Kinect for Xmas

My parents usually get my brother, sister, and me one big present for the whole family to enjoy. This year, it was a Kinect, which is the newest motion control gaming system to be released. My mom had been considering getting a Wii for quite some time, but when she heard about this, she decided to go for the newest techonology. It was not a disappointment! The kinect is so fun and so easy to use. Kyle was probably the most skeptical out of all of us, but he LOVES it now. We've spent several days of our vacation playing the Kinect non-stop (and we only have 3 Kinect games!) It's so fun that the games don't get old, especially Kinect Sports, which I could easily play all day long.

The Kinect is different from other motion control games in that there is absolutely no controller. You navigate the menu by moving your hand to select different items on the screen. When you play games, your body is the controller, everything from your arms and legs to your head. Let me tell you, after a few days of playing games on Kinect, you will be sore! It's not like Wii where you can kind of flick your wrist and get by. You really have to move around. In soccer, you have to kick the ball and aim it. In volleyball, you actually have to jump to spike the ball (Kinect can tell when your feet don't leave the floor, and you will miss the ball!). The system is pretty accurate too. The soccer/bowling/volleyball actually goes where you want it to go, and your arm and leg movements are reflected on the screen as soon as you move.

One thing I really like about the Kinect is how easy it was to learn how to play. I hardly ever play video games and I hate scrolling through confusing menus or trying to push the right button at the right time. With Kinect, there's not much of a learning curve. You just move around and your character onscreen does the same thing. I know this probably sounds like an advertisement by now, but I just can't get over how cool the Kinect is! I've played the Wii before and thought that it was a lot of fun, but it pales in comparison to the Kinect. My family is usually not the first to have new technology, so to have such an exciting new system has been a blast. I highly recommend the Kinect- it's been my family's favorite Christmas present this year.