Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

The Short


Pros
- Lots of exercise options available
- Includes routines with and without weights
- Has a handful of fun games
- Has both yoga and kickboxing segments
- Can set a lot of personalization options based on the Kinect being able to actually detect your body
- Tracks overall calories, progress in specific activities, etc.
- Interface is clean and looks good
- Has both girl and guy trainers, which is appreciated
- Cheaper than a gym membership

Cons
- Kinect tracking is pretty awful, often mis-registering me when I'm doing exercises correctly
- Lack of a daily schedule is a huge oversight
- While there are a lot of exercises/techniques, the overall package seems a bit bare-bones
- As expected, an exercise routine like this is pretty much straight cardio, and only cardio
- Switching players/logins requires a total reboot of the game
- While it has fun games, there are only four, which really isn't enough
- Locks a good 1/4 of the game behind DLC (including the best one: BOLLYWOOD!)
- Takes a long time going through a routine in order to "advance" far enough for new moves
- Calorie tracker seems inaccurate
- U-Play "features" are stupid and just lock content out for no reason, until you unlock them after playing for a few minutes. Why bother?
- They pulled the "yearly" thing and released a 2012 edition already. Thanks, jerks.

Yeah, I'm reviewing an exercise game. Deal with it. 

The Long


The whole "motion controls" thing brought something else to the table other than just waggle and fake sports: the rise of exercise games. Again, pioneered by Nintendo with Wii Fit, they capitalized on all the moms who bought the Wii because it was a fad by offering the ability to exercise in your own home, with a video game! What a novel concept! We've never done this before!

Anyway, as one would expect, the Kinect leapt on this like a spidermonkey. It's often stated that that majority of Kinect games are either dancing games or exercise games, and they aren't lying: there are tons of these, most horrible, some decent, some good. This is one of the good ones.

Also, this review is probably going to be a little...different than the others. It's hard to judge this based on "gameplay," or whatever, since it's basically just a tool to get in shape. Since I have little to no experience regarding going to a gym (I did it a bit in High School...and gained no muscle at all because my body hates looking anything besides anorexic), my arguments might be moot points. But I said I'd review every Kinect game I owned, so that's what I'm doing.

I was actually pretty intrigued when they showed off Your Shape at E3 a few years back. After a wash of crappy looking Kinect stuff, this and Dance Central where the two games that really looked like they'd work well on the system. I was right about Dance Central, and while Your Shape is certainly a decent exercise tool, problems with the Kinect integration lead to a handful of obnoxious problems (which is probably why they made a 2012 version so fast).

I got some weights just for this dumb "game."

Your Shape is pretty much a "game" that makes you do a bunch of cardio exercises. The difference is that, unlike every other Kinect game that is secretly an exercise program disguised as a game, this is an actual exercise program disguised as an exercise program. The first thing that happens is it has you put your arms and legs out like that Da Vinci sketch of the man, and it magically scans you and tells you your height, arm length, etc. That's actually pretty cool, and kind of creepy. You have to tell it your weight, though. So much for future technology.

Then it asks you what you want to do with the program, which is actually totally redundant, since unless you say you are post-pregnant it always recommends the same things. If you are a guy, it recommends toning and the weight exercises. If you are a girl, it recommends cardio and stuff to battle butt/leg cellulite. If you are post-pregnant, it tells you to stop playing video games and take care of your newborn...just kidding, it tells you to do its "post-pregnant" routine (which I did, suck on that, game! It's just another butt/leg cardio thing with a few more ab workouts). Again, this is pretty much pointless, since after you go through their stupid thing all that changes is which exercises say "recommended" on them, but it lets you pick any ones you want. So...way to waste my time, Your Shape.

Surgeon's General Warning: Don't punch blocks in real life unless you are Bruce Lee.

After that it pretty much lets you do whatever you want. There's no daily program it sets up for you, no real progress indication minus saying how many calories you've burned or exercises you've done, nothing. The lack of a daily schedule was a massive oversight in my opinion. I'm bad enough at remembering to do this (which is why I haven't booted it up in months), but if it gave me a schedule where it varied exercises then I'd probably at least try and do it every day. That's kind of the point of an exercise program, right? To make you feel guilty when you don't do it? Heck, even Brain Age on the DS literally told you that you were getting stupider if you forgot to boot it up for a week. Why can't Your Shape have some sort of thing like that?

Anyway, you are pretty much on your own. You can pick from about a dozen activities (slim pickings) which are pretty much all cardio, with or without weights. The "dude" exercises do have some lifts with dumbells and stuff which is pretty decent, though the 30 minute one very nearly killed me. When you are doing the exercises, it does a decent job of giving you breaks, though I think it might give too many breaks. It pauses between each individual move to "give you a break" (which I'm pretty sure is actually the game loading), as well as giving you a longer break after a set of four or five. In my limited exercise experience, I at least know it's important to keep your heart rate up when doing cardio, so these mini breaks during loads are actually detrimental. I'm fine with the big break after, but the should have figured this out.

Your Shape now knows everything about your body. And just posted it to Facebook. 

Complaints aside, there are a lot of moves and it is actually a pretty decent workout. The "Advanced" workouts are nothing to scoff at (like the one that nearly killed me), while the easy ones are good for warming up. It's certainly better than an exercise DVD would be, seeing as it puts both you and your trainer up on the screen (then you mimic the trainer, just like Dance Central only without kickin tunes), and away you go. Another note: no custom music. The stupid elevator music actually has rhythm in time with the moves, so it won't let you put a custom soundtrack. Which is another important part of going to the gym that this game ignored. 

While the exercises are great and all, the game has one really big problem: the Kinect doesn't do a good job picking up your moves. While Dance Central somehow manages to pick up you doing some crazy things pretty accurately, Your Shape isn't so lucky. It scores you on individual parts of moves (which is a good idea in theory), but the problem is it has a lot of trouble actually realizing you are doing them right. If you wear baggy clothes (or any clothes at all...yes, I tested this. Sorry for that mental image) the game just assumes you are doing it wrong. I understand this was a release game, but it's already hard enough to get me off my couch and exercising. Having the game say I'm doing moves wrong when I'm clearly doing them right is not helping me want to come back and exercise later. 

Be one with the giraffes. 

In addition to the regular exercises, the game also has some more specific routines as well as four games. The routines are actually my favorite part: it has both a kick-boxing class and a sort of yoga/zen thing. It also has about three more things (Bollywood!) but they are locked as DLC. Thanks, Ubisoft. Anyway, I like these activities because 1. They are hard and have a sort of progressive point, as well as don't do the stupid "pause between each move" thing, and 2. They are tiered, meaning you have to do the early ones to unlock the harder ones. All the moves should have been like this. The yoga stuff is also pretty decent, though again...you really need the game to have good detection in order to pull some of these moves off correctly, and the game just doesn't have it.

There are four games, of which two of them are actually strenuous, and two are stupid. Hula-hoop is easily the hardest, where you sway around with an imaginary hula-hoop until your abs are killing you. Box smash is where you punch blocks as fast as you can (sometimes with kicks), which is a decent exercise though not great. Light Race is pretty much crappy DDR, except way lower key. And the Stack 'Em Up game has you "holding" a tray that boxes are being put on, and you...tip it into holes for points. I don't see how that one's supposed to exercise you, unless holding your hands above your head is difficult for some reason.

This "game" will mess you up. So exhausting. 

The game also looks fantastic, with a really clean interface and menus that are almost as good as Dance Central's. There isn't much to say beyond that. I'm glad it doesn't show my actual body and instead makes me an orange blob...I don't think I could take watching my actual self doing stupid exercise things.

Anyway, I'm getting too long winded for an exercise game, so I'll cut to the end. Your Shape was the best fitness game on the Kinect for a long while (yeah, the others were pretty horrible), but I'm going to assume the second one is better? The lack of the daily schedule really kills it for me, and the fact the Kinect thing doesn't work great is also a downer. That being said, there is a lot here, and if you have the self-motivation and the patience to do it on your own you really can get a good exercise routine out of it, with the bonus features the Kinect allows. 

You can get the game new for about $20, which I'd say is a fair price, though keep in mind the new version (which I know nothing about) is currently available. It certainly was the best Kinect exercise game on the market for a long while, so if you want in on that go for it. But mine is currently gathering dust so...yeah. Hope you are motivated. 

The problems make me want to give it a three out of five, but I certainly still recommend it if you are in the market for this kind of thing.

Plus Fitness Evolved reminds me of Combat Evolved, which reminds me of Halo, which makes me imagine a Halo exercise game where instead of punching blocks you punch aliens. Why didn't that make that? 

Child of Eden

The Short


Pros
- Gorgeous game with a totally unique art style
- Plays extremely well with the Kinect, better even than the optional controller support
- Combination of music, rhythm, and visuals make for an entrancing experience
- Can be played either simply (play just to complete levels) or with a surprising amount of depth (chaining combos with a rhythm, etc.)
- Each stage as a distinctly unique visual theme, enemies, sounds, and music

Cons
- Only five stages, with one being a "boss rush" stage, essentially
- Can beat the entire game in under 45 minutes
- Translucent, flashy colors can lead to some confusion

Child of Eden is a gorgeous game. 

The Long


Child of Eden is a game made by Tetsuya Mizugchi, creator of the other music/trance/shooter game Rez on the PS2 and later XBLA. That game was accented by its bizarre, unique art style paired with solid shooting and heavy high-score based gameplay. Rez was a fun, brief experience that I think fully reached it's potential as an XBLA downloadable game, as it added leaderboards, a more manageable price tag (vs a full disc release), and high def graphics.

Mizugchi's new game, Child of Eden, is similar to Rez in many ways. It's still a shooter. It still has a heavy focus on this very bright, florescent-esque art style that combines nature, technology, and urban themes with these bright colors. And, like Rez, it's a game that probably would have benefited from being a downloadable title rather than released as a full disc game.

This game may look like it has no rhyme or reason, but once you start playing it the game makes sense.

Child of Eden actually has a story, one that it presents at the start in an unskippable chunk of text. Basically, after a point in time the internet has become a really big physical place...or digital place...I think? Anyway, a child is born of the internet (now titled "Eden") and is attacked by viruses! So you, the latest version of Norton Internet Security, have to break into the internet and blast some viruses that look like whales that turn into phoenixes in order to save the titular "Child of Eden." This is also literally how real antivirus software works. They are like the Navy SEALs of the internet.

Control in the game is simple. With your right hand you can brush a targeting over the screen, "painting" up to eight targets before releasing a lock-on shot by jerking your hand back. Or you can use your left hand to shoot a constant, rapid-fire barrage of shots on a small point. You can't use both at the same time. Raise your hands above your head to us "Euphoria," basically a screen-clearing bomb, and...that's pretty much the game. These types of games on Kinect tend to work best with the tech: you have quicker, faster precision than a controller, and you feel like you are in Minority Report.

I think I need to lay off the drugs. 

It does have a few minor Kinect issues, though. I tried to play the game sitting down and, unlike The Gunstringer, Child of Eden had lots of problems confusing my legs with my hands, which messed up the control. It's a minor thing, but expect to be standing for most of the experience.

The game is a simple one, that isn't particularly difficult overall. The real challenge comes in trying to get high scores and 100% runs. There's a trick to the game where if you paint the maximum amount of enemies and then shoot them in time with the rhythm, the game gives you either a "Perfect" or "Good" bonus. Chain multiples of these together for insane multipliers and boost the crap out of your score. While there's no score indicator on screen, it can be pretty strenuous in some of the later levels to both try and kill everything but doing it with the beat. It's another layer on the game the hardcore score-o-philes will enjoy.

Ok, I lied, I have no idea what is going on here. 

My biggest issue with the game is its length and value. Don't get me wrong, the experience is fantastic. The graphics, especially now that they were made for HD, are absolutely stunning, and they fuse with the music and sound effects to really get you involved. Combining this with Kinect, which makes you feel "in" the game more than a controller does, you get really entrenched and entranced by the whole experience. The problem is that this experience is way too short.

The game only has five stages, with the last stage of those being mostly just a bunch of bosses. While each stage is amazing and completely unique (each is themed around a different style, such as nature or urbanization), they are usually only about 10-15 minutes long, meaning you can beat the entire game in around 45 minutes to an hour. Keep in mind this was a full priced Kinect release ($50), which is still $10 less than a regular Xbox 360 game, but still feels extremely overpriced. This game (like The Gunstringer, which came out after it) was originally planned as an XBLA game but was later given a full disc release. I think The Gunstringer learned from this game's mistake, by dropping the price another $10 and throwing Fruit Ninja in to sweeten the deal. While I really like Child of Eden, I just wish it was longer. I mean...five stages? Five stages? That's it?

I like you, Giant Space Phoenix, but your game is too short

I still completely recommend Child of Eden as an experience. It's beautiful, immersive, and plays perfectly with Kinect. That said, the lack of stages and options really brings this game down. If it had released as a $15-20 XBLA title, it would be much easier to recommend (though still too short, honestly). As it stand, considering the game is still in the $30-$40 range, I can't recommend it until another price drop. 

Still, you should totally pick this game up if you have a Kinect. Note that I heard the Playstation 3 version (which uses Move) is also pretty good, but I don't have Move so I can't attest to it either way. 

Overall, a solid three out of five. Just make these games longer! Or add a bunch of stages as DLC. Or something. 

Dance Central

The Short


Pros
- Full body dancing game with real moves
- Actually works well on the Kinect. 100% as advertised
- Doesn't throw a huge fit if you stand outside of its range
- Has the best menus of any Kinect game (the way they do it has quickly become standard)
- Excellent soundtrack of dance music, spanning many decades
- "Break it Down" mode is superb at teaching you advanced routines
- Graphics look fantastic
- UI and systems are intuitive and work well with the Kinect technology
- Songs expandable through DLC
- You could maybe actually learn to dance from this. Maybe.

Cons
- Only one player
- Characters are annoying stereotypes, and their voices are so obnoxious
- No actual career or single player...though this actually isn't that bad
- Progression via a "leveling up" system seems tacked on and pointless
- Could have really benefited from a "challenges" system like Rock Band 3 has

Get ready to dance some Lady Gaga with this Lady Gaga lookalike

The Long


I'm pretty sure it's a known fact now that the best Kinect launch title was Dance Central, hands down. Despite Microsoft pushing the crap out of these things, they haven't really released a whole lot of software for it, making the pickings slim and the quality games out of these slimmer. Which is why Dance Central is such an anomaly: it not only was released with the Kinect (it's well known that release games for new consoles are generally garbage), but it was the best and remained the best Kinect game until Dance Central 2 came out. It also was one of the few games that really made me feel like I'd finally bought technology from the future, because in it the Kinect worked. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's "Break it Down" for you (that's a Dance Central pun. If you'd played the game, you'd be laughing so hard right now you'd have to take a break because you'd be physically incapacitated by glee).

This dude's got style 

The idea behind Dance Central is a simple one. The game will put on some popular music (like Lady Gaga or Soulja Boy) and you are expected to dance to it. A character will dance the moves perfectly on the screen, and you have to mirror his or her actions. Dance good, get points. Dance bad, fail hard and get less points. You can't actually fail out in Dance Central, which is good, but if you get one or two stars your dancer will generally tell you that you suck.

How you know what to dance and when is dictated by flashcards that appear on the right side of the screen. They have a bunch of moves with silly names and the part of your body that is going to move first highlighted in white. It gives you a few more in advance so you can prepare, and that's basically the game. It's difficult to just "sightread" the cards at first, but the game also features an advanced "Break it Down" mode (see? Get my joke now?) where you can run through all the moves in a song before you dance it, teaching you everything.

The menues have style and are actually easily navigateable, unlike 90% of Kinect games

There are hundreds of moves in this game, ranging from simple side-steps to crazy arm swings and spin-arounds. Learning them all could take you a very long time, and there is only a little overlap between songs. You can pick difficulties from easy to hard, which basically just means the hard ones have less move repetition and a few select, more difficult maneuvers. Since the easy songs are stupid easy (again, Poker Face is just walking back and forth and clapping), even if you have no dance moves whatsoever you can basically start from nothing and work up. Which is exactly what I did because I, unlike my wife, am an under-coordinated klutz. I'm actually pretty proud that I could sight-dance 90% of the songs in Dance Central 2 on Medium and still get five stars, which proves this game didn't just make me healthier (and give me style), it also helped me with my coordination problems (which I've legitimately had since birth. Seriously. Doctors said I'd never walk. Now I dance, suckers!).

The biggest thing about I'd like to point out is that even if the game hadn't ended up being super-fun (which it is, believe me, especially at parties) it actually works. You are doing some pretty advanced body-flailing, and the Kinect picks it all up. Not only that, as you mirror the dancer their arms or legs will turn red if that specific limb is off the dance. At first I thought it was just being super-lenient and generalizing. Then I did some of the harder moves. Then I thought the game was a huge jerk, being overly critical and not working. The I figured the moves out. Now I've accepted the fact that: yes, Dance Central uses the Kinect to do some amazing stuff, and yes I dance like a brain-dead monkey.

The characters, while great dancers, are also extremely obnoxious

I should probably devote a paragraph to describing just how awesome this game is, and I was totally determined that I'd hate or at least just mildly tolerate it. It's made by the guys who make Rock Band, who we've already determined make the best music games. This is why I shouldn't have been so surprised when the game was crafted extremely well and was really polished: it's pretty much par for the course for Harmonix. I guess I was probably more worried about the Kinect not actually working, but somehow they made it work. Dancing is fun and the game (despite not having many songs) has a wide range of music in a wide range of difficulties. If you are stuck on a song, Breaking it Down is an easy solution to learning all the moves and getting them perfect. Harmonix knew that 1. People, when they are being forced to look like idiots, are very impatient and 2. Getting frustrated because they can't dance or get stuck makes them impatient. The learning curve for this game is smooth, it has tons of tools to help you, and once you get over the initial fear of looking like an idiot you can actually have a really fun time with Dance Central. Seriously, nobody cares if you dance like a stiff metal robot. You got five stars! You're a dancing queen!

Goggy McGoggles here is getting his groove on

The game also looks amazing, and has tons of great touches. A circle under the dancer's feet slowly fills as you do a move, where varying levels of fill (associated with color) determine your rank on the move. It's easy and if you see it not filling up you'll know to try harder. The dancers moves very smoothly and are extremely easy to follow, except maybe on the stupidly-complicated moves. When you get a 4x multiplier, your scene changes from just dancing in a regular place to a DISCO RAVE PARTY (see picture above), which is also a pretty cool touch. The characters remind me a lot of the Rock Band 3 style of characters (except more limber) which I'm fine with.

What I'm not fine with is the retarded, obnoxious things these characters say before and after songs. I've watched some developmental interviews; Harmonix went so far as to make backstories for these tards, backstories we'll never hear or care about. I get it they are "street savvy" and "sassy" or whatever, but it comes off as them all being giant douchebags. Luckily they only talk before or after dances, but it still is just freaking obnoxious.

Moe is the least annoying, even though his hat looks like a giant Trojan cond...nevermind. 

The game also feels a bit stripped down. It's clear all the care went into developing the actual game to work with Kinect and have a bunch of moves, which I'm totally fine with. But it also is lacking in some areas. There are only 32 songs to dance, which is actually a decent amount (unlike Rock Band, you actually have to work to figure out these songs, and each difficulty requires a substantial time investment to learn) but still could have been more. There is no single player "career" mode, you basically just have quickplay. Sure you have modifiers like marathon (dance a bunch of songs in a row), exercise (it counts calories), and the option to turn flashcards off (proving you are boss hog at dancing), but really it's just variants on quickplay. You do get points for beating songs which "level up" your dancer...which means literally nothing. At all. So...ok then?

Learnin' how to dance with **ANGEL**. Sparkles mandatory. 

Despite being a bit bare-boned when it comes to features, Dance Central is still one of the very best games on the Kinect, and is still a great game in general (because saying a game is better than most Kinect games isn't really saying much). It only has one rather big problem: it now exists in a world where Dance Central 2 exists. Dance Central only allowed one dancer at once, which was another one of those "stripped down features" I talked about. Dance Central 2 (which added two player as well as a boatload of extra features) completely blows this game out of the water. Since you can export the Dance Central songs and dance them in its sequel, there is really no reason to own this disc unless you really can't afford Dance Central 2.

Still, it's worth getting if you want to try it out (though that's what demos are for), and as a product it is certainly high quality. Before Dance Central 2 came out, this was an easy five out of five. However, since that was then and this is now, I'm going to knock a star off, giving it four out of five. Hindsight is 20/20, Dance Central, and your little brother is way better.

Plus the sequel had Brodie, who is a character that isn't obnoxious, thus rendering Dance Central completely obsolete.

The Gunstringer

The Short

Pros

- One of the few Kinect games that actually plays as advertised

- Can be played sitting down

- Easy controls: left hand jumps/moves, right hand aims/shoots

- Good mix of regular running/gunning, taking cover, driving stuff, etc. 

- Can play two player with a second shooter

- Absurd, goofy story

- Stylized graphics with a hilarious mix of FMV

- Massive number of unlocks including themes and different modes

- Comes with a free code for Fruit Ninja Kinect if you buy new

- Retailed $20 less than a normal priced Xbox 360 game (even with the Fruit Ninja bonus)

- First batch of DLC is free and amazingly dumb

Cons

- Despite having a lot of charm, the graphics do look dated

- Game is pretty short, with the only replay options literally replaying levels for more money

- Default difficulty is too easy, though you can unlock harder difficulties

- Bosses are repetitive and don't particularly have a good deal of variety

The Gunstringer has plenty of goofy, tongue-in-cheek humor

The Long

While I think the Kinect is a cool concept, it is rare that games actually do...well, anything worth spending a considerable amount of time with. This is probably due to two reasons: 1. Not using a controller messes up precision, meaning they have to make gimped games and 2. It gets really tiring to stand up and prance around for several hours. If I had to stay standing through all of Skyrim I'd have been on my feet for like 130 hours. That might have killed me. 

So when a game shows up that both works on the Kinect and also is fun, you gotta jump on that. Which is exactly what The Gunstringer is. Made by Twisted Pixel (the awesome guys who made The Maw...you guys know you want to hire me to do something :P) and using their "Beard" engine (and I have a beard! I'd fit in perfectly), The Gunstringer combines their signature humor with simple, easy to pick up gameplay that makes an entertaining and enjoyable Kinect experience.

And you can play it sitting down, to which I say about time. 

I'm getting some Mulan vibes here

The general gist of The Gunstringer is pretty simple. As a marionette, you were betrayed by a bunch of jerks that fit every western stereotype hilariously (Chinese samurai, big-oil money man, lady of the night... wavy tube man...wait what) so you've come back to the dead to get revenge. The game is essentially on rails with control limited to movement and jumping (as well as aiming and shooting), but that's pretty much par for the coarse for Kinect games. Hey, at least it let me sort of determine my direction, which is better than Child of Eden.

Don't get me wrong, Child of Eden is pretty great...it just makes me feel like I'm on a bad trip.

Controls, as I've said quite a few times, make or break Kinect games (usually break). Luckily Twisted Pixel took the right route and didn't try to shoehorn a bunch of stupid, unnecessary actions in. On a video preview on Giant Bomb they mentioned that when developing they noticed that the Kinect is really good at picking up arms and hands, but it can sometimes have issues with legs and feet. So they just axed the "legs and feet" part and just stuck with tracking your arms (and sometimes head), which is probably why it actually is pretty precise. I suppose this same game could be played with two Wii-motes, but then you wouldn't BE THE CONTROLLER.

Left hand drives the Gunstringer left and right, or moves him out of cover, or just generally does directions. Right hand is your gun, which you point at the screen (you don't have to shape your hand like a gun, but if you don't you clearly have no soul...or play a lot of Child of Eden which plays better with your palms forward). You "lock-on" target with your gun hand (like Child of Eden) and then pull your arm back like getting gun-recoil to fire (also like Child of Eden). You can "paint" six targets this way, though if you are tricky you can extend the chain, defying the laws of physics and gun capacity (and earning a cheevo). 

No, Wavy Tube Man, I do not want to make a down payment on a used car!

The game mixes things up by having you drive a river raft, slide down hills, dodge rocks, etc. It also has a combo system that encourages not getting hit (you also lose life, but the game is so easy on the standard difficulty you probably won't be worrying about lives), and that's...pretty much it. The game paces itself well enough that it mixes things up usually every couple of minutes, meaning you are never doing the same thing over and over. It makes for a fun game to play in bursts, and you can even play two player (though the second player is just a disembodied targeting circle). 

Bosses come after each Act, but to be honest they are all pretty similar. You get free control of the Gunstringer and essentially dodge shots and attacks until you get an opening, blast the boss, and repeat. The only real difference between the bosses are the shots they fire and their attack patterns; the principle is still the same. The game offers so many mini-bosses in each act its forgivable, though (and unlike Ninja Blade's minibosses, these ones are actually, you know, fun.)

As a whole it's a pretty short experience, probably around 4-5 hours on the high end. A lot of the time is spent watching goofy cutscenes, which I'll bring up more later. Or I'll do it right now, why not? It's my review, sucka. 

The Gunstringer don't take no lip

So as you can see the game looks...decent. It has a ton of style, which is to its advantage, but it's hardly pulling off bumpmapping or any sort of extensive textures. The Gunstringer started its life as an XBLA game before being "upgraded" to this disc release, and it still looks like an XBLA game. This isn't bad (especially considering they sold it as a discount and with a free game), and since its so stylish I'm just going to write it off. The graphic's weren't distracting, which is really the only issue I have when a game has bad graphics, so I'll give them a "passable" and move on.

Something that is awesome graphically, however, is the FMV (aka Full Motion Video aka recording of Twisted Pixel guys doing weird stuff). The game is essentially a puppet show being put on display in a theater (with you being the puppeteer), and so often you see audience reactions (super corny audience reactions), and a surprise ending that is straight up hilarious. Twisted Pixel loves putting goofy FMV of their team members weirdly interacting with games, and on The Gunstringer it is not only presented best, but it also fits (seeing as it is a play). 

Bosses usually follow the same formula

The music is also fantastic, written by "Chainsaw," who write all Twisted Pixel's music. It's pretty evident he's talented based on the wide range of songs he's done, but this one is probably my favorite of his work. Plucky, western songs accent the already over-the-top story, fitting perfectly with both the western theme and the absurdity of the story. Ok, I guess the "Donuts, Go Nuts" song from Splosion Man is still better. I actually have that song on Rock Band I like it so much. It inspires me to eat luther burgers. 

Plus, Chainsaw has an epic beard. Though he looks like he'd tie you to the traintracks and laugh like a maniac.

Back on subject, The Gunstringer comes with loads of extras to justify the fact it isn't an XBLA game anymore. There is absolutely an astronomical amount of stuff to unlock, from concept art to green-screens of the audience to designer videos to songs to game modes to different characters to Xbox themes to an achievement (yeah, you buy an achievement. And the game calls you out on it). Their previous game, The Adventures of Captain Smiley, also did this to what I then considered an insane degree, but this outclasses it by a long shot.

As an added bonus, the first DLC, a full FMV parody of old laserdisc shooting games, is completely free. It's absurd and totally stupid, but hey...free is free. And hilarious.

And looks like something my friends would make in their backyard

Since we brought up Captain Smiley, I think there's a point to be made: while I enjoy Twisted Pixel's brand of humor, I didn't like Captain Smiley's. It was rude and in your face, which is fine in a small dose, but it got so overwrought it really burned me out. Luckily, The Gunstringer is not like this. The humor is presented in good doses, and while there are some jokes that sort of try to hard (the lumberjack who loved a gater, for example), as a whole they work and are quite entertaining. The narrator is especially funny, reminding me of what would happen if Bastion's narrator got drunk and put in a western.

As a bonus, if you buy it new you get Fruit Ninja Kinect, no "strings" attached! Get it? Because he's...ok fine. 

I bought this game release day (the only copy my Gamestop had gotten, apparently) for $40, though now you can get it from amazon for $32. This includes a full retail copy of Fruit Ninja Kinect, which is normally $10 (and is pretty good, based on my old review), so you are getting two good Kinect games for the price of...half of one? With all the unlocks I'd say it's totally worth it for a Kinect owner. 

Despite a few minor niggles, this game easily earns four out of five. It's a solid experience on Kinect, and if you liked Child of Eden you should totally be picking this up. 

Now bring me The Maw 2 with Kinect controls, Twisted Pixel!

Kinect Adventures

The Short


Pros
- Pack-in with the Kinect, so essentially it's free
- Five minigames and a few bonus ones
- Uses your in-game avatar
- River Rafting and Reflex Ridge are pretty fun and control decently
- Graphics looks surprisingly good for a freebie

Cons
- Space Pop, Rally Ball, and 20,000 Leeks aren't particularly enthralling
- The tech, overall, doesn't recognize you particularly well
- All five games get dull pretty quick with limited courses and options
- "Story mode" is so stupid its embarrassing
- Bad load times
- Requires you to be an extremely specific spot at all times or else it'll boot you out. Two players only exacerbate this.
- As a game meant to show off the Kinect, it's both fickle and underwhelming

Reflex Ridge is actually quite a workout

The Long


Welcome to Kinect, the new motion gaming toy that requires you to rearrange your living room and flail about like an idiot even more-so than the Wii. Microsoft certainly pushed the crap out of their new EyeToy, and it apparently paid off, seeing as they sold tons of these things. We managed to snag one on the cheap (almost entirely for Dance Central) and I still remember setting it up and then realizing we couldn't play two player because it requires like nine feet of free space between you and it. One living room re-arrangement later and we were back, booting up the pack-in game Kinect Adventures and getting ready to Become the Controller.

Kinect Adventures, like Wii Sports, was included free with the Kinect, undoubtably to both show off the hardware and provide a jumping-off point into the magic of motion controls. It's weird they didn't put the infinitely better Kinect Sports in instead; both were made by Microsoft (or Microsoft owned companies, aka Rare), but Kinect Sports was more a comparison to Wii Sports. Wii Sports was actually pretty decent, giving you a lot of games with a lot of variety, so much so that many people just played that and didn't buy any other games.

I'm going to tell you right now, if you only play Kinect Adventures, you'll probably die of boredom. Because it isn't that great.

Rafting is pretty fun, even two player

There's five games in this compilation, so I'm going to blitz review them for you. Ready? GO.

Reflex Ridge is the best one in the whole thing, and also the most exhausting. It's basically those weird japanese game shows where you dodge things (or ABC's Wipeout) except set on literal rails (mine-cart rails). You have to jump, duck, stand to the side, and point your arms in different directions to get tokens. Jumping also makes you go faster (for a bonus boots to tokens based on time), meaning you jump a lot, and this thing very quickly is secretly making you exercise. Overall, this one controls almost perfectly, is fun and has a decent level of courses, and is actually pretty entertaining.

River Rafting is the other good one. You control a raft and direct it by standing to the right or to the left, with jumping...well, jumping the raft. Not really possible...whatever. Your goal is to get tokens, and some of the later levels get pretty devious. You can play it two player, but then you both have to coordinate on directions which makes it more of just goofing off rather than going for high scores. It looks gorgeous (which is probably why it's in 90% of this game's screenshots) and you do get a sort of sense of excitement jumping off waterfalls and what not. It controls good about 80% of the time, so it passes.

It's only going downhill from here

Ralley Ball is one they pushed hard at E3 a few years ago, and it's essentially Breakout with your body. You hit balls towards a bunch of blocks as you try to get to the tokens hidden behind. You can get bonus balls, direct the hits, etc. Well, you are supposed to be able to direct the hits. The Kinect is not very good at picking up your movements in this regard, especially with body/hand position. There's a distinct disconnect between what you are doing, what you want to be doing, and what your person on screen does. It turns into insane flailing (meaning children are better at this game than me; I burn out), which is entertaining for a while but ultimately unsatisfying.

Space Pop is a stupid game that I find unoffensive, but have to admit that it actually isn't great. Basically it's a game where you are trying to pop all the bubbles in a three dimensional space...sort of. Your Z axis (forward and backwards towards/away from your TV) is only two-tiered, undoubtably to make it easier. You are in "space" so you have zero gravity, which means you flap your arms to go up high and float and put your arms at your side to drop. Bubbles pop out all over and you have to pop them. It's...sort of fun? But once you break it down you realize it probably took one guy three seconds to make it. Flash games have more depth than this.

Lastly we have 20,000 Leaks, which isn't about a small country all going to the bathroom at the same time. You are underwater in some glass dome thing, and every fish apparently is either a dick or wants you evicted back to the land because they body slam your thing constantly. You have to move your hands, feet, and head (sometimes all at the same time) to cover leaks so your magic limbs can repair the leaks for points (and not drowning). This one would probably have scored higher on my list if it actually worked well. The Kinect controls are horrible on this one, making it totally not fun to try and figure out where the hell to put my hands and feet. I actually wanted to like 20,000 Leaks, because despite its simplicity it seemed like a sort of fun, Twister-esque game. But the bad controls kill it.

At least the sea turtle isn't a massive jerk. 

Perhaps my biggest complaint is the fact that this game, while serviceable with the Kinect controls, doesn't do a very good job of showing off the tech. The menues are extremely cumbersome, with the Kinect losing me frequently, especially when trying to play with two players. If you play two players you have to stand like six miles away from your TV, and even then it'll just straight boot someone out mid-game if they step to far to the left, right, forward, or back. 90% of two-player games consist of the Kinect complaining at me or my partner because I stood out of its tiny "sweet spot." It's more frustrating than fun, and makes me feel like I bought a magical piece of technology from the future that somehow got dropped on its head as a baby.

This is especially noticeable when compared to more recent Kinect games, or even just good release-day Kinect games (like Dance Central, which is still the best game on the system by a long shot). As I said already, Kinect Sports works pretty dang good; why not pack that in instead? Probably because if they packed garbage in, people would feel obligated to buy the full priced sports game. Like I did. Wait, that means I got suckered in! What the crap?

Damn you, Microsoft and your space bubbles!

I should point out they did try to add a sense of a "point" to the game. There's an adventure mode where you run through a set of several activities (picked from the five above), get some sort of reward (usually a weird animal it makes you voice and act out with...which is actually pretty hysterical in a horrible, horrifying way), earn an achievement, and continue on. This is voiced by awful narration by the "Adventure Crew" who likes to "Scour the world looking for adventure!" Clearly somebody needs to tell them about the high quality Kinect Xbox 360 Microsoft Full Body Experience Video Game Controller System, so they can stop booking flights on their private jet and just stay home rearranging their furniture for several hours only to be told to "Step Back" or "Step Right" when all they want to do is TURN THE RIVER RAFT TO THE RIGHT.

I'll drop you into a river, Kinect Adventures. Only without a raft. BURN. Wait, the plastic boxes float. BOO.

So I can't really assign this game a price, since you get it for free with your Kinect. You can't even trade the dumb thing in; it's only worth like $1 at Gamestop, so you might as well hold onto it in case you randomly feel the odd call of ADVENTURE urging you to raft down a river and pull your coffee table out of the way. It has about two good games out of the five included, which now that I think about it makes my scoring this game extremely easy.

Two out of five stars.

Warhammer 40k: Kill Team

The Short


Pros
- Co-op duel stick shooter
- Visceral and violent, with great graphics for an XBLA release
- Lets you shoot up Orks and Tyranids
- Follows the Warhammer 40k mythos, which means all the space marines look awesome
- Four space marines to play, each with level-ups, perks, and gear upgrades
- Has a difficult "survival" mode after you beat the game
- Fun powerups remind me of Smash TV
- Gives you an exclusive weapon in the Warhammer 40k: Space Marine retail game


Cons
- No online co-op
- Only six levels; can beat the game in about two-three hours
- Unlocks are fun, but you get them all pretty quickly and then...nothin' left
- Playing through single player can be aggravating, as the game is full of cheap deaths
- Camera angles often screw you up
- Pretty obvious this game was a marketing ploy to sell more copies of the Space Marine game

Grab a friend and blast some space orks.

The Long


I have a confession: I love the Warhammer 40k universe, but know nothing about it aside from what I've played in the Dawn of War and Space Marine games. As much as I'd like to get into the tabletop game, I know it'll just be an even bigger money-sink than video games are, and I haven't gotten around to reading the books. That being said, I really dig the universe, with its crazy names for things (like the fact all the Space Marine stuff is in Latin for some unexplained reason, and their mages are Librarians) and absolute insane number of alien races. Even though all the characters look like toys (which is because they are), the art and universe is unique, really cool, and even inspired some other game companies to make games not-so-subtly based off the universe.

And from left to right, Tyranids, Eldar, and Space Marines...wait, this isn't Warhammer 40k! Huh. How did I get that confused? 

So when I found out they were making an XBLA game based on three things I really like (duel stick shooters, leveling up, and Warhammer 40k) I was all over that. Plus, it's co-op! That means I can force my poor wife to play it with me!

Kill Team is a pretty basic, run of the mill duel stick shooter, with a couple tricks up its sleeve. Aside from the aforementioned leveling up system, the game actually has characters that are more melee based than ranged, putting a unique twist on the "stay as far away from everything as possible" that duel-stick shooters are known for. You have four characters, two ranged focused and two melee focused, and each has their own unique power they can use once every couple of seconds. As you go around the world, power ups like faster shooting, double-bullets, health, and more can be picked up and used. Again, this is pretty much par for the course for these types of games, and if you were thinking Smash TV you wouldn't be too far off.

Plus they have dudes called "Sternguard Veterans" with PLASMA CANNONS. How cool is that? 

You can tell this game was made to be played co-op, because you can each only old one power up at a time, but if you stand close enough to your buddy when he has a power up active you share it, meaning you can get quad-shot and rapid-fire going off at the same time for total craziness. As you can guess, this also makes the game a bit easier, but not by too much. Kill Team has a pretty high difficulty curve, which makes playing co-op a must, as if you die you'll get revived/resurrected rather than having to load a checkpoint.

Which is where one of Kill Team's most annoying issues comes in: cheap deaths. There are lots. The game is hard, to start, with plenty of aliens just bum rushing you as you try to not lose all your heath. The only way to get health back is find a power up, so if you die before you reach one it's back to a (not so liberal) checkpoint for you. In addition, levels that require you to navigate specific narrow paths (and then do it back, on a timer, with an awful camera) are extremely tedious and obnoxious. The camera, as I just said, also doesn't ever to be in the right spot. It seems like it's the right distance, it just...always picks the worst angles.

Shoot a space ork in the head

The game also has lots of segments where you walk across long areas, shooting. Which is fine, except your marine walks really slow (even when sprinting), and later areas can have a hefty amount of backtracking. While there is technically a decent amount of enemy variety, the strategies to take them down never really change: either beat them with a chainsword or blast them with a bolter until they go down. This would be fine if they'd veiled it by keeping your forward momentum constant and the setpieces crazy, but whenever the game stutters a little you realize you've just been doing the same thing for the past 45 minutes, and that isn't a good thing at all.

The game is also really short, with only six stages in the main part that can be beaten in about 2-3 hours on co-op. It then unlocks six additional survival maps, where the game just sends wave after wave of enemies in your direction with full intent to mess you up. These are actually pretty fun, with power up being rationed out to you, and if you play co-op it requires a great deal of coordination. Most of the single player problems (slow walking, monotonous objectives) are replaced with hardcore survival shooting, which I'm all for. They also pre-determine which characters you can use, ramping up the challenge.

Man, how can something be both so goofy looking and so awesome at the same time?

With no online co-op, you'd better have your friends nearby if you are going to run through Kill Team. In addition, the cheap deaths and just general receptiveness of the game will probably turn a lot of people off. However, if you really dig the Warhammer 40k universe (I do), like playing co-op (I do), and enjoy duel stick shooter (I do), then you really can't go that wrong. The game retails for $10, but I'd wait until it's $5 (which is what I did), if only because 1. It's short and 2. You'll probably only beat it once. Still, there are plenty of worse games on XBLA, and this one looks great and plays fine, so grab a buddy and blast the crap out of space orks and zerglings. I mean tyranids.

I give it three out of five stars if it's $5, and two out of five stars if it's $10. So we'll say three for now, because shouting "FOR THE IMPERIUM!" is awesome.

Ninja Blade

The Short


Pros
- Lots of completely absurd, insane action
- Three weapon types (slow and heavy, medium, fast and quick)
- You ride a motorcycle up the side of a building only to throw it down into a falling diesel truck into the mouth of a giant mutant worm for a massive explosion. While 500 feet in the air.
- Controls a decent hybrid of God of War and Ninja Gaiden II

Cons
- 90% of this game is quick time events. Not even exaggerating.
- Enemies quickly get bland and repetitive
- Platforming leads to tons of cheap deaths
- Can't save in-mission; while it'll checkpoint if you quit you have to start all the way over
- Ninjas on turrets? Why are there turret sequences in a NINJA game?
- Again, cheap deaths. All over the place.
- Load times are pretty bad
- Monotonous bosses that take way longer than they should
- Game looks boring and ugly (see box cover)
- Story and voice acting are a joke

Meet Ryu. Because every ninja has to be named Ryu. 

The Long


Ninja Blade is a game that I both want to love and completely cannot recommend to anyone. Developed by From Software (who also made the great Demon Souls and 3D Dot Game Heroes), it is clear that the developers were sitting around one day playing Ninja Gaiden II, and thought "You know what is awesome? NINJAS. NINJAS CAN DO ANYTHING!" Then then made a game where you play as a ninja who, literally, does everything. Yes. You'd think that would make a longer game, but we are getting off track here.

Ninja Blade follows the exact same plot of 90% of any modern action game ever: a virus is turning people into monsters, meaning you have lots of people-turned-monsters to slice up. But instead of every other game where they bring in the special ops, these guys bring in the NINJA. Yeah, like Ryu is actually part of a special forces squad. They even have a helicopter (that gets blow up. Didn't see that coming.) and everything, which means it's official. Anyway, the virus also somehow makes massive monsters (that makes sense) which you have to kill. Most of them are regular animals mutated into freaks (Parasite Eve style, only without any sense of art direction), which means the game usually goes like this:

Fight hordes of fodder --> Fight miniboss for a long, repetitive battle --> Fight hordes of fodder --> Fight miniboss for a long, repetitive battle --> Fight hordes of fodder --> Do some awful platforming (this is where you'll finally die) --> Fight miniboss for long, repetitive battle --> Fight real boss for long and repetitive battle --> Watch cutscene.

Whoops, I just described 90% of games. Again. 

The difference between Ninja Blade and other, similar, games is the fact that Ninja Blade has so many quick time events it is insane. For those wonder, quick time events are when a cutscene is playing, a random button press will appear on the screen. You then press the button for the privilege of continuing to see the cutscene. It was introduced in Resident Evil 4 (which is the start of a lot of things) in order to make its cutscenes more "interactive." We seem to still think they are awesome so we put them in from time to time, but Ninja Blade just goes completely nuts on it. Every boss has usually 5-15 of these stupid things per section of the boss fight, meaning it's just quick time hell.

So anyway...let's talk about the good things first, shall we?

Motion blur makes things more EXTREME.

My opinion of the game can actually be summed up pretty easily: it's inoffensive. That's about all there is. It doesn't do anything exceptionally awful (though it does plenty things moderately awful) and it doesn't do anything exceptionally good (though it does have a few decent points, the goofy-ass cutscenes being numero uno). It just...is, and doesn't stand out in any regard. The graphics aren't beautiful but aren't horrible either; they are completely passable. The special effects don't have too much flash or pizzazz but they don't look stupid either. The combat is easy and has a wide assortment of weapons to choose from but doesn't really leave an impression. Ninja Blade is one of the most bland games ever. Which is weird, considering the fact that the cutscenes are total bananas. 

I was going to describe just how the cutscenes were "total bananas" but I don't really feel like it. So I'll just show you a movie instead. 

This is actually pretty tame compared to some stuff

Riding missiles, running up walls, stopping impossible amounts of arrows...it's wild. The cutscenes are extremely entertaining because they are just so dumb, which would be great except they usually are plastered with quick time events that make it so you can't really watch them, because you are waiting for a prompt. Lame.

While the combat is bland, the bosses are just tedious. They show up constantly (see my little chain above for how Ninja Blade's levels work), take a ton of hits, and last forever. They aren't particularly difficult, their life bars are just way longer than they should be (or they have too many "go invincible and force the player to just stand around" moves). They're visually huge and finishing them off is usually a rewarding, absurd cutscene, but as a whole it just drags.

See what I mean? It doesn't look bad, it just looks...boring. 

Some stupid design choices also plague the overall game. The game checkpoints mid-chapter for deaths, but if you quit out (like...if you have to go somewhere) it doesn't actually save; you have to start the whole thing over again. There is no New Game + option, where you could run through with your upgraded stuff, which is a big bummer. And the quick time events...urgh. Seriously, you probably are wondering why I'm harping on this, but their frequency is just unbelievable. Really. The game is also super glitchy and technical problems (like getting stuck in geometry) abound.

Also, they have a ninja ride in a car and man a turret. NINJAS DON'T MAN TURRETS. WHAT THE HECK, FROM SOFTWARE?

Just a normal day in the life of a ninja. 

As a whole, I feel kind of bad bagging on Ninja Blade, because it doesn't do anything so deeply offensive as to fuel unbridled rage. But there just isn't much here that is interesting or unique. The fact that it only has a short, unimpressive single player experience doesn't help with my opinion, and as a whole I can't really enthusiastically recommend it or not recommend it. It just...exists.

If you really want an action game that's like Ninja Gaiden 2 but a lot easier, picking up Ninja Blade for $5 isn't bad. If you have someone that can watch you play you can both get some good laughs out of the stupid cutscenes, which adds a bit to the fun. But I would really only recommend getting it when you have exhausted all other options (hint: Bayonetta is a pretty dang good [and overlooked] game). 

For a star rating, I'd give it two out of five, tucking it safely away with the likes of Dead or Alive: Retribution and Viking: Battle for Asgard.

...with quick time events.