Kinect Sports Season Two

If Wii Sports proved that we could all get off our couches and have a good time in our living rooms moving, diving, and jumping -- Kinect Sports proved that we don't need no stinkin controller to get the job done - once again, jumping, diving, and all around have some good family time. Not only that, but Kinect Sports made games playable for my friend's 3 year old son Joey -- a bunch of the minigames (Knocking Pins, Shootout) just had you hitting, kicking, or throwing as many balls as you could -- no need to necessarily be accurate or precise about it. Joey loved it so much - he beat all us adults!! In my opinion, Soccer and Track and Field were the best games ever done for a sports game.Kinect Sports Season 2 continues the fun with six new games: Football, Baseball, Skiing, Darts, Golf, and Tennis. In my humble opinion, Darts and Tennis were excellently done. With Darts, the accuracy of the Kinect picking up your movements comes fully to the fore - with Tennis, the workout you get while playing can get quite intense.You'll probably hear alot of people tell you that Football was probably the most-looked forward to addition, and yet - kinda isn't so hot. Football's not too bad, but they definitely missed out on critical areas: only one person (the offense) goes at a time, no way for the defense to pick a play to stop the other team, always needing to be the quarterback, and the lack of available plays to make (you only have 6, and only one changes when you hit 4th down, depending on your distance from the goal (either Punt or Field Goal)). When you're running, you are able to dodge, as long as you time it right -- for instance, if someone's coming from the left to hit you, if you lean right just as they jump at you, they'll miss. I suppose to increase the fun, the game also makes it pretty much impossible to score after the kick, or to make a 100 yard run. I think the only thing I really don't like is that you don't have 2 people playing at the same time.Voice recognition seems to be the new "in" thing for Kinect games - and Kinect Sports Season 2 is no different. All the games now give you some kind of voice commands you can say, which is pretty impressive. I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but the Kinect seems to be able to tell voices apart. After I signed into my profile, and yelled a couple commands to start a game -- after I was done, my friend wanted to play, but it wouldn't respond to his voice. I yelled it out, and the Kinect picked it up. I don't know whether I'm more impressed or annoyed -- impressed at the fact that the Kinect actually could do that, or annoyed at the fact that there's no way to reset this feature. My friend just ended up using his hand)It's also always enjoyable as ever to see various photos the Kinect takes throughout your game, and see it put them through a little mash-up of your game.Whether you've played Season 1 or Season 2 is your first game, know that you're getting a quality game right here -- one that honestly the entire family can enjoy. Even the 3 year old...

There are few Kinect games I can REALLY recommend to the core game player but this is one of them along with the original Kinect Sports. It is pretty fun and challenging and makes a great party game, the only reference to the fact you are exercising is the calories burned counter after each event which just adds extra benefit to the whole game.The only let down, and why the fun factor is 4 star and not 5) is lack of 10 pin bowling which you do get in the original but would have been good to allow you to import sports from the 1st game into the 2nd so you don't have to change disc. There are already two free addons you can download which give you extra challenges which adds to the life of the game and suits anyone from beginner to experienced with difficulty levels set just right so you can work up to the harder challenges without feeling it is impossible to achieve.

Lightning only strikes once, and where it comes to video games, that lightning was Wii Sports Resort. No matter how many other games I bought for the Wii, a gaming session wasn't complete without Sports Resort (and based on multiple other consumers who agree with me, I'll never understand why Nintendo didn't pursue a sequel).I've been searching ever since for something equally as fun. Didn't find it in Kinect Sports 1, which was mildly amusing but failed to really hold my interest. But I wanted Season 2 for the basketball add-on because I LOVE basketball (specifically, free throwing, not playing an actual game so much).Season Two has proved to be so much better, in my opinion, than One, but there's a qualifier -- I hated it until I dug out my Nyko Zoom for the Kinect. Surprise, surprise, here's a title that's actually noticeably improved with the Zoom (which I had given up on). Without the Zoom, baseball and tennis seemed unplayable because I couldn't judge when the ball was within hitting range. The Zoom fixed those issues for me, hallelujah.Okay, breakdown by sport:Skiing: First thing I tried. Basically shooting straight downhill, only able to shimmy left or right to go through gates. I really thought video games had come farther than this by now. It's not terrible, but won't replace my Shaun White Snowboarding titles on the Wii balance board, or the skiing on Motion Sports Adrenaline for Kinect which is far, far more entertaining.Golf: Ugh, hated this. I played the best game of my life (-3 under par), which makes the game feel very, very dishonest and artificial because I am not good at golf. I was making shots I felt I didn't deserve, and the strength of my swing seemed to have very little to do with how much effort I was actually putting into it. Again, no competition with golf in Sports Resort.Darts: This takes some fiddling to get used to the aiming system. Basically when the reticle is where you want it, you have to pull back and throw very quickly or it will shift again on you. But it is nice for a break between more aerobic activities.Tennis: This is a good workout, even if it's mostly arms (doesn't seem possible to shift your avatar's position on the court, which is a drawback when playing champion level and your opponent gets you every time with a ball far opposite you that you can't get to). This was the only one I've played all three levels of difficulty so far, and I'm pleased that they do become noticeably harder.Football: I gave this a try despite knowing nothing about how it's played in real life, and was actually pleasantly surprised. You start as the quarterback and pass to a runner, whereupon you become the runner and try to gain yards. You also get to be the kicker if you get close enough for a field goal. The game thoughtfully skips over your opponent's turn (although you never get to tackle anyone). Only bad about it is long annoying pauses while the coach hogs the screen and shows you the upcoming play, which is pointless since it's obvious who you should pass to when the green dot appears over their head. Maybe to mimic the actual pace of football games which seem to involve a lot of standing around in between flurries of action.Baseball: This surprised me by being my favorite (once the Zoom made it possible for me to hit the ball). You get to bat, run for first (the game deprives you of sliding into home, unfortunately), then switch and become pitcher and outfielder to catch fly balls. All these activities provide nearly a full body workout, and I find myself sweating and waking the next morning with sore muscles everywhere -- this is why I bought a Kinect, to get some exercise without noticing I'm really exercising.Basketball: Guess I should mention this since it was the reason I bought the thing. It's not terrible -- you have the same 3-point game of horse that came on Sports Resort, and a fun variation called Alley Oop where you pass balls to your teammates while avoiding passing to the opposite team (not as complicated as it sounds), but it's pretty much exactly what I had on Sports Resort minus the ability to play a game like Wii provides. I despair of anyone making a basketball game that just lets you make free throws, which I used to do at my gym until it became a life-or-death struggle with guys taking over the court and muscling me out constantly.Add-on packs: There are 4 available. Challenge pack 1 and 2 are free, and (in my opinion) include plenty of goodies for the price. Then there's the basketball pack which you can get for $4.99, or the All Access Pass for $9.99, which includes all of the above plus I think one extra ski and golf course (not worth it, since those are my two least favorite anyway). Let me add I think it's pretty petty of Microsoft to sell parts of a game piecemeal like this, nickel and diming us when they're already richer than god, but guess they've got us where they want us.In general, the game suffers when compared to Sports Resort -- controls aren't nearly as precise and translation to avatar movement just feels...mushy (don't know how else to describe it). As I stated in golf, the Kinect is hopeless at detecting force exerted, so everything you do shows up as full strength. But this is a real nitpick and it's a fair trade-off to not have to hold a controller all the time. I did get a whiffle bat at the dollar store to use for baseball, golf and tennis, because it still feels more natural than holding air (good thing -- I walloped the furniture once or twice at full strength, which would have been disastrous if I'd used my actual wooden bat). But I think I'm going to give Season One another try with the Zoom, might be more enjoyable.Two other quibbles: It would be great if it would bring you back to the game selection screen and not the home screen after every single play. Also would be cool if there was a way to integrate the two seasons together instead of having to back out to the Xbox menu to change games.I guess I'll hold onto my Wii, these aren't game-changers, but if you can get them used at a good price they're still worth your while.