Iâm not really anti-Kinect. Itâs just that a lot of Kinect games really suck. But I absolutely love Dance Central and Fruit Ninja Kinect is always a hit with my non-gaming friends when they come over for after-partying.
But those hits are few and far between.
I wasnât expecting to enjoy Fable: The Journey. For one thing, Iâm a Fable fan, and the move to capitalize on fancy new technology never seems to translate to a quality game. For another, the concept seemed too kiddy on paper. This probably wasnât a game made for me, I wagered.
Then I sat downâyes, you can *sit* down for this Kinect gameâin front of a demo build of Fable: The Journey. âShit,â I thought as I flung both arms at the screen with a stupid grin on my face, âI guess Iâm just a kid at heart.â
I denied the lunges and strikes of my enemies with a defiant left-arm block intermittent between my own attacks. Arrows and rocks would bounce back at them, or theyâd fall back, stunned from being blocked. If I was feeling particularly bloodthirsty, I could wave my right hand to energize a âFireball,â and even aim it high enough to quickly catch and drag down for a rain of fire attack that can hit multiple enemies.
Then the game introduced me to the throwing spearââMagic Shardsââthat you charge up by stretching behind you and then throwing at the screen. Aim is often a little off with many of these Kinectified abilities. Fortunately you can catch any failed throw and drag it down to a target you choose, similar to what I described with the Fireball. Combining all of my attacksâand learning to remember that I can lean to each side to âStrafeâ to avoid enemies and their hitsâI felt fueled with power.
Thatâs always what I imagined the Kinect could possibly do for players, back when it was just known as Project Natal (boy, thatâs a name we havenât seen in awhile, eh?). While itâs easy to get engrossed in non-motion-based games to the point where you feel control over your character, youâre still aware of that gap between player and avatar. But when Iâm unleashing bolts and whiplashes at enemies with a tangible action in Fable: The Journey, I feel drunk with power.
Fable: The Journey combines the characters and (hopefullyâI havenât seen enough to contest to it) charm of the Fable franchise with the pacing of an on-rails shooter (think Time Crisis or House of the Dead) and the exciting, raw power of something like DragonBall Z. Granted, these are a mixture of my weird amalgamation of references. But what Iâm trying to say is: holy shit, do I actually like a Kinect game? Yes, I do, apparently.
