Could have been the perfect killer-app for Kinect...
I thought Ubisoft is a sign of quality, and I have always dreamt of a body controlled martial arts game, so I got it and booted it up at home after first warming up with a couple of the other Kinect titles I got, which left me a positive experience and a craving for more.
I have been doing martial arts actively for more than 20 years, and I had this idea I could use the game as a substitute for shadow boxing at home. That would have been completely awesome! But, my naive hopes was soon enough crushed...
First you need to go through a long and tedious training process, so that you know what moves you can make. This seemed a bit odd to begin with. Why would i need to learn that to do a jab with the game character, I need to do a jab in front of the camera? Pretty obvious really?
But after a while it becomes more clear, as it turns out the game does not actually record your body movements and transfer them directly to your avatar. It simply looks at you as a digital gamepad where your different gestures triggers various preprogrammed moves. If you kick low, high or just lift your foot a bit can all trigger the exact same avatar action.
Its much easier to program a game this way of course, but this approach completely sucks the realism straight out. It would be better to play it with a joypad in fact, instead of taking a game clearly relying on old fashioned input devices and force it to work with the Kinect.
The worst part of the game is how it always synchronizes your avatars movements to your opponent. If your opponent is in the middle of a punch animation, the game will just completely ignore any quicker counter strike coming from you, which is just so completely wrong and defies everything learned doing martial arts.
When the opponent is striking, that's exactly when he is vulnerable for a counter attack. But no, says Ubisoft, that's when you should wait until the opponents animation has completed. Any punches or kicks you throw in the meantime will not transfer to your avatar at all, he will just stand there like a dumb rock while you are jumping around like a fool.
Your movements being completely ignored is a major issue in the game. Especially if you do combos. Like a kick, followed by three quick punches. Forget it, You'll be lucky if one of those register. Its also highly inaccurate in knowing what you are doing, for example I had a very hard time throwing uppercuts successfully.
On top of all this, throw in the typical Kinect lag, and we are looking at one sad, unresponsive game which for the most part is pretty clueless about what you are doing.
All in all, a horrible excuse of a game thrown together by Ubisoft in a hurry to get some Kinect titles out early before xmas, hoping to score some purchases from early adopters.
Sad really, because a good Kinect martial arts game would just be awesome, and I do believe the hardware now has what it takes to do a decent job. Just needs a better game..