Kinect

I feel like I am slowly heading into the future. The Wii was an incremental device (same with PlayStation's Move) where I still had to have some form of device in my hands. Now all I have to do is wave (or speak aloud).

Now that I have had 2 weeks to play with Wii-killer device? I can definitely say that the odds of me using the Wii for anything except the odd Nintendo specific game (like Mario Cart) are exceedingly low. I actually booted up the Wii last night just to get a comparison and there really is no comparison.

I have tried 4 different Kinect games and am blown away. And so is my GF, one of my long term friends, my ex-roommate and (this is important) my parents. It really is intuitive system, easy to figure out how to use and interact with it. Though most of the games are more focused on children (Kinect Adventures, Kinect Play) games like Dance Central are basically killer apps. Watching my parents dance to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face"? Pretty much made the system pay for itself (particularly when my Dad beat my Mom by almost double).

And really, anything that get people up off the couch and moving? It is a good thing for America. I have yet to use Kinect and not break a sweat.

Game Overload!

Okay, I know that game developers love to have new titles available around the holidays, but....
Are they trying to turn me into a social hermit? In the past few weeks the following games have entered the scene:

• Dead Space - really, there was no way to avoid this game.... Zombies in space! You cannot play this game in the dark, way too creepy.
• Gears of Wars 2 - Like this game
• Endwar - This game may have the coolest way of commanding your units in a RTS game that I have ever seen. And it actually makes playing RTS's on the Xbox 360 feasable. Though you do look kind of dorky yelling at your xbox through the voice controller.
• Fallout 3 - Love me some PIP Boy. Can't believe that it took ten years to get the sequal to this awesome series.
• Call of Duty: World at War - Very cool. Obviously when I have more time I will look forward to delving deeper into this game.
• Left 4 Dead - Zombies!!! Really.... 'nuff said.

And because appparently since I feel that that I have too much free time, I bought a Wii last week (impulse buy when I was in Best Buy shopping for a PS3, I saw a few behind the desk and asked if I could get one). I managed to get my parents to play it for a hour and a half on Saturday night. And yes, I will probably still buy the PS3 (gets me a Blue Ray player and a game system).

And now my poor Tivo's are feeling neglected.