For the first hour of playing at E3 Expo, I must admit that Microsoft's Kinect motion control system for the Xbox 360 felt awfully familiar to the Nintendo Wii. I know the technology is far more sophisticated:Kinect includes a motorized camera and microphone alongside sensors that can map out reference points along your skeletal frame. But the first series of games that will launch with the product are designed to be so simple and family-friendly, just like Wii Sports, that it's hard to see the difference at first. You're not holding a controller with Microsoft's system, but you're still running on the spot, punching the air, and flailing your arms to act out fantasy movements all the same.

Kinect Sports - Much Like the Wii

Kinect Sports is an excellent example. It's a collection of quick athletic activitiesthat can be played competitively with friends. There's bowling, table tennis, track & field, boxing, volleyball and soccer. Still in development, only two events were available for play at its unveiling. In hurdles, the idea is to start running-on-the-spot the moment you hear the starter's pistol fire. As the hurdles themselves loom towards you on-screen, they flash green, warning you to perform a little hop to make your character leap over them. The object is to reach the finish line as fast as you can. Obviously it's more fun with a second player running alongside you.

While there are subtle clues of something more sophisticated going, like when you see the virtual athlete's legs, knees, and feet move in perfect unison with yours at the starting line, the movements used in the run itself are so simple that it makes little difference how they are being tracked.

To play bowling,pretend to reach out to pick up a ball and then bowlit towards the screen. Before the toss, there's an opportunity to side step left or right to change footing at the top of the lane, and, during the toss, the system will pick up any rotation of the hand or arm to put spin on the ball. Again, the game uses only basic motions for play, but if you explore what the game can do, there are hints of something more. For example, try tossing the ball like a shot put, wind-milling it, or throwing it through your legs, granny style, and the system will perfectly mimic those movements in a way Nintendo's system does not.

Kinect Adventures - Easy One-to-Two Player Switches

The inclusion of sensing the feet is obviously a big difference between Kinect and the Wii, and this is something demonstrated well in Kinect Adventures, another collection of partymini-games.Standin a raft, tumbling along river rapids, and step to the left or right to steer the craft. Hop to leap off ramps and over logging structures. Two players can work together to steer the raft, but you must talk to one another to plan moves, or end up with comically uncoordinated results.

An obstacle course game sees your virtual avatar riding on motorized platforms, ducking and leaping past moving gates. Use your arms and legs to collect point balloons. Again, these are relatively basic moves.

The most enticing feature in games like Adventures, however, is the ease with which it changes to two-player mode. The moment a second person stands next to you in front of the TV, the Kinect system detects the other player and seamlessly transitions the game from one player to two. If he should leave, it flips back to one. There's no pause, and no menu system to navigate.

The Adventures game includes 20 more activities, we're told, but only the aforementioned two were on display, further supporting the idea that there's still a great deal of work to be done on the product.

Also supporting that idea was the fact that there were a number of glitches. The game had a hard time tracking my feet, for example. My character's right leg would often flail independently as if it were playing its own Riverdance game. During demos, Microsoft staff would also frequently hold their hands over the Kinect sensors to force them to re-calibrate. So with some sessions, it felt incredibly accurate, but in others, the system seemed as if it had a mind of its own.

To leverage the camera, all of the games with intense physical movements, like the Sports and Adventures titles,have the ability to capture photos of the players in mid-game and display them for comical posterity at the end. Kinect Adventures takes this one step further with Living Statue, which records an animated clip of you as your Avatar character, acting out whatever moves you like, but also speaking any dialogue for the microphone to pick up. The idea is for the combined results to be sent to Facebook for your friends to enjoy. I found it an odd feature, and one I admit I'd never use.

Kinect Joy Ride - Full-Bodied Movements Work Best

Of all the launch titles, Kinect Joy Ride gave me the hardest time. As a very basic racing game, Joy Ride asks you to hold out your hands and pretend to grab a steering wheel. Moving them left or right steers the car, pushing them forward adds a dash of speed, and leaning back allows you to perform stunts after jumps in mid-air. There's no break, and the gas is always on. The two choices I had with the game were to take the car for a spin around the track, or simply throttle it into the air in a large, automotive half-pipe, either solo or against a friend. I found that the system had a hard time tracking my hands, especially during large turns where you're supposed to be able to drift by leaning your body. It became so frustrating, I would have gladly picked up a controller instead.

What that experience told me is that Kinect works best when it can use your full body to simulate a virtual movement rather than try to map intricate movements to a vehicle, animal, or object. The best of the games on display follow this line of thinking and, oddly enough, are not made by Microsoft.

Dance Central - Captures Movements Perfectly

Best known for its Rock Band series, Harmonix's Dance Central is by far the crowd favourite. The game uses its sensors to map your entire body, then guides you to try and copy the moves of professional street dancers. To the beat of tracks by No Doubt, Lady Gaga, and Queen, you're asked to perform elbow throws, hip swings, guitar strums, the boxing-inspired "knockout," and the thumb-pumping "Hitch Hike". Obviously, a game built around you strutting your stuff in front of friends can make for a wild party. But the key is that it captures your movements so perfectly, and displays them with such accurate feedback on the screen, that you will learn to become a better dancer. Any giggles given at the beginning will turn into hoots and applause after even a small bit of practice.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved - Captures Body Shape, & Even Clothes

The best demonstration of Kinect's capabilities is found in UbiSoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, a fitness and exercise program. While the other games pick out simple reference points on your body to follow for basic moves, Your Shape takes its time to use the camera for a full body scan, replicating both your body shape and the clothes you're wearing. In my case it captured perfectly the outline of my blazer, the lines on my shirt, and the cuffs of my pants. As I adjusted my clothes, my clone on the screen did so in perfect unison.

With this kind of feedback, Your Shape is capable of calculating the exact line of your skeleton and measurements that include height, the placement of key muscles, and the length of arms and legs. The results are quite chilling, and the possibilities of what a game can do with such detail are intriguing.

There were three game modes on display: in Gym Set, a kick-boxing routine requires you to perform cross-punches and kicks on a series of floating blocks, each counting down its own timer. Here you're given a real sense of how you perform each punch and kick:hitting the targets is fine, but are you clumsy in the execution?

In the Fitness Classes, you are to follow the movements of a Zen Master for relaxation. While Wii Fit focuses on using its sensors to monitor balance, to show when you're leaning in the wrong direction, Your Shape uses its sensors for alignment, giving a sense of what points along your skeletal system are out of place.

Navigating Menus

There is a great deal of potential in Kinect to be explored, and you get a taste of that with its role in navigating the basic Xbox menu system. The camera can be set to instantly recognize you the moment you come into view, rather than having to select and load a profile. Then, use voice commands for playback controls, and hand gestures to move through menu selections as if you're using a floating touchscreen display. As you walk about the room, the Kinect sensors and camera move on their motorized stand to always keep you in view.

It's disappointing to see Microsoft limit itself to cartoonish party games for the launch. Yes, they are fun to play. But they're also so very familiar.But clearly Kinect holds strong potential for delivering more realistic experiences than what we've seen from the Nintendo Wii.

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