FnJimmy vs BatRastered in Kinect Joyride at CES 2011

By BatRastered — January 10, 2011
Tags: blog ces-2011 kinect microsoft video

Spoiler alert: FnJimmy gets railed.

I'm not gonna lie, I think the Kinect is a fucking joke except for dancing and exercise "games". However, I'll use it once just to kick FnJimmy's ass.

If you don't know, the Kinect is a motion sensor bar that allows you to "be the controller". To drive the car in this game you hold your hands out in front of you as if grasping an imaginary steering wheel. You turn it just like a real car, except that it doesn't work. You don't get to control the gas pedal because the Kinect can't see your feet move like that, which is a shame because, otherwise, this game could have failed at that too.

We begin with Jimmy having problems even navigating the menus. Why did we let him be first player again? Just kidding, Jimmy, I can't actually blame you for this one. In order to do this, he had to hold out his hand in the approximate position of the button and hold it there for a few seconds so the Kinect would realize he was trying to select something. Yes, this is way more convenient than pressing a button, way to go! For some reason the Kinect thought Jimmy was a girl and gave him a lady avatar... probably because he has no balls. I guess we don't get to select cars because it doesn't really matter. Now we're ready to race!

At the starting line I hold as still as possible. Jimmy is all over the place already. I see a tunnel coming up on the next turn, my gaming instinct tells me this is likely a shortcut. Also, not taking the shortcut would require more turning, so I aim for it. By "aim for it" I mean raise my right fist slightly higher than my left. As I do this, our host points out the upcoming shortcut on Jimmy's half of the screen. Jimmy's lightning fast reflexes allow him to deftly avoid this path mere seconds after it is pointed out to him (and on every subsequent lap). I set a new single lap record on the first lap. Meanwhile, the Microsoft rep is trying to tell us how to boost and do tricks while flying over jumps and such. These techniques cause your driver to leap from their vehicle and spin around for no real reason at all. No advantage is gained from performing the stunts, so I proceed to steer as little as possible to an easy 1st place finish as the lady is telling me "you're in first, don't let anyone pass you!" in excited tones. She's never seen anything like this before. She needs to relax, no one is going to catch me.

Jimmy finishes 5th, beating the three worst computer controlled racers on the course. A cardboard cutout of Jimmy standing still would've probably finished 3rd. Do you see on the screens following the race how similar all my poses are? Driftastic! Lean slightly to the left with one hand 2 inches higher than the other!

Someone forgot to record Jimmy's post-match interview, but it wen't something like this: "It was pretty good."

My impressions? Joyride doesn't offer you anything that feels like a race (well, except for beating Jimmy) or like driving a vehicle. It's rather boring and the Kinect is slower than using a controller to get you through the menus and such. I also felt sick after leaving the Microsoft booth at CES because of all the fucking green and purple lights. Seriously, stop with that shit.

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FnJimmy vs BatRastered in Kinect Joyride at CES 2011

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