Kinect Sports: Season 2

The Short


Pros
- Back with six new sports: Skiing, Baseball, Darts, Tennis, Football, and Golf
- Golf is pretty great and has a decent selection of courses
- Utilizes voice commands to get through the menues that actually works pretty good
- Still has the same "minigames break off from the main game" as the first one
- Graphics still look very nice, and your avatar is back for more SPORTS

Cons
- I swear somehow their body detection got worse between games
- While the first game had two duds, this game only has two good ones, and that's me really being lenient by putting darts on the "good" list
- Speaking of darts, despite being one of the best one the rounds go on for WAY too long
- The more traditional sports (Football and Baseball) are stripped-down versions that are...pretty bad.
- The annoying announcer is just as annoying as before
- Has ads integrated into the main menu screens. Seriously? Like a "Lite" version of an iPhone game? Was the blatant product from the first game (which is also in this game) some how not enough?

Kinect Sports is back, but not better. 

The Long

Here's a confession: I didn't play Kinect Sports Season 2 nearly as much as I played the first game. This is mostly because I don't think it's very good, but the point of me bringing this up is because this review will probably be more skimpy on the details than the first game's. So if you're wondering why I'm being lazy, now you know. 

Anyway, Season 2 has a handful of six new games to play: American football, tennis, darts, skiing, baseball, and golf. If half of these sound like they wouldn't really work with Kinect...well, you are probably right. Let's blitz (har har football jokes and I'm posting this on Super Bowl Sunday) our way to the endzone (two for two!) of this review by covering each sport individually to earn a...uh...I'm out of football jokes.

And here's some more footballz for you. Yay. 

Football is to actual American football what a home run derby is to baseball. As in, it isn't. You have four downs to clear the entire length of the field, meaning any strategy regarding getting first downs is gone. If you fail on your first three to score a touchdown you can opt to try for a field goal, and then it switches sides. That's it. How awesome.

Essentially what you have to do is squat down for the hike (always a family favorite activity), get the ball, and then the game will give you ideas on who to throw it two. The throwing controls are super wonky, so often you'll throw it badly, but on the off chance you do catch it you get to do more PowerPad running as fast as you can (knees up!). That's essentially the game. How fun. Next.

Hooray! I'm not in a Wii game!

Tennis should be a shoe-in, especially since they did table-tennis so great in the last iteration, but there's a weird disconnect between what you do and how the character reacts. It isn't too awful overall, but it certainly feels a lot more loose that the table tennis game or Wii Sports' iteration, which makes you not want to play it. Serving was fun (just like how serving in volleyball in the first game was fun), if I don't really understand how the Kinect registers it, but the whole thing just feels...too loose. Again, this is weird considering how tight-knit table tennis was, and I'd just assume this was essentially the same thing.

Back to the bad ones

Skiing isn't awful, it's just...boring. So boring. Basically you just squat down in front of your Kinect (why do all these games involve copious amounts of squatting?), and then make as if you are turning by sticking out your legs in either direction. You can slow down by standing up taller, and there are a few jumps on each course. 

As far as controls go, it works just fine. I had a few issues turning sharply on a whim, but overall once you get the hang of it it's fairly easy. The problem is that it's monotonous. You just crouch down as you circle through flags and avoid obstacles. The courses are really limited, and while its sort of fun competing two player, the experience is just bland. The sense of speed and air is there, it's just...really dull. 

Another game too complex for the tech

Baseball reminds me of football, which reminds me of soccer from the last game, in that they had to trim stuff down quite a bit for it to work. However, in this case they both trimmed and made it more complex. As the pitcher, there's a bunch of different styles of pitches you can pull of (I can't) that do different...things? It's weird. As the batter it was about as bad as hitting baseballs on Wii Sports was. Read: I'm not good at it. You have to actually run (knees up!) from bases to bases, which is fun I guess, but catches are practically automatic and as a whole the game just feels gimped. They also trimmed down the length, but in this case I'm glad. This would last forever if they didn't, which is the problem with the next sport I'm addressing.

Aim for the guy in the suit

Darts is one of the better games, if only because it's simple and actually feel like you are emulating the "sport." Basically you aim the dart, which gives a slight reticle hint as to where it will land. You then pull back and throw. It requires skill (if you know the real rules of darts, you'll know it gets tricky near the end. I won't elaborate here) but the issue is that it takes forever. You play three rounds, which each round lasting anywhere from 5-10 minutes. I'm sorry, but that's too long for just chucking darts at a board.

I thought it was funny that it asked me how my TV was set up relative to me, so that it would best emulate an actual dart board. This made me thing: why don't I just buy an actual dart board? It's pretty much the same thing, except that is real and probably a bit more fun. Regardless, darts is ok in my book. 

And we'll end on the best game in the bunch

Golf is golf. Plain and simple. You move your body to adjust the direction you are aiming, you pull back and swing. It still has that inherent Kinect problem with speed/strength based moves (ie: it can't gauge with a good deal of accuracy how hard you hit something), but it's forgivable because it isn't that bad overall. The game has a fair amount of courses (or fairway amount of courses, right guys? Guys?), the holes move along quickly, and the later ones require some actual skill. This game is actually kind of a blast, and I actually enjoyed playing it single player (unlike every other game in both Season 2 and the original Kinect Sports), so kudos to them for that. They made a very good golf game. Which the Wii did a billion years ago. But that's ok, I forgive you. At least this game mode wasn't a (sand) trap! (puns. The highest level of humor.)

Menues are much improved as well.

So that's about it for the events, let's quickly cover a few other changes. This game has full voice command, meaning you can navigate the menues just by yelling at your Kinect. To my surprise, it actually works really well. I mean, it's no Siri, but it's certainly preferable to holding my hand on a button for two seconds and hoping you don't slip off of it.

Something I don't like that's actually quite infuriating is that there are ads in the main menu, in the form of a sliver banner ad on the top (like you'd expect from an Android or iOS free game). Why the hell are there ads in a game I paid for? I can understand product placement (though I don't like it), but between this and the new Xbox's UI completely coated in ads (seriously: 75% of the home screen is ads. I'm not kidding.) I can only think Microsoft hates their customers. It's worth noting (though nobody at Microsoft cares about me or reads this review) that between this (which is a MS published/developed game) and the new Xbox I've been convinced to not buy their new system when it comes out. Ever. When I buy a laptop my Windows isn't covered in ads, and if it did we'd call that a freaking VIRUS. How this is acceptable on something that's already covered in branding, product placement, and much more completely baffles me. So screw you, Microsoft. You greedy bastards. 

Seriously. Look at this. That little box in the upper left is the game I have in the drive, and the lower left is quickplay.  Everything else on the whole damn screen is ads. It's completely freaking disgusting. 

Anyway, now that we've finished that tangent, I'm fully prepared to give Kinect Sports: Season 2 a bad review. I don't know how they messed up the motion controls in this one, or why they picked sports that anybody could have told them would translate poorly to the experience (remember soccer, Rare? Remember how that was kind of crap?), but I guess they just wanted more money and since the first one sold like hotcakes they had to get on that and cut a few corners. Thank goodness they didn't cut the ads out while they were cutting features, though. That would have been a nightmare.

I bought it on black friday for $15, and I don't feel bad about it because I really dig golf. The rest of the sports aren't horrible, they just aren't great, so you could probably glean some fun if you had some friends that didn't mind the Kinect tracking them horribly. As it stands, I say don't pay more than $15 for it. It's a mess, and they'll get a cut from the ads anyway, so no worries about them being underpaid. 

Two out of five. And again, screw you Microsoft. I hope it was worth losing a loyal customer over (it probably was for them, but whatever.).