The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout A good, if not earth-shatteringly great, Kinect fitness game The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout for Kinect is a decent game that makes good use of Kinect’s motion tracking, provides the most exhausting cardio workout available in any Kinect game to date, and dips its toes into the water with Kinect functionality, but in other ways is nothing earth-shattering. Rating by steve: 4.0 stars When the [ Read More ]
Carnival Games: Monkey See, Monkey Do for Xbox A lot of fun, and a great way to get the whole family active. While not a “fitness game” per se, there is so much attention to detail, fun, and replay value in Carnival Games for Xbox that you’ll want to pop the disc in over and over. Add hand weights and you have yourself a terrific exercise game. Rating by steve: [ Read More ]
EA Sports Active 2 for Xbox 360 Not a stellar first effort for the Xbox by EA Sports After a long string of winners with the Sports Active franchise on the Wii and the Playstation 3, EA Sports doesn’t put its best foot forward in its port for the Kinect. Rating by steve: 3.0 stars EA Sports Active 2 has long been the best fitness game available on the Wii. [ Read More ]
On our list of the best Kinect Fitness games, we put Kinect Sports right up there at spot #1 for good reason: it’s a ton of fun, it showcases the capabilities of the Xbox Kinect, and many of the activities provide a great cardio workout. Of course, there’s one thing that’s a bit odd about naming Kinect Sports as the best Kinect exercise game: it’s not an exercise game. Well, [ Read More ]
Zumba Fitness for Kinect Disappointing to all but the most hard-core Zumba Fitness adherents. Zumba Fitness for Kinect is more or less a direct port of the Wii game. Which means very little of the Kinect’s capabilities are used. Motion tracking, a critical requirement for any fast-paced dancing game, is woefully lacking, as is any meaningful tutorials for learning Zumba dance steps. But if you can get past all of [ Read More ]
Dance Central As good as a dance game gets, for the time being. An amazing game that effectively shows off the capabilities of the Kinect. You learn real dance moves, which are adjudicated precisely by the Kinect, and in the process you can get a great workout. Rating by steve: 5.0 stars In my lifetime, I’ve played a lot of dance games. Back in the stone ages, I played Dance [ Read More ]
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved The best “pure fitness” title for the Xbox 360 A fitness title that shows off the immense potential of the Kinect for exercise. Innovative mini-games are both fun and provide great workouts, and the use of augmented reality to allow you to work out in real time “next to” your animated trainer and provide you accurate feedback is a first in video gaming. Highly recommended. Rating [ Read More ]
Brain and Body Connection A workout title for your brain, not your body Interesting variation on “exercise games” where the muscle you’re working out is your noggin. Similar to games like Wii Fit, you can calculate your “brain age” and see it decrease as you continue mastering the exercises. While the activities are fun, user interface annoyances and limited shelf life make this title fall short of being a “must-have”. [ Read More ]
Kinect Sports One of the “must-have” games for Xbox Kinect and Fitness Overall, Kinect Sports is a real winner. I’d say that it (and Dance Central, which I’ll review shortly) are the two “must have” games among the crop that launched with the Kinect. Even though it wasn’t designed as an exercise game, that it’s so fun that you’ll play it over and over again will almost guarantee that you’ll [ Read More ]
This is a step-by-step account of setting up my brand new Xbox 360 with Kinect sensor. While it’s a pretty simple process, Microsoft has managed to make it as cumbersome and tedious as installing Windows Vista. Still, at the end of the process you’ll have a pretty cool game system and newfound encouragement to exercise.