New 360 with Kinect - Recommendations?

[Hapimeses]

ArnoldRimmer said:

The only good Kinect games you don't already own are Kinect Sports and Your Shape. Your Shape is a fitness/workout game similar to Wii Fit, but just SO MUCH better. It's my personal favourite Kinect "game" and easily the best fitness/workout game out there, and from a technical point of view I'd say it's even the best showcase for the Kinect hardware.

Is your shape really that good?

Currently we use EA Sports Active on PS3, and it's alright. Have you tried that? Do you have any idea how they compare? I feel no desire to immediately buy another fitness game, but if Your Shape is that good, I'm more than willing to be persuaded.

ArnoldRimmer said:

Kinect Sports is the most successful Kinect game and just everyone seems to love it, so you probably won't regret buying it. I actually seem to be the only exception, because I own Wii Sports Resort and Sports Champions as well and with those in mind, Kinect Sports completely failed to impress me. First of all I think the selection of sports is... well, "unfavorable": Four of the six sports in the game are hand-/arm-centric (table tennis, bowling, volleyball, boxing). These sports are better with a handheld motion controller like the Wii Remote or the PS Move, because they have less lag and are much more precise and accurate. Personally, I would always choose the Wii/PS Move counterparts of those sports if I wanted to play them. Of the two sports remaining, the hurdles race had me bored almost instantly. Football however seemed really nice! Leg tracking is Kinect's big strength, so football was a very good decision. The only problem was that I have problems with my knee, and after a single game of football my knee already hurt so bad I had to stop. Bad luck...

Since you specifically asked for a comparison with Sports Champions, I think they are very different. Sports Champions is all about precision and accuracy, while Kinect Sports is all about being easily accessible and forgiving to not frustrate the casual players it's targeting at.
Table tennis is a good example, since it's in both games: The Sports Champions version is very picky about the player's motions, especially in the harder difficulty levels. If you don't do the motions accurately, you probably won't even hit the table. Hold the bat slightly different and the ball will behave different. Kinect Sports table tennis on the other hand can be best compared to Wii Sports tennis: The actual motion seemed almost irrelevant, as long as I did any motion in the right moment everything was fine.

So it's very simply and doesn't have much depth, but that doesn't mean you can't have fun with it. Just remember how much fun people had with the original Wii Sports Tennis despite the fact that it was just waggle controls. Just like Wii Sports, I think Kinect Sports is best when played casually with people who've never played it before and who usually don't even play video games (for example a party with chicks or a family evening with grandma, parents, uncle etc. around).

Hmm. Now I'm not so sure about it. My youngest will certainly appreciate an easy game as you describe, but my eldest has kinda grown used to the precision of Move. I think I'll only pick it up if I spot it on the cheap -- that seems to make most sense to me.

Thank you very much for dropping in. That was some very useful info.