PixlBit

Haven't I done this before on some other system four years ago?

Aside from Kinect Joy Ride, a few different Kinect Sports games were available for play at the Kinect booth. Bowling, Table Tennis, and Beach Volleyball were the choices, and I had the opportunity to check out both Bowling and Table Tennis.

Bowling was the first title I tried, and the cursor issues I experienced in Joy Ride with two players weren't a problem here. In order to start bowling, it was as simple as reaching over for a ball, lining it up using some on-screen indicators and tossing the ball. More rapid movement of my arm translated directly into a faster moving ball when my avatar released.

My natural instinct was to attempt to spin the ball upon release, by twisting my hand at the arc of my movement. This didn't produce the intended results of actually putting some spin on the ball. Rather, a wild swing of my arm in an unnatural way, was the manner in which spin had to be executed. This was particularly disappointing given the bowling in both Wii Sports titles tends to be so accurate to real life action.

In short, Bowling was an underwhelming experience that clearly didn't match up to what players have been doing since 2006 on the Wii.

Table Tennis was next up, and was coincidentally the title I was most interested in trying. Though this mini-game was fun at first, after a few volleys it became less so very quickly.

This can mainly be attributed to the lack of depth within the experience. While all of the basic stuff works fine, once again the finesse aspects of the sport are completely lost with the Kinect experience.

Forehand, backhand, and the slam aspect of both the aforementioned moves made up the entire experience. With each volley back, I needed only to decide how hard I was going to hit the ball and if I was going to swing forehand or backhand. Putting any amount of spin on the ball was seemingly impossible due to the manner in which the game was controlled, and if it was possible, the motion to do it was most definitely unnatural.

I can't deny that it was fun to hit the ball back and forth with the computer player, but there was clearly no depth to the gameplay. I wasn't able to perceive anything that would make the gaming experience deeper or more interesting after the initial enjoyment wore off. Like Bowling, Table Tennis is out-classed by its Wii Sport Resort counter part, and most players will find it more akin to the inferior Tennis game in the original Wii Sports.

I'm not sure how the remaining sports mini-games will turn out in Kinect Sports, but neither Bowling or Table Tennis were very promising. I walked away wondering why anyone would want to buy the Kinect and Kinect Sports if they already owned a Wii and Wii Sports/Wii Sports Resort. While the latter requires a controller, the actual experience didn't seem much different, with the exception that the controller seems to allow players to do a lot more in the context of the game.