Jump around: Kinect gets you off the couch

Microsoft’s hands-free Kinect peripheral has been around a while now. Dance Central took the world by storm but is there anything else worth playing? Let’s find out. Here are reviews of two just released Kinect titles that are trying to get you up off of the couch. 

UFC Personal Trainer
Xbox 360 Kinect
THQ
Grade: 4 (out-of-5)

When
you think of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, you think of bloody
battles that you have to pretend you aren’t watching when your spouse
comes home. You don’t, however, think of a healthful personal training
system.  That may change with UFC Personal Trainer, the new title that
uses the Kinect to whip your sorry butt into fighting shape.

The
game boasts real UFC trainers and uses them to great effect. It’s kind
of like a sassier, angrier Wii Fit. There are plenty of pre-made
workouts and even more standalone exercises to partake in. There are
also several arcade-like minigames that, aside from a boxing exercise,
are pretty average. Stick to the main workouts.

Child of Eden
Xbox 360 Kinect
Ubisoft
Grade: 4 (out-of-5)

Child of Eden is, at heart, an on-rails shooter that has you purging infected systems in the Internet of the future. The Kinect-based controls shake up the formula a bit, tasking you to stand up and quickly move your hands around to music in order to purge archives or dodge enemy attacks. It’s hard to describe what makes this game so cool. It sort of feels like you are playing something that has been lifted from science fiction. It’s easy to imagine Data or Tom Cruise’s character from Minority Report playing this title in their down time.

The graphics and sound act as a perfect compliment to the gameplay. Each of the five levels represent a different aspect of human life, from beauty to evolution. For instance, the beauty level features flowers, butterflies and a fitting soundtrack. Too bad there isn’t a gothic culture of the 1990s level. The only complaint, then, is that the game is over too soon, finishing in just a few hours. Such is life.