 5:20 PM on 08.06.2010 |
|
|
During E3, Hudson announced that it was bringing its Deca Sports franchise -- which has sold more than 2.5 million units worldwide on Wii and DS -- to Kinect this fall. The controller-free compilation of sports offers the following events:
- snowboard cross
- beach volleyball
- figure skating
- mogul skiing
- dodgeball
- paintball
- archery
- boxing
- tennis
- kendo
As you can see, many of the mini-games in Freedom aren't what you'd typically expect from a sports title. That's because this game has been designed from the ground up for Kinect -- it's not merely a port of one of the Wii Deca Sports games. I saw the game last week in New York, and came away impressed. (Special thanks to PR man Ron Burgess, who suffered through the indignity of the figure-skating mode for me, when he could've picked any of the other, less dainty games.) 
Deca Sports Freedom (Kinect for Xbox 360)
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson Entertainment
To be released: November 2010
First, Ron demoed tennis for me. Its visuals aren't going to amaze anyone; they're serviceable, but they get the job done for this kind of videogame. What is impressive about tennis in Deca Sports Freedom is the fidelity of the experience. In tennis, you stand in front of the Kinect sensor and swing; just like in Wii Sports, the game handles your movement for you. Thanks to Kinect, the game can detect subtleties in your swing that will determine the type of shot you make.
This means that you can spin your wrist downward as you swing to initiate a slice, or swing hard and continue your follow-through for a cross-court winner. If you time your shot perfectly, you'll get a power boost (seen in the header image to this preview). It's this kind of functionality that makes me think that technology like Kinect has a promising future ahead.
Next, Ron decided to man up and show me the figure-skating game. Again, your on-screen character will skate around the rink by him- or herself. The game marks spots on the ice and tasks you with performing gestures -- which correspond to figure-skating moves such as jumps, spins, and jump-spins -- in those spots. The better you time your gesture (i.e., the closer you get to the center of the on-ice circle), the higher your score. If you miss, your character falls on his or her ass.
As you can imagine, the combination of seeing Ron struggle to do ballerina-like poses in front of a TV and watching his avatar fall on the ice a few times was nearly too much for me to handle without bursting out in laughter. I think I managed to keep myself (mostly) composed, though. Figure skating is definitely one of those "make yourself look like an ass" Kinect games. It also has the capacity to burn some calories, although it's no EA Sports Active 2.
Deca Sports Freedom will include online play, as well as two-player co-op and competitive play. For example, you can play doubles in tennis -- either on the same team, or against each other. In addition, you can unlock Adidas-branded clothing for your Xbox 360 Avatar by doing well in the game. Hudson hasn't announced a price yet, but if the other eight games work as well as tennis and figure skating, Freedom could be a good purchase to show off Kinect to your families.
Microsoft and Pizza Hut have teamed up to provide a service which allows people to order food through their Xbox 360 console and have it delivered to their homes. It's either the innovation truly lazy gamers have been waitin... Tecmo Koei's upcoming myth-based hack-n-slash action title, Warriors Orochi 3, will be launching for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next month, in North America on March 20 and in Europe on March 30. The game will be a full-price... Welcome to another installment of Destructoid On Assignment: the extravagant lives of videogame blogging where you, our supportive readers, wish to swiftly murder us for doing cool things nobody should be gainfully employed t... The end of the NFL lockout in late July kicked off the league's usual flurry of offseason personnel moves (trades, signings, etc.), except this time, the lockout caused the free-agency period to be compressed into the space o... The March release of 2K Sports’ Major League Baseball 2K11 came with the fanfare of the publisher’s second annual competition to throw an in-game perfect game for a $1 million cash prize. This time around, 2K twea... "This game is the reason I joined Ignition three years ago," said Shane Bettenhausen, the publisher's director of business development, at a recent demo of El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron in New York. "I hate games that... Holy sh*tballs, this game is crazy.
How do I even begin to describe how insanely complicated, yet ridiculously awesome Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten appears to be? Explosions, demons, monsters, penguins, pirates, massive p... “I love these things, but I also know that there’s something weird, and kind of bizarre, and strange about them -- like, there’s something really dumb about them. [...] We love them, and, kind of, hate them ... Being a huge Zelda fan myself, I can’t tell you how stoked I was to hear I had a chance to preview the 3DS remake of what is possibly the Nintendo 64’s most well-known title, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. ...
Preteens, comic books and a man dressed in tights.
No, I’m not talking about your uncle's sex dungeon; I’m describing the scene at Austin Books & Comics this past Sunday, where a release party was held for th... |
|
surf dtoid with 
Rising (10+)
People you follow
follow
