Product Features

Genre: Action and Shooter
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Release Date: April 03, 2012
Available Platforms: XBox 360

Star Wars Kinect Kinect Required

Summary
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Get ready to enter the Star Wars universe in an entirely new way. Featuring iconic settings, characters and action, Kinect Star Wars puts you in the Star Wars you know and love, and lets you unleash your inner Jedi -- with no controller in the way.

George Orton July 25, 2012 360

****

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

If reading those ten words is still enough to give you a small shiver of excitement, then you might just be the perfect audience for this game. Despite having been mercilessly exploited in countless books, toys, TV series - and, of course, the much-maligned prequel trilogy of movies - George Lucas' Star Wars franchise still retains much of its appeal in the world of videogames. More than any other medium, videogames are able to give Star Wars fans a true sense of being in the midst of the action and of experiencing the wonderful worlds that we've grown to love from the original movies - and never has that been more apparent than with Star Wars Kinect, which enables gamers to use the Xbox's Kinect camera to 'become' a jedi, leaping and bounding around your living room whilst your counterpart character executes flawless lightsaber attacks and exudes expertly-judged 'force' powers on the TV screen (well, that's the plan, anyway).

Star Wars Kinect actually consists of five different games, all of which make use of various locations and characters from the Star Wars franchise, and all of which feature different forms of gameplay. My favourite has to be the lightsaber battling mode, which feels like something the Kinect was born to do, giving players the opportunity to pull off a host of cool moves as they fight through a horde of baddies before squaring off against the ultimate enemy, Darth Vader. Second to this is the podracing mode, which takes the popular high-octane sport from the prequel trilogy and brings it to life in all its hair-raising, fast-paced glory.

Two of the other games in the package feel a bit more child-oriented: there's the 'Rancor Rampage' mode, which lets you play as the giant monster from Return of the Jedi, and which encourages you to generally destroy as much of your environment as you can. And there's the 'Jedi Destiny' mode, which is the most story-oriented of all, allowing you to play as a young Jedi padawan fighting back against the 'dark side', and packing in a lot of familiar vehicles and locations from the movies.

Finally, there's the game mode that has generated most controversy among Star Wars fans: the "galactic dance-off". Having a dancing game set in the Star Wars universe might sound like a crazy idea, and I admit it's initially unsettling to see classic characters like Han Solo and Princess Leia drafted into such a silly dancing competition. But once you get used to the tongue-in-cheek tone of this section (including loads of popular songs reworded to fit in the Star Wars universe), it's actually really enjoyable - especially when playing it with the whole family - and makes perfect use of the motion-detection capabilities of the Kinect.

Whilst this game is a lot of fun, I still feel as though we're waiting for the perfect Star Wars game for this generation of consoles. I can't think of anything recent that matches the authentic Star Wars experiences offered by old-school games like Dark Forces, Rogue Squadron, X-Wing/TIE Fighter or even Knights of the Old Republic - all of which are getting on for ten years old or more. Still, if you're a lover of the franchise, you'll find a lot to like here. The variety offered by the different gameplay formats means that it's hard to get bored (if you're getting stuck or tired of one sub-game, you'll just switch to another), and it's refreshing to see the series take a slightly lighter and jokier approach to itself in places, particularly during the dance sections. Since buying a Kinect, there haven't been that many games for it that I've really enjoyed, but this is one of them.