My Kinect

Controlling an in-game character using the motions of your body has been a concept I've been interested in for a long time, well before anyone even knew what a "Revolution" was. Rumors of a motion-controlled device by Microsoft had been in circulation for a little while, and the Kinect, known then as Project Natal, was officially revealed at E3 2009. I was optimistic, understanding the unique gameplay opportunities if the Kinect worked as advertised.

I had already been let down by the prospects of motion control once with the Wii, and though some of that may be my fault for letting my imagination get carried away when it was first revealed, the general consensus I see is that the desired support for the Wii never really arrived. And when it comes to what I've wanted from motion control, the fidelity just wasn't there. While there are some great exclusives for the system, the Wii ended up just like my GameCube several years ago, becoming something I rarely bothered to hook up, spending most of its time in a closet or drawer collecting dust. This is in large part due to my home theater setup, in which I play everything on an HD projector which doesn't work too well with motion games (most of the 100-inch screen ends up being covered by my shadow, and the only way to set up the projector in this room is to have it directly behind the couch), and the fact that the HD monitor I use for the Kinect and PlayStation Move doesn't have a component hookup, which is an issue I plan on remedying soon. Regardless, I've never made much of an effort to fix these problems as there just isn't much I'm interested in playing. I mean, I think it's a great system, but there aren't that many exclusives I care about. I think my referring to the Wii in the past tense for most of this paragraph is pretty indicative of my experience with it.

When it comes to consoles and gaming hardware, I like to own everything so I can play everything, and I knew this would be no different with the Kinect. No matter how it turned out, I knew I would be getting something out of my time with it, and I just hoped that the device would come closer to my younger fantasies of my real-life movements having an impact in a game. I headed over to Amazon on June 14th, 2010 and pre-ordered the Kinect with release-date delivery. I later pre-ordered Dance Central in October.

Fast-forward to November 4th, and I'm watching a live stream of Jeff and Ryan as they play all the Kinect launch titles, checking the shipment progress of my own. Eventually, late in the afternoon, the status changes to "Delivered" and I immediately open my front door to see a small package that obviously contained Dance Central, but nothing that could hold a Kinect. "Hmm, that's odd. Maybe they're delivering it later for some reason?"

They really should be commended for their work done that day.

So I waited, checking outside every so often, even checking the backyard to see if they placed the package there. The Kinect never arrived. Now, I don't remember how this next part played out, whether it was customer support telling me what happened or if it was something I discovered when I went to the Amazon order page, but the reason my Kinect never showed up was because... well, because it was delivered to my old address in Texas. I had forgotten to update the shipping information after I moved to my new place in Oklahoma, and someone in my old house just got a free Kinect.

Amazon is an amazing company, one that I have always loved and supported, and what they did next only solidified my loyalty. They immediately sent me another Kinect. For free. They fixed an error that was totally my fault, and even knowing the full story, didn't question whether I was trying scam them or anything. The Kinect isn't some cheap device, either, selling for $150. I actually felt bad, and the nice, helpful customer service lady seemed confused when I showed concern for what would happen to the original Kinect and whether they would get it back or not. I hope that they did.

Being impatient and not wanting to wait until the 9th to get my motion-controlled gaming on, however, I went out to try to see if I could get a Kinect that night. I got the usual "only if you pre-ordered" deal at both of the GameStops I went to, so I went where I always do when they fail me and headed to Walmart, but they were sold out of anything that wasn't a console bundle. Getting desperate, I used my phone's GPS to locate any places in the area that would sell video games, and found another Walmart a few miles out in some rural area I had never been to. Maybe it being a little out-of-the-way helped my chances, as when I walked back to the electronics section to see stands where a large amount of Kinects once sat, there was still one left. "Man, this thing must be pretty popular."

Victorious and reinvigorated, I headed back home to set the device up. I had heard that at least five to six feet of space was needed to use the thing, so I was a little worried about how this would all turn out. I had about that much space between my door and desk where my monitor sat, but there was this incredibly stupid step that led out of the room, taking an unnecessary foot or so of much-needed space. That foot of space was all that it took for the Kinect to not see my feet, effectively making my avatar during the calibration tests do the Kudo Tsunoda dance. I tried pushing the Kinect back and even stacking it on game cases, but there just wasn't enough space. I was going to have to reorganize my entire bedroom.

And so I did, taking my desk from its place against the wall and putting it in the very middle of the room, sacrificing aesthetics for usability. I now had plenty of room, and the Kinect worked marvelously. I did what many people do when they celebrate and started dancing, except I had the benefit of owning a video game which focuses on just that. And you know, I must say... there's something really special about unlocking achievements using your whole body.

The 9th came around and the original Kinect arrived, which I ended up selling on eBay for a nice profit. Since then, I've beaten Kinect Adventures (pics and video coming soon!) and received Your Shape Fitness Evolved as a gift. I plan on beating Dance Central and getting as many achievements as possible in Your Shape before their sequels come out later this year. I also intend to play Child of Eden, Fruit Ninja Kinect, Rise of Nightmares, and The Gunstringer relatively soon.

Awwwww yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

So far, I've gotten good use out of the Kinect, with the only annoying issue about it is having to move my 360 back and forth between my office and the living room, but that's just me being lazy. It's about to get used a lot more as I try to overcome my heart condition that I've had since the age of 16, hoping that the unpleasant ordeal it's sure to be will be masked by the fact that I'm playing a video game and unlocking achievements. But that's a blog post for another time.

Rez HD

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This post contains major spoilers for Rez HD.

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Child of Eden arrived from GameFly recently. I've been interested in it ever since seeing Tetsuya Mizuguchi demonstrate it for the first time using the Kinect. As a Kinect owner myself, I was excited to see something that wasn't some sort of fitness trainer or minigame collection. Hearing Child of Eden described as a spiritual successor to Rez made me finally decide to check it out, so after buying $20 worth of Microsoft Points and using half of them on the Dragon Age II: Legacy downloadable content, I used the other half to download Rez HD from Xbox Live Arcade.

I knew very little about Rez beforehand. It was something I'd heard mentioned enough times to know it was sort of a cult classic, though, and what I did know I learned years ago, having seen a few screenshots and forum posts about it. I knew the game had an odd graphical style, that it had something to do with music, and that there was a vibrator peripheral released for it. This little bit of knowledge didn't tell me much other than that the game was weird, and I felt it was something that would be difficult for me to grasp and play or even understand. It didn't even seem like much of a game in the traditional sense I had known at the time, and all of this was enough for me not to investigate further. Thankfully, all my preconceptions were wrong.

Perhaps you can see why one might be confused as to the nature of this game.

Rez is weird, but only in its visual design and use of music; from a gameplay perspective it's pretty straightforward. To put it plainly, it's a rail shooter - you hold the A button, hover a cursor over the enemies/objects you want to shoot, and release to fire, all the while being guided on a predetermined path that never changes. Shooting red power-ups give you the ability to use an Overdrive, which, when activated, automatically shoots everything on-screen and is useful for the more hectic parts of the game when you have dozens of things flying toward you. Shooting blue power-ups (known as Progress Nodes) fill up your "life" meter, in which you level up into the next form when full. These forms basically act as your health bar, with every hit you take devolving you into the previous form, and the game ending if you get hit at form 0. I'm glad I watched the tutorial video before playing, as none of this information is given in the actual game. It took me until my second playthrough of Area 2 to fully understand everything. I remember thinking during the Area 1 boss fight, "I don't know what's going on but apparently I'm doing good!" as I watched its health bar drop. I hadn't even known that I had to be hit by things to devolve, thinking that maybe it was based on how many enemies I failed to shoot as they flew past me.

Well, actually, there was one thing I didn't realize until completing the first four areas. Feeling like something was missing, I did a quick search to find out I had to get 100% analyzation on every level to unlock Area 5, the game's last level. See, each Area consists of 10 layers, and to travel to the next layer, you can either shoot the Password Protectors (in the form of a cube) that appear, which are what give you the analyzation points, or you can do nothing and wait a little longer to travel to the next layer automatically, gaining nothing. I thought that the Password Protectors were just a way to jump ahead more quickly, not realizing they were necessary to complete the game.

The lack of explanation goes for the story, too, with everything told through text on a separate menu outside of any gameplay. Rez is about your infiltration of a network run by Eden, an A.I. that has recently become self-aware and shut herself down. Your goal is to bypass Eden's security, find her, and reboot the system. It's slightly more complicated than that (and I really mean only slightly) but that's the gist of it.

Even with the confusion the game wasn't very challenging, as I only failed and needed to restart an area three times throughout the whole game. They were all for dumb reasons, too. On Area 2 it was because I didn't realize I needed to turn around when the boss came out of its shell, on Area 3 it was because I didn't use Overdrives correctly on the final stage of its boss, and it also happened right before finishing the game at Area 5; I used all my Overdrives at the beginning of the encounter with Eden, not realizing that it was a total boss rush. It makes complete sense that a boss rush would be in there, actually, but I thought I was defeating her for good right then and there. The game doesn't have any checkpoints, but the areas are all fairly short, so having to replay them wasn't a big deal. I actually enjoyed it, as it gave me more time with an otherwise brief game. I've never been into score attack modes or anything like that, so I knew that the story mode and the few extras I unlocked after beating it was all I would get out of it.

The boss in Area 4 reminded me of Seven Force from Gunstar Heroes.

There were a couple of specific moments that reminded me of some other music-based games, as well. There is a form that Mars, the Area 2 boss, takes that gave me a heavy Everyday Shooter vibe. The targets you shoot prior to Mars coming out of its shell look exactly like something out of that game, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Jonathan Mak was influenced by Rez, with the similarities the games share in regards to how the actions of the player and music are tied in to each other. There were also some camera sweeps during other boss stages that reminded me of Space Channel 5.

A lot about Rez just emanates a feeling of cool, whether it's the way your character pulsates with the beat of the song, or how your every action is timed rhythmically with the music. The game appropriately hits its high point with the final level as you progress through the evolution of life on Earth, from its beginnings in the sea to the exploration of outer space, with it all ending in a showdown with Eden as you face off forms of all the previous bosses you encountered. It's also my favorite use of music, featuring "Fear" by Adam Freeland. All of this is enhanced with an additional Xbox 360 controller laying on your crotch with the trance vibration functionality activated. That is what I was supposed to do, right? Either way, I recommend it.

Make me feel it! Make me feel alive again!

I'm glad I decided to play this before starting Child of Eden. I learned while doing some research for this that Child of Eden is actually a prequel, so that'll be interesting. I'm sure I'll feel even cooler controlling everything with my hands, but I'll have to see how well that actually works. Regardless, Rez HD was a fun, albeit short experience - not that being short is a bad thing. I prefer a game that's tightly knit as opposed to one that drags on, and Rez never felt dull. 800 points well spent.

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Games I've Beaten
Entry #2
#1: Alien Syndrome / #3: Duck Hunt

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The Luchacast Episode #4: Weak Week

Released: September 13th, 2010

This is the fourth episode of The Luchazine podcast, The Luchacast. It was my second appearance on The Luchacast, and my second podcast ever. We started recording it on September 11th, 2010 at 11 PM Central time. We recorded for about 50 minutes before restarting, due to the podcast "running too long".

The Cast:

Abhishek Chaudhry - indian_boy

Samuel Cooke - pepsicolaboy

Charles Alan Ratliff (That's me!) - Vito_Raliffe

Goran "Pop" Popovic - GoranP

Official Description:

"Abhishek Chaudhry (indian_boy), Samuel Cooke (pepsicolaboy), Charles Alan Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe), and Goran "Pop" Popovic (GoranP) sit down and tackle a slow news week mixed with a lull in new releases. This may be the shortest "award-winning" Luchacast ever, but it is jam packed with a bunch of "award-winning" discussions on playing the upcoming Move & Kinect, 3D games, Halo: Reach, and much more. Does Charlie have a thing for dinosaurs? Tune in to find out!"