Kinected writings

We've got kinected. For those who don't know what I am speaking about all will be revealed in the fullness of time.

The kinect was a Christmas present. It's an xbox accessory but it's taken me until now to recover from the trauma of using it.

For those of you who are ignorant of such matters, the kinect is intended as an all body controller. No, not that sort of controller, keep your fantasies to yourself. You use your body to control what goes on on the screen. The system consists of various cameras and clever software that can 'see' a person and respond to the way that person moves. It's clever enough to make out limbs and head, so can construct a kind of 'stick' figure of a person. When setting it up you can wave your arms (and legs if you feel so inclined and can manage it without falling over) and watch the stick figure doing the same.

OK, that's the basics. How about the detail?

Well, first of all it's an American toy, designed for rich American households. The unit needs to be mounted above or below the TV and the victim (sorry, player) should be at least 6 feet from the unit. Ideally (to allow 2 people to play) it needs 8 feet.

8 feet? Directly in front of the TV????

For the foreigners amongst you, English building regs nowadays specify how to build the kind of box a sardine would be ashamed of. You'd be lucky enough to get a room with 8 feet of dimension and that would be before you had put the TV in with the sofa directly opposite. In many houses the TV is in the corner with sofas and chairs squeezed around the edge and a nice glass coffee table in the middle. We'll come back to that later.

8 feet???

The adverts for the thing show a nice bright clean family, fresh out the washing powder ads ("wash your clothes in BRIGHT and keep the colors FRESH!") playing with the kinect in a room the size of a tennis court. The ceiling is lost in the clouds. OK I exaggerate but it doesn't exactly reflect the Normal British Household.

We managed to get 7 foot of space by sticking the unit to the top of the TV with gaffer tape (duct tape to foreigners) and pushing the sofa back and glass coffee table over. Even then the backs of our legs were dangerously close to the fire so our game was accompanied by the faint smell of burning cloth (or roast pork if we had shorts on)

OK. That's the area sorted out. What about the games?

Well the games (as you can imagine for something that uses the body as a controller) involves a lot of arm waving, leg waving and throwing of the body around.

You've heard of the problems with the Nintendo Wii? This games machine uses a hand held stick to control the game. Excellent for things like tennis games or anything that involves swinging a piece of sports equipment around. However this has its dangers. There are stories of people taking their lights out with a well timed overhead tennis shot, or worse, letting go of the controller at the end of a particularly forceful power shot and smashing the TV.

With the kinect you have a body to fling around.

I predict several stories of people who have flung themselves on to the coffee table in an attempt to save a virtual football. Or giving the wife a black eye in an attempt to stop a projectile going past.

And so on to the age gap. As you will have gathered by now, kinect games are somewhat physical. Kids jumping around, whapping balls, jumping over obstacles, swerving to avoid oncoming posts .. this is all par for the course. However, I am no longer in the first flush of youth (no I'm not, don't laugh), and the first game (a river rafting game if you must ask) had my heart rate in the 200s. I can predict a few heart attacks at the family party I can tell you.

As you can imagine, the kinect does not lend itself to the most dignified of activities. In fact I would suspect that some of the aforementioned heart attacks will be among the spectators as they kill themselves laughing watching the participant try and make himself like a goal keeper.

The humiliation doesn't end there though. You will recollect that this thing is a glorified camera.

Yes it does take pictures

Usually in mid jump.

Not a pretty sight

In fact I can envisage the kinect being cited in divorce cases on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour when the wife posts pics of hubby trying to jump up and stop a particular difficult overhead ball.

That's all for now. I'm gonna try and shoot some particularly harsh rapids.

But I'm not sending you the photos.