Finally the day came when Kinect would be launched in the UK and as I left the house to visit the store I was filled with a mix of anticipation and excitement. As one of the many people who hadn't preordered I was unsure if I would even get my hands on Kinect or if I would come home empty handed and disappointed.

As per the title the foray was of course a success and I was back at home by 9:30 ready to unbox my controller-less controller and find out if all that money and worry that I expended on this endeavour would leave me with the biggest case of buyers remorse since I bought the Sega CD.

Taking it out of the box I wasn't surprised at the size of the sensor, having seen it in the store a few days before but what really surprised me was the weight of the oversized peripheral , for such a big piece of kit the weight is absolutely minimal, weighing in at roughly the same weight as a PSP or a 360 controller with no battery in it. Also packed in the box was an adapter for people like myself who use a wireless adapter to connect their 360 online, the setup guide and of course the pack in game Kinect adventures.

Setup was my next step and following the instructions in the guide I was able to get it all hooked up in a matter of minutes and after running through the simple calibration tests and the Kinect ID setup I was ready to play.

Right off the bat I was blown away with how responsive the action on screen was, of course I had read how other people had found it but experiencing it for myself was something else and too top it all off I was able to do all this in my living room without moving any of the furniture, all it took was a slight turn of the TV to give me the biggest amount of space and I was easily able to get it at the best setting which is required for 2 player action.

The voice control was the biggest surprise, having had no end of problems with other speech recognition software. Thanks to my accent in games like end war and in PC tools I was surprised that almost 100% of the time the Xbox was picking the correct option and doing it first time.

The only unfortunate thing was the cost £129($200) which left me with no cash to buy any of the additional games that I wanted. The one game that I did get was of course Kinect adventures which was nice enough to include demos of a few other games for me to try.

Denim was a bad idea and it had to go

I played Kinect adventures for most of the day and by 3:30pm my son got home from school and joined me in some multiplayer, the camera had no problems tracking the two of us at one time even when we switched sides or tried to mess up each others games. What's even more surprising about this is that I am so much taller than my son.

The multiple game modes within Kinect adventures are all pretty fun from the serene Space pop which is super laid back as far as motion controls go right down to reflex ridge which is hyper energetic and really gets the muscles going.

the kids loved playing on that invisible trampoline!

By around 6 we had decided to try out the demo for Joyride and as we where both exhausted we took turns trying out the battle race, straight away the control scheme took some getting used to but after a while we both got the hang of drifting and shooting the weapons and though it was just the one track to try it seemed like a pretty fun game.

8pm dinner over and my old bones rested I stepped up for some 2 player joyride and the game switched us to a pro race mode and allowed us to race on a different track which had a ton of shortcuts and jumps and we had some pretty tight knit races but in the end we decided to try out another game.

The game was dance central and during this time I did get several messages questioning my manliness but I have to admit the dancing is pretty fun allowing even the most disjointed of "dancers" like myself to have fun, the only snag was that my son had trouble getting the game to recognise his moves but it worked for me perfectly.

Finally to wrap up the play day at around 9:30 pm we tried out fitness evolved and unfortunately it just wasn't my sons cup of tea though it is something I'm considering buying for myself so I can get a little more structured exercise.

After the kids went to bed I did stay up a while and I used the Kinect interface to watch some TV before replying to a few messages I got during the day and after almost failing to get up of the sofa I went to bed to recuperate.

So here I am the next morning 24hrs later and I have muscles that ache that I didn't even know I had and I'm asking myself if it was all worth it. The answer of course is yes from a fun standpoint I get to pretend I'm in Minority Report and the games although obviously first-gen releases are fun and can only get better from here.

From a financial stand point I would say yes too, a day out with my kids would typically cost me around £50 and with one day over and with many more to come this thing will be a godsend during the school holidays.