Previews// Kinect Star Wars

One has to maintain a level head when approaching anything with the Star Wars name attached to it. After all, it’s hard to look at a new spinoff, movie or any other product in the franchise without shaking your head, tutting profusely and wishing George Lucas would just sod off to a galaxy far, far away. And it’s easy to make the same kneejerk reaction when looking at Kinect Star Wars for the first time.

I mean, dancing. For God’s sake! Just what the hell does Microsoft think Star Wars is? It’s not about shaking your hips to the Mos Eisley Cantina band. It’s serious business! Well, I’m happy to report that, from a completely neutral perspective, boogying down to pop songs in Jabba the Hutt’s palace doesn’t look out of place. The game has more pressing problems to overcome.

As you could probably ascertain from the title, Kinect Star Wars is a party game that exclusively uses the Xbox 360’s motion-sensing peripheral as a means of control. The idea is that you get to act like a real Jedi, swinging your arms and beating down Stormtroopers like the heroes do in the films and cartoons.

Unfortunately, playing through the game’s main mode - a third-person action affair called Jedi Destiny: Dark Side Rising - doesn’t quite offer that experience. Largely because the motion detection itself is pretty wonky, and the gameplay isn’t very immersive or compelling.

No real complaints with the controls, as they’re pretty much what you would expect in a game like this: swing your right arm to control your lightsaber, and use the force with your left hand. It’s just that, chopping down Clone droids doesn’t feel engaging at all, and swordplay is limited to either limply twizzling your right arm in an attempt to slice baddies apart or limply twizzling your right arm from a distance to auto-counter pistol shots.

Holding your left arm out will allow you to pick up and levitate enemies, which you can then ‘throw’ by sweeping your arm in any given direction. This should feel satisfying, but most of the time the ‘bots will gently flail into a surface like a Crash Test Dummy before breaking in a ridiculously overpowered fashion. To progress through levels, you have to take a step forward (which also fails to work on occasion) and hopping on the spot allows your character to jump, which is necessary to take out certain bad guys from behind.

It’s pretty basic stuff - and to think that there’s a campaign mode dedicated to this. For anyone besides the most optimistic of kids, this will get tedious pretty quickly. When you consider that Jedi Destiny was, up until recently, the only mode we were getting in Kinect Star Wars, it’s actually quite a savvy move on Microsoft’s part to beef up the offering with a smattering of alternative party modes.

I’ve mentioned Galactic Dance Off before - all you need to know is that it’s Dance Central with Star Wars characters. I’m not even joking - the HUD and animations all make it seem like the Harmonix’s engine was lifted and carried over. It’s no bad thing, as it means player detection is pretty spot-on.

Podracing and Duels of Fate are much better, albeit arcade-y, propositions to represent the Kinect Star Wars experience. The former is reminiscent of the excellent Star Wars: Pod Racer on Nintendo 64, with control of your vehicle assigned to both of your outstretched arms. Pulling back on one arm allows you to steer, and a boost can be engaged by pulling your arms back and pushing them forward.

The latter game mode is a selection of pretty impressive rhythmic, turn-based boss battles with Darth Vader and other Sith lords. As the boss attacks, you have to read his movements and position your arms left, right, up or down to block effectively. It’s nice, but it totally knackers your arms.

Undoubtedly the best mode in the whole game is Rancor Rampage, a smash’em up that puts you in control of a destructive Rancor, hell-bent on breaking anything and everything in its path. Stomping your legs in an alternate rhythm makes the Rancor walk around as panic-stricken civilians, Jedi and bounty hunters all scurry around below you. You get a high score for destruction and chaos, and within the time limit you must make sure as much collateral damage is done as possible. It’s Rampage World Tour, with motion! No complaint there.

So Kinect Star Wars is definitely targeted at families and kids. And they may well enjoy it - it’s a certainty that grumpy, entitled Star Wars fans won’t, fearing that this is some further desecration of a franchise that they enjoyed... as kids. Ignoring that massive irony for a second, I have no real problem with Kinect Star Wars’ content and settings.

What’s more likely to sting are the motion detection problems and a lack of satisfying gameplay in the main modes, which will really prevent players from enjoying the game. This could, sadly, be another case of a game being simply too ambitious for the Kinect technology. And if Star Wars can’t be done right on the peripheral, someone’s going to need to sit down have a little think about things.