We got our hands on, so to speak, the podracing segment of Star Wars Kinect at CES last week, and well, it’s something anyway.
Here’s the thing – it feels like it could be fun, lots of fun even, but only perhaps in small doses. For acting out a technology that doesn’t exist, podracing feels pretty natural, kind of like riding a bike. The difference is that you can slam your ‘handlebars’ forward for a turbo boost, which most kids’ old Schwinns probably didn’t have.
The Kinect controls felt pretty responsive, and while there was still a little bit of the lag that the game has been reported to feature in the past, though it’s still not tight and feels pretty floaty. And as a racing game, it’s not ideal – the game features some pretty incredible rubber banding, that will catapult AI players from worst to first pretty quickly, if you get too big of a lead.
The game looks pretty spectacular though, and even works on 3DTVs for those who’ve made the investment, without getting too gimmicky.
What was perhaps conspicuously not on display, were the Jedi knight lightsaber battle portions of the game. Hopefully that means they’re undergoing some heavy improvements before launch.
Ultimately the game seems fun, but it still needs work. Hopefully the weak parts will get tuned down before the game’s launch in summer of 2012.
