The Microsoft E3 presser just wrapped up, and it was pretty obvious that Microsoft is pushing their Kinect peripheral in a big way. The jewel in the Kinect Crown was Kinect Star Wars. You can check out the trailer below, and I’ll dash your hopes afterward.
Looks pretty amazing, am I right? Well, at the E3 event they had a live demonstration of the game, and sadly, the trailer is pretty deceptive. The game looks exactly like it does in the trailer, but when not gussied up in trailer form, its performance is rather lackluster. Everyone wants to be able to swing a lightsaber and just freaking own people with the Force. This game will deliver on that promise, if you can get around a delay between your motions and the action on screen. It was probably too much to ask for real-time battles, but they aren’t even close here. The combat was extremely slow as well. In Episode I, those rolling Battle Droids were incredibly fast. In this game, you can just walk behind them to stymie their assault. The greatest indignity is that the voice command. It’s hard to be a stealthy Jedi when you have to yell “Lightsaber On!” to activate the Jedi weapon of choice.
While this is a great disturbance in the Force, all hope is not lost. The game isn’t due out for a while, and backlash like this is the best way to let developers know they have some kinks to work out. I remain cautiously optimistic, seeing as the game looks quite nice. Time will tell if Kinect Star Wars will become a Jedi Master or stay an inexperienced Padawan of a game.