Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Kinectimals ? review

Xbox Kinect/Xbox 360; �39.99-�44.99; cert 3+; Frontier/Microsoft

We all dream of one day forming an emotional bond with another sentient being and finding respite from the terrible isolation of existence. With Kinectimals, you get to do just that ? and your new buddy can never die or leave you. It's perfect.

Of course, the real target market for this game isn't sad-sack adults but wide-eyed children, something that's made clear by the Cbeebies-style presentation of the Kinectimal world. Set on the island of Lemuria, a shimmering paradise of fluttering leaves and wide blue skies, you're welcomed by a weird feline bee-fairy called Bumble and taken to choose your big cat cub.

Whether you go for lion, cheetah, tiger or one of the other curiously placid predatory mammals, your pet will be undeniably cute, and so fluffy that it's almost a disappointment when you reach out to stroke them and can't feel their pelts. "We're so excited to meet you," says Bumble. "The cubs haven't had anyone to play with since the captain left." (It sounds less ominous than it looks written down.)

Actually, the whole thing is almost too adorable. It doesn't try to charm you into a relationship, it just embraces you full on and licks you in the face. Your cat turns out to be rather characterless, and the playing and petting a bit empty. Kinect is impressive here, almost eerily so as it matches your actions to the cub and has it copy you. ("Jump!" "Spin!" "Play dead!" it demands, almost as though it's the one in charge and not you.)

But after a while, there's no getting away from the fact that wafting your empty hands around feels a lot like miming: when you're supposed to be throwing a ball or using a brush, Kinect's controller-free motion control is less satisfying than Move or even Wii.

Often, your cat will scarper and leave you playing pretend skittles on your own as you faff about trying to win the points that will unlock new areas of the map and let you buy gifts for your soulless cub. It's self-defeating, because the more Kinectimals tries to be game-like, the less it lets you actually play: EyePet is much simpler and a lot more successful, because it's always focused on the actual pet, leaving you with the choice of how to interact. Kinectimals feels frequently like a clumsy mini-game compendium with a tiger wandering through every few minutes.

There's more mileage in a Tamagotchi, and one of them would never ask you to shame yourself by acting out "play dead" on the living room floor.

? Game reviewed on Xbox 360

Rating: 2/5


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