There is a lot of French people in Canada.

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That would make them French Canadian not French.

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Crench?

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No, Quebecers! I’m one and we’re quebecers, not crench!

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You’re not Quebecers you are Quebecois! Sheesh….

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Fruit ninja, story mode? What in the blue heck is this?

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I own Rise of Nighmares and IMO is the best kinect game ever!
Unfortunatelly its the only one of its kind. I didn’t liked Haunt very much (steping to move foward wasn’t a good idea.
MS should make more games like Rise of Nightmares, because we just can’t justify a hardware with casual games only.

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You mean Fable: The Journey, not Fable Legends (which isn’t out yet).

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Yeah,whoops.Lol.I can’t believe I messed that up.

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The Gunstringer also did this well – it worked within the limitations of the Kinect and didn’t try to shoe-horn features in.

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The very thing I don’t like about almost all kinect games is the “on rails” thing! Kinect IS better than that! If Kinect star wars wasn’t on rails it would be a great game.
I really think that Rise of Nightmres or the original Ryse plan is the only way to make a good hardcore kinect game.

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I thought the original Ryse plan was to make it “on rails”, so I’m confused by your contradictory comments.
The most successful Kinect games have either been 1. on rails (Child of Eden, Blue Estate) or 2. static location (Dance Central, Fantasia, Fruit Ninja, Kinect Sports, Xbox Fitness), etc. D4 is an interesting exception that enabled ‘Street-View’ like movement, coupled with static location action sequences (which were superb), but otherwise, I cannot really see how a Kinect game could have total 3D movement (because there is no where to walk to in a living room, walking in place is dumb and no one would want to do that).

I think Kinect developers should look to Child of Eden, Fantasia , Dance Central, D4 (particularly the action sequences), and Kinect Sports Rivals (particularly the Wake Racing) for exemplary motion-controlled games.

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Haunt actually did the movement pretty well, and it was walk in place – but I wouldn’t really want to play a long game that way. What really needs to be made for Kinect are more Hybrid games that use both the controller as well as Kinect, like Steel Battalion attempted. That game got a bad rep unnecessarily as I never had any of the issues that many of the reviewers had – I think they were either uncoordinated, didn’t have their Kinect set up properly, or already had an agenda to trash anything Kinect related that wasn’t a casual game.

I am still of the firm belief that a strategy game would benefit from Kinect controls of some kind.

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It’s been really vexing that Microsoft has seemingly abandoned Kinect. They haven’t announced any new first-party games and none of the recent Xbox One bundles include Kinect–worst yet, you can’t even buy the standalone Kinect at all, even from the Microsoft Store it’s been “out of stock” for all of 2015 so far (><).
If you have the time, you should tweet people like Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) about Kinect. Use the #SaveKinect hashtag and others will retweet it. Cheers.

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Actually they did have an Assassin’s Creed bundle with Kinect over the holidays which is still available from many sellers on Amazon.

I understand why they have chosen not to focus on it as much (as haters like ElektroDragon show by their comments in this thread), but I do not think they have abandoned it as those people like to claim. It is just on the back burner until they are ready to launch either the HoloLens or their VR solution. Microsofts biggest screw up was not having enough games that worked well with it ready when they launched the console and too many with functions shoe-horned into them. Both the change in Ryse as well as Crimson Dragon were great disappointments to me as I was looking forward to those games as they were originally planned.

But there are a few Indy developers who look like they will shake it up a bit with some original uses of Kinect in the coming months. And besides a strategy game, I am still waiting for a lumberjack challenge type game for Kinect – someone needs to make those two things happen!

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I may be wrong, but I would guess that, at least for Ryse, the reason for the changing was money, not technology.
Kinect games don’t sell well latelly. Mostly because most of them suck, and they made a stain on the motion controller game genre reputation.

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MS did a pretty strange move with Xbox One. At first they forced people to buy the X1 with Kinect and didn’t released a single game for it at launch (Fighter Within is from Ubisoft). Even Kinect Sports were released a long time after that.
And even now, almost 1.5 years after the X1 launch we don’t have any kinect game that justify its cost (unless you’re into dance and fitness games).
That MUST be the reason MS is taking Kinect adversing so lightly, because, as for now, It makes no sence at all to buy a hardware without software support. They MUST realease some GOOD games to make it shine again.
Kinect is a impressive hardware! MS MUST take advantage on that!

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Fantasia is a must-own Kinect game. So is D4.

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They released Xbox Fitness at launch and Kinect Sports Rivals Preseason. Also, a few of their launch games had Kinect features (Ryse, Dead Rising 3, and Zoo Tycoon). That said, yes, they needed more Kinect games at launch, and better ones too.
But that’s what makes their recent change of heart so bizarre: now they finally have a good library of Kinect games, but they’re not promoting it at all! Fantasia is probably the best Kinect game ever made (either it or Child of Eden on Xbox 360) and was one of the best video games, on any platform, of all 2014. But there was zero promotion from Microsoft on it. Dance Central Spotlight and Just Dance are also great. Xbox Fitness is a great fitness game. Dark Dreams Don’t Die is superb as well and really innovated with Kinect. Kinect Sports Rivals was overpriced when it launched but is actually a very good casual party game (particularly the Wake Racing). Then there are some solid ID@Xbox offerings, like Blue Estate and Fruit Ninja Kinect 2.
They finally have some solid Kinect games but, instead of advertising them, they’re making it impossible to buy a Kinect. Since they unbundled it in June they had a Madden bundle (no Kinect), a Call of Duty bundle (no Kinect), a Sunset Overdrive bundle (no Kinect), and a Halo: MCC bundle (no Kinect). They had an Assassin’s Creed bundle with Kinect, but they always advertised the non-Kinect version and it’s now nearly impossible to find. It’s been out of stock at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart for most of the past few months. When it is in stock, it’s only online delivery: you never see it in a store. Worse yet, the $50 price drop they put on the non-Kinect SKU has only applied for 2 weeks of 2015 so far to the Kinect SKU.
However, the biggest kicker is the standalone Kinect unit: you cannot buy it anywhere. It’s been out of stock at every major retailer since I started checking back in December. Even the Microsoft Store–THE MICROSOFT STORE–has been out of stock of it for all of 2015.
I can understand offering a non-Kinect version of the console. Give gamers choice. That’s great. But giving gamers a choice actually means you have to sell a Kinect version too. It’s like they’re going out of their way to kill it when they could easily promote it along with the non-Kinect version, or, if not, at least make it available to buy! They already spent all that money on R&D, manufacturing, etc. Get those sunk costs back. It’s mind boggling and frustrating, especially because I really enjoy Kinect games and that’s the main reason I bought an Xbox One.

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yeah… I really didn’t liked the walking in place thing. The “step foward/backward” thing (rise of nightmaers) worked much better IMO.
As for the Hybrids I think the best way is the way is done in Forza (head tracking and Forzavista in FM4). Its great when it brings more immersion. But I didn’t liked Steel Battalion. I think, mostly because you need to put the controller away for some actions, and it felt strange…
Sonic Free Riders was also fun…

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I didn’t mind the controls (which did work well for me, you just had to be deliberate and consistent in your movements). It added to the immersion in my opinion, and was the best thing outside the 40 button controller the original 2 Xbox games used. Biggest tip for succeeding at the game is to not panic and resort to flailing, which I feel is what a lot of reviewers did (or have gone soft and can’t handle a difficult game anymore). However I did not care for the story much or the dialog – way too many unnecessary f-bombs. Not a great game, but much better that the review scores indicate.

I also liked the head tracking in Battlefield 4 for leaning around corners.

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Give up, Kinect is dead. MS finally got it through their thick skulls that the mass market isn’t interested mostly because it still doesn’t work perfectly all the time, unlike a controller. And because Americans are lazy.

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To me makes perfect sence MS put Kinect on hold. They must have good games on it in order to promote it.
Makes no sence buying any harware without software support.

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Actually they never released much info about Ryse. I never saw anywhere saying about how it would actually work besides the reveal video that only showed combat. But I was REALLY hoping that it would give us more liberty to move arround, since it was focused the hardcore gamer, like Rise of Nightmares.

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The total 3D movement works great even with Kinect 1.
In Rise of the Nightmares, you move your shoulders to turn and put one foot forward or backward to move.
It works great! It would be awesome if the use this “motion control scheme” in other, more complex games.

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I’m in Australia so everything costs more.

Although I just did the currency conversion and $20 Australian is equal to $15.59 US,so I suppose it’s not too different.Still too expensive for Fruit Ninja.I paid less than that for Kinect Sports Rivals.

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They’ve improved on it it a lot. There is now a story mode and 4 player co op and some new game play modes. I think it’s worth the little extra. But to each their own.

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Let’s be honest,who really plays Fruit Ninja for the story?

4 player co-op sounds good in theory,but I don’t think I could get my friends to play it with me,and even then it’d wind up with someone getting injured.New game game modes are great,but I have to consider the phone version
is $2,and I’m basically paying 10x the price to wave my arms around
instead of swiping a screen.

I do like Fruit Ninja,just not enough to pay $20.It’ll be a must buy when it goes on sale.Maybe with any luck it could be the first Kinect game to be Games with Gold. (Lol,the riot that would cause)

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So agree with your comment. I love my X1, but Nintendo is doing great, because in the deep we all know that everything is about games (good games).

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I know, I already LOVE the 3DS exclusives! Anyways, you can never go wrong with Nintendo and that’s what I like about them.

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