TetraNitroCubaneThe DjinneratorAt the bottom of a bottleRegistered Userregular
edited January 2011
So, quick question about the Kinect. I just took the plunge and got one for myself, and after setting it all up things seem to be working great... Except it's somehow made my 360 quite a bit louder. The fans seem to be spinning a lot faster/harder than they used to while just idling on the desktop. I assume this is because the 360 is now doing more work constantly, what with tracking and such? I know there was supposed to be a dedicated processor inside the Kinect, but I remember hearing that it got scrapped.
Anyhow, I'm wary of over-working my 360 (it's my third one). If I'm using a non-Kinect game, will it shut down the Kinect automatically? Or should I just manually unplug the Kinect during those times I'd like to game without it? Sorry if that's a stupid question, but the thing stays lit up when I'm in a non-Kinect game.
Just my personal advice but I think doing Your Shape a little bit at a time is fine. Maybe even better to not go to extreme and get muscle soreness, because that will make you less likely to continue the cardio. If you get some basic hand weights, do Your Shape once a day for 15 or 20 mins, and do some of the other Kinect or Wii games (and maybe keep active like going on walks) I think it's enough depending on how much weight you are carrying.
I have someone on my friends list I saw doing Your Shape and Active and then stopping, I almost want to send a message "dude! I'm watching you!" just keeping each other honest
I have tried 2 different ones, and it has given me a message similar to "this doesn't conform to the standards we require so it might not work". Do I need to buy some kind of premium thumb drive or something? I bought a brand new 4GB one to trasfer saves and profiles between my two boxes, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong.
Actually it's just a simple speed check. It's telling you your drive doesn't transfer data fast enough for their recommendations. But it doesn't mean diddly squat, it's just a generic warning. It'll work perfectly fine, especially if all you're using it for is save games.
The Wolfman on
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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Dusdais ashamed of this postSLC, UTRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
So Kinect support in Netflix is pretty cool, but I'd prefer to just disable the motion controls and keep the voice. Every time I reach for a drink on the coffee table the little hand thing pops up.
i played the gunstringer at pax east, quite fun and responsive. other than that i agree there's not much exciting happening for kinect. the two newest games are michael jackson and carnival games soooooo yeah
on the netflix, i'm really glad they added in voice support but the 'netflix hub' is stupid and whoever thought of this solution should be fired. why not just let me use my queue, it's not even that the interface is that bad (could easily be much much better though), i just want my videos and not some suggested random crap
Just my personal advice but I think doing Your Shape a little bit at a time is fine. Maybe even better to not go to extreme and get muscle soreness, because that will make you less likely to continue the cardio. If you get some basic hand weights, do Your Shape once a day for 15 or 20 mins, and do some of the other Kinect or Wii games (and maybe keep active like going on walks) I think it's enough depending on how much weight you are carrying.
I have someone on my friends list I saw doing Your Shape and Active and then stopping, I almost want to send a message "dude! I'm watching you!" just keeping each other honest
I keep mixing it in with Dance Central because yea it's rough if you try the whole session right off the bat.
I was just watching another really cool Kinect Hack, and it hit me: in 6 months, geeks in their basements have produced much better stuff than developers who have had 6 months (with the released product, plus who knows how long before it came out). And what do we have to show for it in new games? Michael Jackson and Carnival games. Talk about a wasted opportunity. MS got one in a crazy amount of homes overnight and developers are ignoring it. Hopefully this will change this summer.
I'm thinking that E3 will bring a ton of Kinect stuff. I am admittedly curious about both Carnival Games and the MJ game. Just Dance and Dance Central get a ton of play in our house and I wouldn't be opposed to adding another game to the mix. Carnival Games...well, I just like Skee Ball. I'll admit, I actually enjoyed the two prior Wii games - as far as minigame compilations go they're pretty solid.
There's a local collage here that's using a Kintect to create a gigantic touchscreen that will not only allow five people to manipulate it simultaneously, but to keep track of who is touching what.
It really is mind-boggling that the tech is really exciting the research community, but game publishers are having a hard time doing much with it.
Or maybe it's not all that mind-boggling, considering how the majority of third-parties have half-assed the Wii controls.
I expect a lot of developers were of the same mind as the Sales thread on here, that it wouldn't really take off. There's probably a fair few who got caught out by this and are now working on titles to try and cash in on the void that's setting in. Basically yeah, I'm expecting a good few announcements at E3.
edit: from the way it's being applied to other things through hacks, it's clear the technology works, it just almost needs people to invent new games for it. If they're trying to shoehorn Kinect controls into a standard FPS or something, it's just going to fail hard. It'll need some creative thinking to come up with something different, but I'm excited for it.
I expect a lot of developers were of the same mind as the Sales thread on here, that it wouldn't really take off. There's probably a fair few who got caught out by this and are now working on titles to try and cash in on the void that's setting in. Basically yeah, I'm expecting a good few announcements at E3.
Actually, the same thing happened with the Wii. Nintendo didn't announce the motion controls until E3 a few months before launch, and before that most devs were "meh" on the idea. But when they finally got excited about it... they farted out lazy minigames for the most part.
The problems with innovative, disruptive new technologies are that most publishers would rather take the path of least resistance, i.e. take existing game design, tweak it a wee bit, and call it a day.
You know what I would love? A simple "record command" feature. I understand that you couldn't have Kinect understand everyone's voices perfectly out of the box, but why not have a quick feature where I can essentially trigger a shortcut with my voice? Just choose the game/feature, choose record command and have it listen to you say a command 3 times as training.
It would be sweet to have "Xbox launch Castle Crashers" or "Xbox play Pinball" available at anytime.
I expect a lot of developers were of the same mind as the Sales thread on here, that it wouldn't really take off. There's probably a fair few who got caught out by this and are now working on titles to try and cash in on the void that's setting in. Basically yeah, I'm expecting a good few announcements at E3.
Actually, the same thing happened with the Wii. Nintendo didn't announce the motion controls until E3 a few months before launch, and before that most devs were "meh" on the idea. But when they finally got excited about it... they farted out lazy minigames for the most part.
The problems with innovative, disruptive new technologies are that most publishers would rather take the path of least resistance, i.e. take existing game design, tweak it a wee bit, and call it a day.
Yeah, and it bothers me that that will likely be where the majority of Kinect games go. But I figure that, while the Wii was new and everyone felt they could get away with just smearing some waggle onto their ports and calling it a day, someone will eventually realise that this isn't going away and get off their arse to design a game for motion controls. That, or someone will stumble over a shock hit and everyone else will actively clamour to get in on the action.
Child of Eden is out in 2 months and Gunstringer should be out sometime soon. Those two titles ought to fulfill my desire for Kinect gaming for a while.
Plus a fair bit probably comes down to game design. For conventional games they come up with the game or mechanic/story/setting first and then set about making a game around it.
If you go the other way around and have a control system you want to add into a game, the focus is completely different as you're going from 'what do I want the player to do, and how do I make a game out of that'.
That said, I'm surprised we've not seen some sort of squad based FPS whichuses normal Xbox controls for you but uses the Kinect for the squad commands rather than loading up buttons and dials with them. Seems the most natural evolution to a making use of them in a 'normal' game - after all, you do need to let go of your gun to signal people. If you wanted something other than modern warfare to highlight your twist, add some terminator or aliens style setting where humans have to work as a team in order to defeat much larger and better equipped enemies (and thus need to flank and co-ordinate attacks that the normal AI on it's own would struggle to do without guidance).
Have you ever dreamt of becoming a real Guinness World Record holder? This Easter weekend (21-25 April) could be your big chance, as Xbox Nations lets you try Xbox LIVE Gold for free, as well as inviting you to take part in the world’s biggest ever virtual sprint. The record we’re going for is the most people running a virtual 100m dash at one time.
Keep an eye on your Xbox 360 dashboard over the coming weeks. From here, you’ll be able to download a free Xbox Nations gamer pic that will automatically enter you into the record attempt.
Then, all you need to do is play Kinect Sports and complete a sprint mini-game while connected to Xbox LIVE at the time listed below. You must choose sprint from the mini-game menu – not the entire track and field event for your race to count.
The Guinness World Record attempt will take place at:
• 6pm UK Saturday 23/04
• 7pm CET Saturday 23/04
• 10am PDT Saturday 23/04
• 1pm EDT Saturday 23/04
Everyone who downloads the gamer pic and completes the record attempt will be rewarded with this awesome Guinness World Records avatar tee. Then no one will be able to doubt your record-holding credentials! There are also tons of other events happening over the Xbox Nations weekend, so make sure you check out our Kinect Sports Facebook page for updates as they happen.
Sounds completely dumb so I'll be doing it for sure!
Break a Sweat with the “Kinect Sports: Calorie Challenge” Game Add-on Launching April 26
London – 19 April 2011 – Jump into action and feel the burn with the “Kinect Sports: Calorie Challenge” game add-on for the best-selling title on Kinect for Xbox 360. In the new Calorie Challenge Mode, your favorite lunch foods and snacks will take the forms of your Avatar Calorie Rivals. Compete against Peppy Pizza, Super Soda and others, as each food mascot represents a calorie goal to burn off through a series of challenges set within an allotted time period.
Available for 320 Microsoft Points exclusively on Xbox LIVE starting April 26, the “Calorie Challenge” game add-on offers 250G of new Achievements. Whether you’re swinging a punch at Mighty Milk in Boxing or racing against Steady Celery towards the finish line in Track & Field, bring your A-game for healthy fun with the “Kinect Sports: Calorie Challenge.”
Turn your living room into a world-class stadium, bowling alley, soccer pitch or track-and-field arena. With “Kinect Sports” you’re not only the star player, you are the controller — through the magic of Kinect for Xbox 360. See a ball? Kick it. Spike it. Bump it. Even give it a little topspin. Simple, intuitive and instantly fun, “Kinect Sports” delivers the ultimate party experience — whether you are trying to outmanoeuvre the goalie to win the soccer match or cheering on your friends at ringside. The first full-body, controller-free sports game that lets you physically compete with friends over Xbox LIVE, “Kinect Sports” is so real, you will almost feel the wind in your hair as you fly over hurdles and the sand in your toes as you set, bump and spike your way to volleyball victory.
I got a Kinect sensor for Christmas this year and I've only just really gotten around to playing with it. By re-arranging my fairly ample living room I've been able to play Kinectadventures, which I've had some fun with, but I've just tried to use it with netflix and in a practical environment (i.e without moving EVERYTHING out of the way) to control media and it flat out can't see me. Stupidly I bought a slightly skin coloured sofa.
Is there anything I can do to get this to work WITHOUT having to re-arrange my entire living room if I want to embrace controller-less movie watching?
well, if your couch is skin colored wear long sleeves or a sweat shirt or something? be sure to run the tuner after you move around stuff too. to be honest the hand controls for media is pretty meh, and the voice control is much easier and more effective. you can also, if you think it's a space problem, try the nyko zoom which actually works quite well.
I can get it to work ok by moving stuff out of the way for games. I was just hoping to be able to use the gestures for netflix and media when sat on my bum, but it turns out they're not really great for that so I tried voice commands, which turned out to be stupidly limiting and more hassle than using a remote, so it's gone back to being hidden behind the tv and being dragged out as a "Kinect Adventures" device. I also have Kinect Sports but I haven't tried that yet.
I've come from using XBMC and VoxCommando which (whilst definitely not perfect and resulted in a fair few false voice recognitions whilst watching something) let you search for films and tv shows via voice. Netflix seems to be limited to (essentially) up, down, next page, previous page when browsing for films.
It's daft fun but I really can't see how Microsoft pumped so much money in to it, thus far it hasn't done anything that I couldn't have seen the PS Eye do (not to dredge up an old argument) and it's triple the size. Are there any decent games scheduled to use it coming out?
The tech videos on youtube, however, are very impressive and show what could really be done.
Fraggle covered pretty much all the good games that are out.
As far as on the horizon? Allegedly we're still getting Steel Battalion and that Star Wars mini-game fest is coming out; let's hope they used the delay to clean out all the lag and un-fun.
Also that fucking crazy Double Fine video thing, Happy Action Theatre.
Reminds me, I need to get Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, I loved the demo with the missus.
Kinect Labs has some interesting content, some of it sucks and is just broken, but some content is both free and amusing enough for a few minutes with a bunch of Achievements to boot.
The Disney game got good reviews, and PowerUp Heroes is by all accounts decent, but short, not fired it up yet - you can buy it for about £13 on Play etc. I've heard good things (especially co-op) about Leedmees but not played it myself, missed the sale the other week.
I really enjoyed Kinectimals but that is certainly gaming marmite.
Also some XBLA games like Haunt on the horizon, think that is coming this week on XBLA.
fragglefart on
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
edited January 2012
So apparently I have ~8 feet from my TV if I stand with my legs touching my couch, no matter how I tune the thing I can't get my head and my feet in frame at the same time. Am I fucked?
I bought one of those fucking zoom lenses and that was a bloody waste of money, sure it gets you in frame but it adds like 50% interference in the center and 100% interference around the edges.
Should I knock down the wall and sit my couch in the garage or something? I also maintain my game room is bigger than the average household's game room and so I wonder how the hell this thing sold as well as it did? Do people actually have the 8 to 10 feet you're supposed to have, or are they just not noticing the damn thing not registering stuff well?
once you add the zoom lenses you have to stand much closer. it cuts the range basically in half. if you have 8 feet there would be no need for the lenses, because it's for people with much less space...
setting up the kinect is probably the hardest part. can i ask, do you have it infront of your TV or on top? the higher off the ground it is i feel, the easier i can get your whole body in frame. i try to have it chest level for best results. also make sure the room is well lit and, use the kinect tuner/calibration card.
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
right now it's sitting on a little pedestal just below the TV (which is wall mounted at about 4 feet from the ground) I figured the zoom lens would allow me to step out into the middle of the room a bit, but again that interference (looks all grainy, doesn't see well) introduced a bunch of chop to the registry.
I was thinking of mounting it above my TV sort of pointing downward, would you recommend that?
i have never put it that high, but it might work. most of the time i find the kinect freaks out the most if it can't see your feet and head at the same time. if it doesn't know where your feet end it has a hard time registering kicks. there is also a 'TV mount clip' which allows you to stick it to the top of your TV.
also make sure the lenses is mounted right, i had mine off-center for a week and thought it was crap, but then found i had put it on wrong (the lenses aren't supposed to stick out, but be flush to the rest of the zoom). if it doesn't work you might try just removing the lenses.
In my old flat (recently bought a house) I'd put up a shelf above the TV with the Kinect pointing downward, that worked really well.
I only have 6 foot from the edge of the TV unit to my sofa, so having it mounted above the TV gives me an extra foot(ish).
Even so, most games I need to shove the sofa out the way and play using that space too.
Not ideal, I could set up the new front room differently (it's narrower than my old place but much longer, 10ft by 23ft!) but decent placement of furniture is more important than Kinect... I had a kinda 'diagonal' set up across the front room in my old flat.
Wow, my old Kinect thread has risen! I recently hooked ours back up, had to buy a 32 foot USB extension from monoprice since all the consoles and AV equipment is in the back of the room but it works great. Mine is on the center channel speaker about 18 inches off the floor but the only problem we run into is sometimes your shadow gets in the way since we're using a projector.
It's really kind of sad there are no good games out since launch but I'll echo fragglefart in saying that Fruit Ninja is about the best game there is now. Also if you are going to buy that you might as well just go the eBay route and get a Fruit Ninja/Gunstringer combo card for 15-20 bucks instead of 40+ retail. I think I paid 15 bucks on Friday for one from a guy and he emailed me the codes within 10 minutes of me paying him.
We have the Disney game and it's pretty good. It holds your hand alot, so for a grown up I would say it might be too slow. Leedmees is a neat mechanic - we've had some fun with it but there are other games I'd grab first - like Fruit Ninja.
Does the Zoom really work? I keep seeing mixed reviews and that it doesn't perform well with certain titles.
I will say whoever is not impressed with the voice control now after the dash update needs their head checked, it's ridiculously well tuned at this point even if you do sound a bit goofy. I fired it up yesterday and went "Xbox Bing Fruit Ninja Kinect" and there it is, "Play Now" and it runs. A far cry from the first days when you couldn't do squat with the tech.
I wish regular games would just have voice integration as a gameplay or even navigation element, every Kinect game now seems like it's an "all or nothing" affair and that blows.
I will say whoever is not impressed with the voice control now after the dash update needs their head checked, it's ridiculously well tuned at this point even if you do sound a bit goofy. I fired it up yesterday and went "Xbox Bing Fruit Ninja Kinect" and there it is, "Play Now" and it runs. A far cry from the first days when you couldn't do squat with the tech.
I wish regular games would just have voice integration as a gameplay or even navigation element, every Kinect game now seems like it's an "all or nothing" affair and that blows.
The voice controls works much, much better now - for my 7 year old too. A few nights ago we were catching up on Doctor Who episodes and it was time to head up to dinner. I told him it was time to quit and said "Xbox" preparing to stop the show and quit...he immediately jumped in with "Next episode" and it started the next one without missing a beat.
I still wish there was a simple play command for all games in your library like "XBox play Castle Crashers" - that would be great. We've found we can't bing Raskulls successfully too.
You can voice navigate your way to the 'My Games' area and define what sub-section of games you want to browse (XBLA/XBLIG/GoD/demos) but yeah, 'Xbox play Bastion' would be awesome.
Of course you can also use your quickplay list, so 'Xbox Quickplay Iron Brigade' works just fine, depending on what you have been playing recently.
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Anyhow, I'm wary of over-working my 360 (it's my third one). If I'm using a non-Kinect game, will it shut down the Kinect automatically? Or should I just manually unplug the Kinect during those times I'd like to game without it? Sorry if that's a stupid question, but the thing stays lit up when I'm in a non-Kinect game.
I have someone on my friends list I saw doing Your Shape and Active and then stopping, I almost want to send a message "dude! I'm watching you!" just keeping each other honest
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gaspode_t TwitPic: http://twitpic.com/photos/gaspode_t
I have tried 2 different ones, and it has given me a message similar to "this doesn't conform to the standards we require so it might not work". Do I need to buy some kind of premium thumb drive or something? I bought a brand new 4GB one to trasfer saves and profiles between my two boxes, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong.
Switch - SW-3699-5063-5018
Half-assed Netflix support. And that's about it.
Child of Eden is looking really, really interesting, but of course you don't need a Kinect to play it.
on the netflix, i'm really glad they added in voice support but the 'netflix hub' is stupid and whoever thought of this solution should be fired. why not just let me use my queue, it's not even that the interface is that bad (could easily be much much better though), i just want my videos and not some suggested random crap
I keep mixing it in with Dance Central because yea it's rough if you try the whole session right off the bat.
It really is mind-boggling that the tech is really exciting the research community, but game publishers are having a hard time doing much with it.
Or maybe it's not all that mind-boggling, considering how the majority of third-parties have half-assed the Wii controls.
edit: from the way it's being applied to other things through hacks, it's clear the technology works, it just almost needs people to invent new games for it. If they're trying to shoehorn Kinect controls into a standard FPS or something, it's just going to fail hard. It'll need some creative thinking to come up with something different, but I'm excited for it.
Actually, the same thing happened with the Wii. Nintendo didn't announce the motion controls until E3 a few months before launch, and before that most devs were "meh" on the idea. But when they finally got excited about it... they farted out lazy minigames for the most part.
The problems with innovative, disruptive new technologies are that most publishers would rather take the path of least resistance, i.e. take existing game design, tweak it a wee bit, and call it a day.
It would be sweet to have "Xbox launch Castle Crashers" or "Xbox play Pinball" available at anytime.
Yeah, and it bothers me that that will likely be where the majority of Kinect games go. But I figure that, while the Wii was new and everyone felt they could get away with just smearing some waggle onto their ports and calling it a day, someone will eventually realise that this isn't going away and get off their arse to design a game for motion controls. That, or someone will stumble over a shock hit and everyone else will actively clamour to get in on the action.
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Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
If you go the other way around and have a control system you want to add into a game, the focus is completely different as you're going from 'what do I want the player to do, and how do I make a game out of that'.
That said, I'm surprised we've not seen some sort of squad based FPS whichuses normal Xbox controls for you but uses the Kinect for the squad commands rather than loading up buttons and dials with them. Seems the most natural evolution to a making use of them in a 'normal' game - after all, you do need to let go of your gun to signal people. If you wanted something other than modern warfare to highlight your twist, add some terminator or aliens style setting where humans have to work as a team in order to defeat much larger and better equipped enemies (and thus need to flank and co-ordinate attacks that the normal AI on it's own would struggle to do without guidance).
http://www.rare.co.uk/blog/?p=3977#blog
Sounds completely dumb so I'll be doing it for sure!
http://www.rare.co.uk/news/break-a-sweat-with-kinect-sports-calorie-challenge#mainContentBody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR9Svq_T_5E
Kinect Sports is awesome and the calorie counter in Your Shape has me totally hooked so hopefuly this wil be a decently compelling addition.
Will be interesting to see how 250 'Kinect Sports calories' feels on your body compared to 250 'Your Shape calories'.
Also this picture makes me chuckle;
I got a Kinect sensor for Christmas this year and I've only just really gotten around to playing with it. By re-arranging my fairly ample living room I've been able to play Kinectadventures, which I've had some fun with, but I've just tried to use it with netflix and in a practical environment (i.e without moving EVERYTHING out of the way) to control media and it flat out can't see me. Stupidly I bought a slightly skin coloured sofa.
Is there anything I can do to get this to work WITHOUT having to re-arrange my entire living room if I want to embrace controller-less movie watching?
How has this thing sold so much?!?
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Or just chuck a blanket over it when you want to play Kinect?
What games did you pick up?
I've come from using XBMC and VoxCommando which (whilst definitely not perfect and resulted in a fair few false voice recognitions whilst watching something) let you search for films and tv shows via voice. Netflix seems to be limited to (essentially) up, down, next page, previous page when browsing for films.
It's daft fun but I really can't see how Microsoft pumped so much money in to it, thus far it hasn't done anything that I couldn't have seen the PS Eye do (not to dredge up an old argument) and it's triple the size. Are there any decent games scheduled to use it coming out?
The tech videos on youtube, however, are very impressive and show what could really be done.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
I'm a big Your Shape fan.
Also Child of Eden and Gunstringer are a blast.
But Fruit Ninja is the best Kinect game by far IMHO.
As far as on the horizon? Allegedly we're still getting Steel Battalion and that Star Wars mini-game fest is coming out; let's hope they used the delay to clean out all the lag and un-fun.
Reminds me, I need to get Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, I loved the demo with the missus.
Kinect Labs has some interesting content, some of it sucks and is just broken, but some content is both free and amusing enough for a few minutes with a bunch of Achievements to boot.
The Disney game got good reviews, and PowerUp Heroes is by all accounts decent, but short, not fired it up yet - you can buy it for about £13 on Play etc. I've heard good things (especially co-op) about Leedmees but not played it myself, missed the sale the other week.
I really enjoyed Kinectimals but that is certainly gaming marmite.
Also some XBLA games like Haunt on the horizon, think that is coming this week on XBLA.
I bought one of those fucking zoom lenses and that was a bloody waste of money, sure it gets you in frame but it adds like 50% interference in the center and 100% interference around the edges.
Should I knock down the wall and sit my couch in the garage or something? I also maintain my game room is bigger than the average household's game room and so I wonder how the hell this thing sold as well as it did? Do people actually have the 8 to 10 feet you're supposed to have, or are they just not noticing the damn thing not registering stuff well?
setting up the kinect is probably the hardest part. can i ask, do you have it infront of your TV or on top? the higher off the ground it is i feel, the easier i can get your whole body in frame. i try to have it chest level for best results. also make sure the room is well lit and, use the kinect tuner/calibration card.
I was thinking of mounting it above my TV sort of pointing downward, would you recommend that?
also make sure the lenses is mounted right, i had mine off-center for a week and thought it was crap, but then found i had put it on wrong (the lenses aren't supposed to stick out, but be flush to the rest of the zoom). if it doesn't work you might try just removing the lenses.
In my old flat (recently bought a house) I'd put up a shelf above the TV with the Kinect pointing downward, that worked really well.
I only have 6 foot from the edge of the TV unit to my sofa, so having it mounted above the TV gives me an extra foot(ish).
Even so, most games I need to shove the sofa out the way and play using that space too.
Not ideal, I could set up the new front room differently (it's narrower than my old place but much longer, 10ft by 23ft!) but decent placement of furniture is more important than Kinect... I had a kinda 'diagonal' set up across the front room in my old flat.
Might look into that zoom thing.
It's really kind of sad there are no good games out since launch but I'll echo fragglefart in saying that Fruit Ninja is about the best game there is now. Also if you are going to buy that you might as well just go the eBay route and get a Fruit Ninja/Gunstringer combo card for 15-20 bucks instead of 40+ retail. I think I paid 15 bucks on Friday for one from a guy and he emailed me the codes within 10 minutes of me paying him.
Does the Zoom really work? I keep seeing mixed reviews and that it doesn't perform well with certain titles.
I wish regular games would just have voice integration as a gameplay or even navigation element, every Kinect game now seems like it's an "all or nothing" affair and that blows.
The voice controls works much, much better now - for my 7 year old too. A few nights ago we were catching up on Doctor Who episodes and it was time to head up to dinner. I told him it was time to quit and said "Xbox" preparing to stop the show and quit...he immediately jumped in with "Next episode" and it started the next one without missing a beat.
I still wish there was a simple play command for all games in your library like "XBox play Castle Crashers" - that would be great. We've found we can't bing Raskulls successfully too.
Of course you can also use your quickplay list, so 'Xbox Quickplay Iron Brigade' works just fine, depending on what you have been playing recently.