Kinect Sports: Season Two – Challenge Pack #1

Discover new ways to play Kinect Sports: Season Two with more game modes and challenges to send to friends.

Each sport receives a standout new experience:

• Crazy Kicker (American Football)
• Frantic Fielder (Baseball)
• Cool Ringings (Skiing)
• Champion Chip (Golf)
• Rapid Returner (Tennis)
• Smart Shot (Darts).

Challenge Pack #1 is free DLC on Xbox Marketplace so what
are you waiting for?

You can add Kinect Sports: Season Two – Challenge Pack #1
it to your download queue here!

Let us know what you thought of the pack after giving it
a try.

The Dance Central 2 demo has hit Xbox Live today! The demo offers a couple of songs to dust off your dancing shoes with.

You can add the game to your Xbox Live download queue by clicking this link.

Dance Central 2 will be release October 25th!

Don’t forget that Kinect Sports: Season 2 releases on the 25th too!

Description:

Get ready for the sequel to the best-selling dance game for Kinect™ for Xbox 360®! Featuring another killer soundtrack, new simultaneous multiplayer and all-new dance crews, Dance Central™ 2 is sure to get your party started!

The Kinect Sports: Season 2 demo is out on Xbox Live today!  The demo includes samples of Golf and Tennis so get playing and let us know what you think!

You can add the game to your Xbox Live download queue by clicking this link.

Kinect Sports: Season 2 will be out October 25, 2011

Description

Kinect Sports: Season Two” sprints out of the box at full speed, taking full advantage of the revolutionary Kinect technology and its latest exciting features like in-game voice commands and enhanced motion tracking. Bringing the family together, and introducing Challenge Play to Xbox LIVE and living rooms worldwide, “Kinect Sports: Season Two” harnesses the power of friendly competition to provide a more immersive experience for everyone from casual players to top-notch athletes and hardcore sports fans.

Fruit Ninja Kinect has made the leap from mobile devices to the Xbox 360 this week! Finger slashing is no more. Now it is time to slice and dice that fruit with those ninja arms of yours. You will quickly realize that those ninja reflexes require a lot of energy and you will be thankful that the games tend to be short.

Fruit Ninja Kinect:

• Halfbrick Studios
• Xbox Live Arcade
• 800 Microsoft Points (see money saving tip below)
• 1-2 Players (Local Only)

Fruit Ninja Kinect comes with the same game modes from the mobile versions including the Classic, Arcade and Zen modes. The Kinect version adds Party mode which will pit you against another opponent locally. In this mode you can either choose to work cooperatively or compete against each other.  As you progress you will unlock Sensei’s Swag which consists of new blades and backgrounds that can be selected in the Dojo.

Pros:

• Same fun addictive gameplay that I love from the mobile version
• 2 player mode allows for cooperative and competitive action
• Motion tracking is excellent and can capture your fastest ninja moves
• Crisp and vibrant graphics
• Leaderboards are great motivation and easy to navigate

Cons:

• No fruit slicing over Xbox Live
• Navigating main menu takes a little practice

The Verdict:

This simple game is genuinely fun. Often with Kinect games I find myself bored while waiting for load screens just standing around waiting during cut scenes. Fruit Ninja Kinect is great because you instantly slice into action and there is no learning curve. You do exert small but exhaustive bursts of energy during the game but I was able to quickly recover to keep playing. If you are a fan of this on your mobile device you for sure will love the Xbox Live version.

I was very impressed with the accuracy of the motion tracking. In Arcade mode I could precisely slice around bombs and hit some tricky fruit combos. The only lacking aspect to this game is the inability of competing head to head over Xbox Live. It would be so fun to out slice my friends or at least try too!

Score: 9/10

Money Saving Tip

If you are interested in Fruit Ninja Kinect but want to save some money then wait until September 13th, 2011 when The Gunstringer is released. This game looks to be very promising and it will include a code for a free download of Fruit Ninja Kinect! As of right now The Gunstringer is slated to retail for $40.00 and Fruit Ninja Kinect is worth $10.00 (800 MS Points). Additionally, The Gunstringer will also include free DLC titled “The Wavy Tube Man Chronicles” and if that just is not enough if you preorder from select retailers you get 2 tokens for a free Avatar Prop from the game.

Whether you decide to buy it now or wait until September I highly recommend at least trying the free Fruit Ninja Kinect Demo out now on Xbox Live.

I just finished watching the Xbox E3 Media Briefing and I can sum most of it up
in one word. Kinect. A lot of great games and features were presented and a few
not so impressive things were shown as well. I will save you 90 minutes by
giving you the super abbreviated  version.

EA Announced that they will  bring Kinect to
some of their well-established sport franchises like PGA, Madden, and Fifa.

Actually, just about every game had Kinect integratation.

• You will be seeing Kinect features added to games like Mass Effect 3 which will offer
  voice recognition in real-time. At first the demo looked unimpressive. However,
  I could see some useful benefits to using the voice commands during
  battles. It offers a much easier way to control your squad.
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier caught my attention with the Gunsmith mode
  which offers the ability to completely customize your weapons through the
  use of Kinect gestures or voice commands. Oh yeah, you can create up to 20 MILLION different weapons.
• It was also announced that going forward all Tom Clancy titles would integrate Kinect
  into its games. I just hope they only add features that add to the
  experience and are not there just because it was announced it would be.

I love the Forza Motorsport franchise so I have been excited to see more about
Forza 4. I won’t bother you with details. Watch the video it speaks for itself.

The worst thing that I saw during the briefing was the demo for Fable the Journey. It is very sad to ruin such a great game. It is nice that the guy was seated while playing but I really don’t want to do all those annoying hand gestures. Watch and you will agree.

Kinect Star Wars is a title that Dezign Grrl and I have been looking forward to for a
long time. The graphics look amazing and it has tons of potential. The trick will be to see if they can make the game fun and engaging and avoid making it repetitive and boring. I would sure love some online lightsaber duels! Yeah, I am a nerd.

Kinect Sports has remained my top pick thus far since Kinect launched. I was
happy to hear that Kinect Sports Season 2 will be adding sports like golf,
football, darts, skiing, and tennis.

As a Windows Phone 7 user and from a graphic design perspective I love the new
changes coming to the Xbox Live Dashboard visually. The Metro styling that looks
much like my WP7 has me hooked. The addition of YouTube to the new Xbox
experience is something that I have wanted for a long time. Also, it was announced
that they are working with local providers to provide live TV. I may never turn
my Xbox off! Read more about the new features on Mashable.

A teaser trailer for Halo 4 releases for the holiday season 2012.

Last but not least. This was my favorite announcement for the briefing  but I have heard a lot of others who are not
impressed at all. I first bought my Xbox and converted from my Sony Playstation-Only ways after playing Halo a few times at a friend’s house. Now they are remaking and remastering the original Halo game
and bringing it over to the Xbox 360 – Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary. This is the best ever (for me at least)!

There was a lot more info that I left out and some great games for kids as well. You
can catch a lot of the briefing on the Xbox Live dashboard and around the web. Better start saving some pennies for this fall!

Brunswick Pro Bowling

Far Sight Studios/Crave Games

• Players 1-4
• Kinect Sensor Required
• Voice Enabled
• Activity Level: Active

I have been waiting a couple of months for the release of Brunswick Pro Bowling but I found it odd that the game had released last week and I had not heard anything about it.  I looked on my usual gaming sites and found no reviews and none of my friends were playing it on Xbox Live.  I started to become concerned that maybe the game was going to be a flop.  I hopped on Amazon.com to order the game and saw two people give it one star.

I thought to myself, “Oh, it can’t be as bad as they say…I am sure they are just being overly critical.”   So, this weekend I happened to see it at Costco for $42.00 and I decided to just pick it up because really how bad could it be, right?

The Low Down

Look I am just going to be direct and to the point on this one.  Brunswick Pro Bowling is by far the worst Kinect game that I have played and that tops the demo for Namco’s Body and Brain Connection.  I popped the game in and found it difficult to even get through the first game.  I caught myself loading the dishwasher in-between frames!  Honestly, I don’t know where to begin with the amount of problems with this title.

Pros:

• It’s a bowling game
• It came in the pretty purple box
• 5 Modes – Quick Play, League, Online Tourament, Rival Challenges, and Spares Challenge

Cons:

• Menu navigation is terrible
• Sensor accuracy is terrible
• What is the point of having a Kinect if you have to point where you are going to throw the ball, before you throw the ball?  You have to extend your non-bowling arm straight out at shoulder level to activate the aiming arrow.  Then move it left or right.  Do I even need to mention how incredibly difficult this is to do not to mention how much it slows the pace of an already slow-paced game?
• Music is completely flat and boring
• Characters show no excitement and they just look depressed
• Apparently it was too difficult to come up with more than 12 achievements
• Game constantly either won’t release the ball when thrown or it accidentally throws it when I am getting ready to swing back.

The Score  2/10  -  This is the generous score!

The Final Verdict

This is the first time I have ever bought a game and felt like I was totally ripped off.  Crave Games really dropped the ball (yeah weak joke) on this one.  I was literally pissed that I wasted my money on this.  I traded it in almost immediately but I feel responsible for the poor person that buys my copy.

If you are me and liked the bowling in Kinect Sports then just stick with that.  It is tons more fun and infinitely more responsive and accurate.

Kinect launched today and I was most excited to purchase the games pictured above.  I decided on Kinect Sports, Kinectimals, Your Shape Fitness Evolved, Dance Central, and Kinect Adventures (included).  I had a lot of trouble finding Your Shape Fitness Evolved though.  I had to go to several stores before finally finding it at GameStop.  To be honest I actually was sort of tired after all of the running! It was quite the workout.  I was almost afraid that I would not have the energy to play anything…although I managed to push on for fun and easy achievements. 

I have only played the games a little bit but there will be reviews coming soon!  In the meantime if you have any questions about the games feel free to ask them on our Facebook Wall or send a message on my moto grrl Facebook page.

Oh man, I can tell that I am going to be sore tomorrow!  Just the short fitness test on Your Shape kicked my booty!

Crackdown 2′s Deluge DLC

Released on November 16, 2010, and will cost gamers 560 Microsoft Points ($7)

Download includes two new multiplayer modes: Deluge and Capture The Orb. Plus new achievements and avatar awards

Deluge

Puts four players against increasingly more challenging waves of Pacific City freaks and cell members.

Capture the Orb

Puts up to 16 players racing the across the streets and rooftops competing to capture a orb “Flag”.

Trailer for Deluge