Kinect Sports Hands-On

During Monday's press conference, Microsoft showed off the first footage of its family sports game for the Kinect, the Xbox 360 motion-sensing camera due out this November. But it can be pretty difficult to get a handle on how well the Kinect registers your running and leaping ability just by watching footage of Kinect Sports on a big screen. Luckily, we got a chance to try out the game for ourselves at a special pre-E3 event, and though we came away a little bit winded, we were also impressed with how accurately it picked up our motions.

Running is the most natural thing in the world, so it seemed like as good a place as any to start things off. The included hurdle event requires you to run down an orange track as well as leap over hurdles during various points in the race. We started out slowly, getting a feel for running in place in a public area, but after slipping to fourth place, we picked things up in a hurry. With the perfect form even professional runners would envy, we moved our arms and legs so quickly that our onscreen avatar burst past the other racers. Taking no chances at the hurdles, we leaped high into the air, both legs dangling, to make sure we cleared them. In three separate races, we crashed into only one hurdle, so Kinect seems to register even crazy leaps accurately. After raising our arms in victory all three races, it was time to move on to the next event.

Bowling was the only other sport on offer, which was probably good considering the physical effort required to finish running. It's a little strange to throw an imaginary ball at pins, but your motion is reflected accurately. Putting English on the ball is certainly something that must be learned, but just throwing it straight and true down the middle works well, as long as your aim is true. Like in real life, our ball frequently skirted the edges, though it never dipped into the dreaded gutter. The lack of a weighted object takes away a bit of the realism, but this seems like a safe indoor rendition of the popular pastime.

The five other announced events were not playable in our demonstration, but the two included sports do a good job of mimicking the real thing. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more coverage of this game. You can expect to see Kinect Sports on store shelves at the same time as the Kinect this November.