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IGN Review of Kinect Sports Season Two
Describing Kinect Sports: Season 2 instills in me an intense sense of deja vu. The mini-game collection allows players to pantomime sports actions in bite sized amounts from the safety of their living room. Wait, that sounds really familiar. Haven't we all already done that before, like, last year? And the year before? And the year before that? Kinect Sports Season 2 is no worse than the last few years of motion sports mini-games (in fact it's better than many), but I think we're kind of done here, guys.
Season 2 hits the same notes as last year's Kinect Sports game: take six sports – some you've played with a remote or wand before, some new – and apply the controller free system to them. It's all one to one actions: throw to throw a ball, jump to jump, lean to lean. Get it? It worked well last year, and was one of the few successful games for the Kinect launch. Fast forward a year, and Microsoft's big holiday Kinect title is... more of the same.
Most of the sports on the disc are well done. Skiing is a personal favorite, especially when racing another person. Baseball and football have been underrepresented on Kinect so it's good to have those on board as well. But then there's golf and tennis, which, while well done, feel cliche at this point. Oh, and there are Darts, which makes this feel a little like Kinect "Hey its 1 am and you're watching ESPN 3" Sports.
Let's cut to the chase: are the games fun? Yes, to varying degrees. I had a good time with football, and found it to be a close feel to playing around in your backyard with a couple buddies. Baseball invokes similar reactions, and the motion controls are pretty accurate. There's a good amount of flair when you score and win, and the game allows you to freestyle a little dance that your avatar hilarious attempts to perform on screen. You can even share a video of you looking ridiculous (set to everyone's favorite Duck Sauce jam). So it's not like Kinect Sports Season 2 is bad at all, it's a well-made, totally solid version of a game that has lost cultural relevancy.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is that all of these games (even the accurate but totally dull Darts) are 100-400 percent more fun in multiplayer. In fact, if you don't have people to play with, don't even bother. This is a party game, and the majority of fun comes from the reactions within the room, rather than the action on screen.
©2011-11-08, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Season 2 hits the same notes as last year's Kinect Sports game: take six sports – some you've played with a remote or wand before, some new – and apply the controller free system to them. It's all one to one actions: throw to throw a ball, jump to jump, lean to lean. Get it? It worked well last year, and was one of the few successful games for the Kinect launch. Fast forward a year, and Microsoft's big holiday Kinect title is... more of the same.
Most of the sports on the disc are well done. Skiing is a personal favorite, especially when racing another person. Baseball and football have been underrepresented on Kinect so it's good to have those on board as well. But then there's golf and tennis, which, while well done, feel cliche at this point. Oh, and there are Darts, which makes this feel a little like Kinect "Hey its 1 am and you're watching ESPN 3" Sports.
Let's cut to the chase: are the games fun? Yes, to varying degrees. I had a good time with football, and found it to be a close feel to playing around in your backyard with a couple buddies. Baseball invokes similar reactions, and the motion controls are pretty accurate. There's a good amount of flair when you score and win, and the game allows you to freestyle a little dance that your avatar hilarious attempts to perform on screen. You can even share a video of you looking ridiculous (set to everyone's favorite Duck Sauce jam). So it's not like Kinect Sports Season 2 is bad at all, it's a well-made, totally solid version of a game that has lost cultural relevancy.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is that all of these games (even the accurate but totally dull Darts) are 100-400 percent more fun in multiplayer. In fact, if you don't have people to play with, don't even bother. This is a party game, and the majority of fun comes from the reactions within the room, rather than the action on screen.
©2011-11-08, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved