand how to use Kinect's motion controls to create an intuitive & fun game. In their summary that say

"Each event, quite simply, works as you'd expect it to without your brain having to enter "video game mode". This is a much more eclectic line-up of events, each with its own unique feel; that so many of them feel "right" the moment you step in front of the sensor is quite an achievement, the sort of invisible design work that is easily taken for granted."

 I've posted some of Eurogamer's impressions on each sport after the jump.


Tennis: "Adding topspin or triggering a lob or smash is intuitive, and the game strikes a decent balance between dragging your character to where the ball is and letting you move around for the best position. It certainly makes the Wii Sports version feel prehistoric, which is victory enough for Microsoft's technology."

Baseball: "Another familiar sport from rival motion games, Rare's take on America's favourite pastime delivers on the thrill of a cracking home run, but also introduces subtle nuance that only full motion tracking can offer."

"It's incredibly good fun, and another leap forward from motion sports games past"

Skiing: "Feeling much fresher is Skiing, a sport so well suited to motion control that it seems slightly odd that this is the first major game to attempt it"

Golf: "Golf has more than just solid swing mechanics though. There are lots of clever little touches that make it one of the most distinctive events in the game. Key to this is how Kinect has been woven into the golf experience in a way that feels invisible. Lift your hand to your forehead in the classic "lookout" pose and the game gives you a flyover of the fairway. On the green, crouching down lets you inspect the contours of the ground while a simple "cold, warm, hot" shot indicator makes lining up a putt a simple pleasure. If you need to change clubs, you simply say "Change club" and then call out the one you want."

"It all adds up to a small but almost perfectly formed golf game."

Football: "It's a complex sport, and it's understandably been boiled down to the most exciting parts, offering the chance to play as quarterback and receiver."

"What American Football does offer is strategy, even with the limitations of six plays. Picking the right one makes a noticeable difference to your chances, and played co-operatively with one player as quarterback throwing to the other player as receiver, it offers more depth than the basic throw-and-run movements suggest."

Darts: "In fact, the accuracy is so impressive that it feels very weird - almost as if there's an invisible dart flying from your hand and into the screen. Darts is a pastime that has been attempted in games going all the way back to the 1980s, but this is the first one I've played that felt almost exactly like the real thing and rewarded real-world skills accordingly."