Kinect - Above or below TV?

After a few weeks I have finally mounted my Kinect camera above my TV,  I previously just had it resting on the same unit that my TV stand on. The question is, which way is better?

Well of corse it depends on how your living room or playing space is laid out. When trying to find the best place for your Kinect, you need to mainly focus on space. Which way will give you more space? In my case, mounting Kinect on the wall above my TV almost gives me an extra foot! Which is a huge amount of space, especially when you are playing multiplayer. At first I was skeptical because my TV is at a slight angle and if Kinect was flat on the wall would it look right on the screen, well if you didn't know like I didn't, you can turn your Kinect a fair amount so it angles nicely.

I generally feel like Kinect is safer mounted on the wall, its in a safe distance away from everything. I have it mounted no more than 5ft high and honestly, so far, I have noticed that Kinect is a lot easier to use this way. Previously when Kinect was on my TV stand, if I was sat on my sofa it was almost level to me.. You would think that this is a perfect combination! No. Sitting down almost 7-8ft away Kinect found to recognize me if I was sat down, but now its mounted.. It can see everything so clearly! I can easily navigated everything now from almost any point on my sofa! It's brilliant and I have fallen even more in love with Kinect!

Down to gameplay, well simply.. It's so much better. Don't get me wrong I was really impressed with Kinect when I first picked it up, it picks up your movements very well, but somehow now it seems even more in tune with my movements! Playing through Dance Central just blew me away. I would recommend this move for everyone, however I know that this might not suit everyone. If you need more space and your TV isn't agains't your wall then this is a great way to gain a little more room.

I have heard the posts and comments that in most of the videos and trailers for Kinect, Microsoft have Kinect below the TV and yes they do, but people don't seem to realize that the TV's that Microsoft use and basically at an eye level for players, players look straight ahead and this is the best result. Kinect is looking directly at you without tilting, this is how to achieve the best result, hence the more space the better.

If having the Kinect camera on top of the TV aids it in not having to tilt itself, then have it up there, if it had to tilt down a drastic amount then you don't need to have it mounted, although this doesn't mean you can't! I hope this helped answer some questions people have been asking!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Starkiller is back! Darth Vaders apprentice is back and he is even stronger and more powerful than before. We are thrown straight into the mix in typical Star Wars fashion fending for our lives whilst trying to escape from Vaders clutches. The story picks up where it left of in the Force Unleashed, Starkiller is on a quest to find his true identity and also his one true love, Juno Eclipse. Vader is attempting to try and clone his former apprentice in search of the perfect sith warrior, Starkiller is on the hunt to stop his former master and save Juno.

The game starts out with a huge bang, you are thrown into a very small tutorial on how to attack and use your devastating force powers. This lasts minutes and in no time you are fleeing from Vader and his army. You immediately get to see how graphics and cinematics look and its visually stunning to say the least, as you plumet through the air, blowing up obstacles and tie fighters with your force push and or lightening ability. Also with Starkillers new ability to hold two light sabers, you feel like he has really progressed since the first game.

The story, as good as it is, does not take long. On my first play through I finished the game in under 6-7 hours on medium difficulty, I even picked up most of the orbs and collectables. This does not truly disappoint me however, the story you play through is very impressive and the visuals are just awe inspiring. You start to feel a real sense of remorse for Starkiller, he doesn't know his past, if he is real or not and you want to help him understand so you push through the game, killing anything in your path. Just like in the previous game you are able to change your costumes, light saber crystals (which actually give you certain abilities), its a nice feature that allows you to customize star killer a little, however it could be a bit more in depth. If you did play through the first game you will have a few extra costumes which is always nice.

However there are some obvious issues, as mentioned before its a little short. You feel a little trapped, there is  a basic set path that you can hardly stray from at all. Also its very nice to see Starkiller holding two light sabers and the way he throws them around is awesome, however it's always the same, he swings in the same way every time and it just becomes a little old after a while, I think it would be nice if you could just use one light saber or a double edged light saber, its a simple touch that could have made a big difference. Another issue I have is the big mob fights, when you fight a big robot or a drone, after a bit of a struggle you come to a point where it takes you into a fixed action scene where you must press certain buttons in a certain way to killer the robot or whatever you are against, the first time I did this I was blown away, but after the 5th or 6th time of doing the same thing and seeing the same scene you just get tired of it, why couldn't we kill these drones in different ways?

I don't think the cons outweigh the pros. The game is still fantastic, you really do learn what you want to after a full play through and there is something about cutting up drones and battling with Vadar that never gets old! There is one thing that I really wish they would have changed, yes there is a point in the game where you chose the Dark Side or The Light. Now this choice for me was so hard and I cannot wait to see what my choice has led to in the next game, however I wish you could have played through this game as one or the other, or even gradually choosing over time, instead of one sudden moment where you are forced to chose.

Overall though I still love this game, I am a huge Star Wars fan and if you are the kind of player who loved to button bash for a while, slice some drones and control things with your mind this game could very well be for you. I give it an 7.5/10, it needed to be a little longer, a few more choices should have been your own, but you cannot fault the graphics, the way the game runs and just the story!

Godfather II

Review will be published soon.

Kinect Sports

Kinect Sports, to put it simply its Microsofts version of Wii Sports. However Kinect Sports bring so much more to the table! This game is very enjoyable from the off, there are a lot of different events that you can take part in, such as; Bowling, Boxing, Track and Field, VolleyBall, Table Tennis and Football.

Before we start though lets get the negativity out of the way, playing on your own can be very boring and running as fast as you can in 100m sprint isn't as fun when you don't have a friend next to you, trying to beat your world record! If you leave the game screen and come back in on the other side of the screen, sometimes your avatar does't switch and you are stuck playing on someone else's avatar, but these issues can be avoided. Sometimes with certain events the Kinect camera can't read you properly, such as the Javelin, if you pull your arm to far back, almost behind your back its like the camera gets confused and tries to replace your arm with something that looks similar, so your avatar has this flapping upside down arm. The same kind of thing with the Bowling, you can't actually put both hands on the ball like the computer seems to or all kinds of crazy things happen!

However these are just little things that really don't effect the game overall. One thing however that is pretty annoying is the game freezing.. It doesn't seem to happen during and actual game which is good, but when loading sometimes it just freezes, its happened twice for me and I have heard about it all over the world, maybe a patch to fix this issue Microsoft? Of corse people are going to complain about the space issue, but honestly if you don't have at least 6ft of space and did not want to move anything around when you want to play Kinect you should have really investigated into Kinect more before you purchased.

I love how just like in Adventures and the Kinect hub, the second you walk infront of your screen you are recognized and signed in! It's amazing and just one less thing for you to worry about. As soon as the game loads you stand alone as your avatar in a stadium filled with people, I couldn't really understand why until I raised my arms and the crowed erupted with cheers! A silly ego booster indeed, but it was just another little feature that shows you what Kinect can do. You can chose between mini games or party events or just playing games generally, then you are able to chose whether you play online, against a computer, against a friend or with a friend, at first you start playing very basic computer difficulties but if you raise the difficulty to Pro or Champion it does become very challenging!

 Like I mentioned before, playing with your friends is the way to do it, get a few buddies over with some beers and start that track and field, soon you will be sprinting for your life! Which gets very tiering very very fast, your windows will need to be opened I warn you now! Now I can't finish writing this without talking about my favorite game.. Table tennis.. Now I know that some people don't view this game like I do, but I find it ridiculously fun! When you start to understand how spinning the ball works you can really thrust yourself into the game, I  start to take it very seriously when it gets to match point. When the smash ball opportunity comes, you feel that you have to jump and smash that ball as hard as you can, my after game photos certainly show how much effort I put in!

Well overall Kinect Sports hits 7/10. There are a few annoying issues with avatars freaking out, game freezing, but the game makes up for it with it's realistic feeling games. You truly feel like you are sprinting as fast as you can when you get on that track! It may feel strange at first not holding something in your hand for certain games, but it begins to feel very natural very fast!

Kinect first impressions

After a long wait, Microsofts Kinect is finally here! So Kinect comes with Kinect Adventures and the Kinect camera itself obviously. Yes if you have the older Xbox model you will need  a separate power adapter, but this is just Microsofts way of saying "that shiny new xbox you see, you should buy that". Which in all honesty is not a bad thing, I was very skeptical at first about buying a new Xbox after many faithful years with my old 360, but its small extra features really do make a difference. After someone told me that the 360 makes a lot of noise, I started noticing it more and more, then I heard about Kinect not being ready for my 360 and I have always had issues with dragging a ethernet cable across my living room for Xbox live. Now if these reasons aren't enough to persuade you to buy the new xbox, its understandable, although now with this new Xbox and Kinect I cannot see Microsoft releasing another Xbox for some time.

Now onto the good stuff, Kinect. After you go through all the calibration work which I admit is slightly tedious, the magic begins to happen.. You see yourself controlling your tv with your hands and I felt just like Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report' it was awesome, a real sense of power. The camera recognized me incredibly well and followed me when I wanted it to. The voice recognition is also very good, I truly love just sitting on the sofa and if I can't reach my controller, just telling my Xbox what I want! If it could just put specific disks on its tray on command it would be perfect. But seriously it is a very impressive piece of kit. I was most impressed by the Kinect ID, I had a few friends recover their accounts onto my xbox and set up Kinect ID and the second a different person walked infront of the camera, Kinect recognized them and logged them in. Amazing.

Yes there are some annoying aspects, like why couldn't the Kinect hub just be the whole Xbox dashboard, I know it might take some more work but it would make the experience so much better! Instead of being limited to what you can do. The features inside the Kinect hub however are very impressive, such as Zune and Sky, telling your xbox to pause when I am going to get a drink is great, but why can't I do this is I just put a dvd in? It's very annoying! But lets hope for a software update to fix these issues. Another problem a lot of people have with Kinect is not necessarily what it does, but getting it to work in your space. As you may or may not know, Kinect needs at least 6ft to function properly with one person and if there is two of you you need at least 8ft, for me this isn't a problem after I move my sofa a little, but it can be a bit of a pain! However I think if you were to think logically about this, it makes sense.. You can't expect this camera to recognize your whole body when you stand 1ft away!

Now onto 'Kinect Adventures'. I personally love this game, its great when you have a few friends over and you have a few drinks to just get the idea of what Kinect is all about! It has 5 mini games for you to play and an adventure mode where you play through these mini games at different difficulties, collecting treasures and other goodies. This is very fun for the first hour or so of playing, but it does get very tedious, there is not much diversity in the game and when you play on your own you seem just a little bit stupid.

Kinect Adventures is certainly a game to be played with friends and when you are playing on your own and a friend decides he wants in, he just steps next to you and hey presto you are in the game. The game like I said gives you a great change to see how accurate the Kinect camera is and it is very impressive. Even stupid things like high fiving your friend after a game is registered! One of the most entertaining thing is to see your after the game photo shots, you see you and your friend jumping in the air, sticking your legs and arms out to try and collect joins, its very entertaining. The problem is like I said before, it gets boring. You can't play this game for hours on end, but its a good start for Kinect, allowing you to see what you are getting yourself in for! I personally am very happy, I enjoy playing it with family and friends and its just nice to see that Kinect does what Microsoft said it would do!


My final verdict on Kinect so far 7/10. Yes there are a few little things that are annoying like I mentioned, but its very impressive and holds a huge potential for the future and that is all you can really judge it on, what it can and might do, not what its doing already! But so far so good! I look forward to the future.