Playstation Move

[XMEN Gambit]

I picked up the Move starter kit yesterday, and I like it. I've been playing a lot of table tennis and it sometimes feels very realistic - I caught myself starting to grab the end of the paddle with my other hand as I sometimes do when playing in RL.

Need to pick up a 2nd controller so I can play with the kids or do some of the 2-controller activities.

I know some of you guys have an XBox, so has anyone tried the Kinect yet?

[Sharpster]

I was playing the kinect over my buddy's house. Very cool! We were really getting into the bowling. Some of the games are a little unrealistic, but others like the bowling, and volleyball are pretty dead on.

[XMEN Gambit]

Volleyball I can see. In bowling, how do you release the ball? A mechanism I've been wondering about, you see.

[Sharpster]

Well it's pretty simple. Basically, to grab a ball off the rack, you stick either your right or left hand straight out to your side. You can slide side to side in order to line up your shot. As far as rolling the ball down the lane, you just bring your arm straight back and at this point you have the option to throw it straight or put a spin on it. To throw it straight you bring your arm straight forward following the path you brought it back. To place a spin, you bring it forward but end somewhere across your body. Depending how far you go to the opposite side of you're body determines how much spin will be placed on it. That's basically it, but it all can be done in one fluent motion as if you are really at the alley.

Not hard to learn the basics and get a few pins, but on higher difficulty it can be a very challenging game, border-line realistic. (Assuming you can't bowl in real life like myself).

The only minor issue I picked up on during the short time we played was the camera can lose track of who's actually playing (On all games). What I mean by this is that in the beginning it'll ask how many players are playing. The kinect realizes who is controlling which character, and where they are standing in the room. However if someone walks by in the camera's field of view (Cat's and Dog's were a big issue). It will stop game-play and ask the player(s) to raise both of their hands above their heads so it can pick out which people are the ones it needs to follow. It'll figure it out and then resume game-play, but sometimes the littlest movements by someone spectating such as tapping their foot would throw it off.

Long post , sorry. To answer you're question I assume the camera realizes your hand was moving backward and is now moving forward. It releases at the same point you typically would in real life. Pretty cool.

[XMEN Gambit]

No, no. All good info. But if it "does it for you" then you are missing the joys of releasing late and denting the lane.

With my table tennis game, on the easy level it tries to assist. It places visual cues on the screen (ok), but I also found it hard to put the ball where I wanted, with the spin it should have, etc. Because the game was trying to help, and I didn't even realize what was going on and just thought the game was soggy. On the hard level, with that "help" removed, it felt much more natural, and fun.

I'm not knocking the Kinect, just trying to see how it compares, and also bemoaning some of that "help" in the games.

[Sharpster]

Yeah, table tennis and volleyball on the kinect had similar situations to what you had experienced. Turning the difficulty up made it much more of an enjoyable game.

Actually, you can throw the ball up and have it crash down on the lane. lol, You can even accidentally throw it into the crowd, causing everyone to scream and scatter. I think that has to do with when you time opening your palm. (Although in the directions it doesn't mention actually releasing the ball. I found I did that naturally.) I did notice this was only on the higher difficulties.

The directions given pre-game are not very detailed, they show an outline of a body and highlight the limbs you need to move. I would assume there are other things the camera is programmed to detect though.

[XMEN Gambit]

Ya, the Kinect camera system looks pretty capable from the teardown I saw online. Since it's a USB device, _technically_ you'd be able to write a PS3 driver for it and write PS3 games that use it. But I somehow doubt Sony would care for that idea...

[Gryphon]

I have the Kinect, it is very cool.

Videos, let me know if ya can't see em:
http://www.facebook.com/v/490336964292
http://www.facebook.com/v/490336824292
http://www.facebook.com/v/490336599292