On show were Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures, Kinect Joy Ride and Dance Central. Kinect Sports' bowling game was much more involving than the Wii Sports equivalent, requiring you to pick up the virtual ball from the racks and go through the full swing and release movements. Savvy Wii Sports players have learnt how to cheat with quick wrist flicks while sitting down, but Kinect makes you get up and play fair. Kinect Adventures' river rafting (as demonstrated recently on Jimmy Fallon) was fun but slightly awkward to play in a room full of people, jumping to lift the vessel off ramps and waves to collect tokens. There was a slight lag between my movements and their recognition by the sensor, but these kinks will no doubt be ironed out before release.
After almost forcing Rampage (Treble T and Mike Anthony) from BBC 1xtra's gaming blog to get on stage for an impromptu performance on stage with Dance Central, it was our turn to throw some shapes and show the professional dancers how to do their jobs. Luckily, there is no video evidence of these three minutes of shame, but we did get a better look at Kinect's motion tracking powers during the "freestyle dance" section where a silhouette of your body moving to the music is shown.
It remains to be seen whether Kinect will be able to appeal to hardcore gamers, as the upcoming releases announced so far are distinctly Wii-esque. The PlayStation Move controller will be compatible with a re-released Heavy Rain and Killzone 3, so it will be interesting to see how Microsoft will entice developers to match Sony's ambitions for similar games.
