[Mush xx]

Get ready for the ride of your life

Kinect Joyride has quite a history, it was first announced at E3 2009 with the intention of it being released as a free arcade game, and it was then delayed, eventually made into a Kinect title and is now one of the first racing titles for Kinect retaining the use of your avatar as previously announced. This move from arcade to Kinect enables it to become a full retail title and so pack more features into it.

Up until now if you want to play a racing game on Xbox 360 you can either play with a controller or a steering wheel, both of these methods are fine but involve sitting down just like when you are driving a real car so what if you stood up and used your body instead? Kinect Joyride is designed to get you up and moving, although it is possible (just) to play it sitting down. Standing and placing your hands in the ten-to-two position as if you are holding a steering wheel you are ready to begin. With Kinect Joyride there are no accelerate and brake to consider, the game does this for you so all you need to worry about is steering, boosting, firing weapons and doing fancy tricks off ramps in the air.



Gripping an imaginary wheel you move your hands to steer, want to go faster? Lean back to fill the boost bar then forwards to boost, hitting speed arrows on the track you then aim for a ramp propelling your car into the air, moving your body about you can then perform tricks before landing on the track again and speeding off. It’s as simple as that; however, steering round the track is not so simple; it seems to have a mind of its own steering off into the sides and missing corners causing you to crash into things, spin around or find yourself somewhere you don’t want to be. I’m not sure whether this is because the Kinect sensor isn’t picking the steering up correctly or because there is a lack of precision, it has no trouble picking up whether you wish to go left or right but it seems to be that accuracy doesn’t matter, it’s speed which does and even going off-road doesn’t slow it down. The boost is far more exciting than pressing a button you really feel as if you are playing a part in increasing the speed and the same with the tricks, using your body to perform these feels like you are actually making these happen. You can also stick out you hip to drift, which is possibly a better way of getting round those corners than steering.

Kinect Joyride does not have tuning aspects, but you can paint your car in whichever colour you please holding something up which is the same colour as you want your car to be. What you do have though is an easy to pick up arcade racer, which seems to have been made accessible for even the youngest of players. As you progress you unlock new cars for your collection by completing the events which earn you fans, which also unlock new events. The cars don’t seem to have any difference in speed; even the camper van seems just as quick as the sports cars.



To mix it up a bit Kinect Joyride has several different modes of gameplay, the Pro races- which are your normal A-B races but with ramps, Battle races- with weapons, Smash- where you use your car to smash into items, preferably the statues dotted around, Stunt- whilst you are in a half-pipe your perform stunts collecting fruit as you go, Dash- fastest possible way round the track and Trick- match poses on the screen while your car grows wings and flies through the air. Although you have these different modes and different tracks it does feel as if you are doing the same thing over and over again, I am getting pretty good at the Trick mode though, it’s a bit more relaxing than the others and rather like yoga, however the point of this in a racing game baffles me.

Kinect Joyride seems to have taken a few tips from Mario Kart, not only through the bright cartoonish graphics, but also the way the races work and the Battle mode. There are some definite similarities there, but not with the actual gameplay.



Multiplayer wise, you can play with a friend side by side in all the activities and on Xbox Live with up to seven other players in a race. Xbox Live lobbies can support you and an offline player against Xbox Live players choosing which track you wish to do through a voting system. There are also Xbox Live leaderboards to check your lap times against your friends.

Along with the rather inaccurate steering controls, the game has a rather complex menu system, to get anywhere just like every Kinect game you hover over the arrows with your hand and hold it there, but to choose a different car or a different track you need to go right back to the main menu. As the races are rather short you end up spending more time in the menus than the actual races.

Kinect joyride is fun in short bursts, bright and colourful, if it wasn’t for the inaccurate steering and the complex menus it would be a great racer, however, as steering is very important in a racing game this somewhat makes the game lose its appeal after a while, I think as it was originally designed to work with a controller this is perhaps why.

5.5

[JasonA]

Love the Kinect reviews coming from this site... although I really do want JoyRide, I don't think it can offer me enough value for a full price game and so if I was to buy this one - I'd wait for a price drop.

The way you can paint your car by holding up a colour to Kinect is great - I hope that if Forza 4 has any great Kinect features that would be one of them, and the ability to hold up a design that could be plastered onto your vehicle. So much can be done with Kinect for upcoming games, even if they still use a joypad for controls. I want Kinect in everything LOL...

Back to JoyRide - I did play the demo on Kinect Adventures, it was fun, colourful, a bit odd at first trying to stay on the track using my hands, but to cheap and arcade-y looking for a full price title!

[Mush xx]

Thanks Jason, there are a lot more to come. Joyride disappointed me as I was expecting a bit more, however it is still fun, just needs to work a bit better.