Smore ninja
August 15th, 2011, 04:24 PM
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc192/Smore_ninja/pic1-20.jpg
Saving the most interesting for second last in this year’s Summer of Arcade is Fruit Ninja Kinect; made by Half-Brick. Fruit Ninja was originally for the ipod and was one of the more popular games to grace it. Now it has made it’s way to the Xbox using Kinect. I’ve spent a little bit of time with Fruit Ninja on the iphone/ipod/ipad/islab of anyone willing to let me steal theirs and I have a fond spot for Half-Brick due to their last Arcade release, Raskulls. This has set my expectations for Fruit Ninja Kinect to be higher then I should let it be but I'm happy to say it has met every expectation.
The concept behind Fruit Ninja Kinect is rather simple. You are a ninja who for one reason or another must slice fruit, perhaps for training purposes or because you picked the short straw and must prepare the dojo’s salad to go with the evening meal. Whatever the reason you must slice fruit in accommodation to three different game modes: Classic, Arcade and Zen. In Classic you must slice all the fruits while avoiding bombs, because your fellow ninjas are jerks, fail to slice three fruit or hitting a bomb will give you a game over. In Arcade Mode you have a limited amount of time to slice as many fruits as you can while avoiding bombs tossed by those same ninja jerks from before. This time the penalty for hitting a bomb is losing points. Fortunately some of your ninja buddies are kind enough to throw bananas which help you by slowing down time or to start an almost endless stream of fruit to appear for a limited time. The end of each arcade game flies up a fruit which you can slice up plenty of times and the amount of times you hit it counts as a bonus to your score. Zen mode, which is my personal favorite, is just you and a bunch of fruits with a limited amount of time. Go nuts. The goal in all game modes is obviously to get the highest score you can. There is a challenge mode but as far as I can tell it is only a way to play arcade straight from the title menu. Fruit Ninja Kinect something you can easily pick up and play for ten minutes or for three hours. With a nice handful of achievements and unlockables, such as different blades or backgrounds, keeps things interesting and gives you a goal to work towards that is greater than beating zzxxlegitzsniperzzxx high score and as an added bonus after every game you are treated to a bit of fruit trivia.
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc192/Smore_ninja/pic3-2.jpg
This looks very much like a review for Fruit Ninja for the iphone/ipod/ipad/islab and in a sense the two are essentially the same game. Aside from the one glaringly obvious notable difference between the two and that is in the world of Apple only your fingers are sharp enough to slice the fruit while in the world of Microsoft; all of your extremities are a threat to anything with seeds. This makes the two games, while the same in every other spot, drastically different. Experience has taught me that using more than a finger at a time feels to be impractical on the i device. On the Kinect, it can easily use both my arm chops and if I had the coordination to attempt such a thing a kick at the same time. Kinect can track me very well even under poor lighting conditions and sees my kicks normally so I’m certain it won’t mind if I chop at the same time. There are two issues however; First is in the Dojo menu, which is where you can look through all the items you unlocked and select them for use. Navigating the menu is somewhat annoying. You slice up or down on the scrolling menu to scroll through your various options. This works on an i device because your finger is not always on the screen and you have a large amount of control over the scroll speed. While on Kinect you are always being watched by the camera and since it only registers quick movements you may find yourself overshooting your desired blade type several times before you are actually able to select it. Menu navigation is normal in all other instances where you slice the fruit corresponding to your menu option of choice and it works. The second issue is that there is no way to use your Kinect to select Fruit Ninja Kinect, you must use a controller to start playing Fruit Ninja Kinect. Sadly for those of you with a Krogan way of solving your problems you cannot headbutt the fruit. That being said; you don’t need to chop. If you so desired to, you could punch the fruit. Small and subtle changes like this really impact the game more then it should. Trust me, chopping fruit like you are Sheik feels different then if you were flailing around as if you have claws attached to your hands, like Voldo.
Speaking of characters you can impersonate; due to the Kinect you actually are not limited to only using your limbs. You can use anything you can get your hands on as a weapon to prepare the day’s salad. It mostly works rather nicely too with an odd slice here and there that you didn’t intend but overall it does work. I happened to reach my high score in Zen using a quarterstaff, and by quarterstaff I mean I took a toy lightsaber and swung it around like a quarterstaff since my room was too small to actually use it like a lightsaber. Obviously you will need to make sure your immediate area is clear of items you don’t want to accidentally break and that you keep a firm grip, or have it securely fastened to you, on your weapon of choice. Second, you need to not care if you look like a fool but then again, you are chopping imaginary fruits with your hands originally. Add a little bit of imagination and the options are limitless. You might start your session of Fruit Ninja Kinect as Voldo but you may find yourself wielding a katana like Mitsurugi or Yoshimitsu, twin daggers like Taki, Sword and Shield like Cassandra or Sophitia or even use a Quarterstaff like Kilik.
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc192/Smore_ninja/pic2-4.jpg
I’m not suggesting that Half-Brick has made some sort of weapon trainer or should try and make Soul Calibur Kinect next, not at all, but if they did I won't stop them. In the end Half-Brick has presented us with a fun and quick, well-priced Kinect title at 800 MSP. Fruit Ninja Kinect has enough replay value from it’s achievements, challenges and high score beating to keep you chopping until suddenly you find yourself in the early hours of the morning flailing your limbs so much you make a Wii Sports Boxer look like a couch potato and suddenly you've noticed you have accomplished your New Years Resolution.
Overall Rating:
9/10
Saving the most interesting for second last in this year’s Summer of Arcade is Fruit Ninja Kinect; made by Half-Brick. Fruit Ninja was originally for the ipod and was one of the more popular games to grace it. Now it has made it’s way to the Xbox using Kinect. I’ve spent a little bit of time with Fruit Ninja on the iphone/ipod/ipad/islab of anyone willing to let me steal theirs and I have a fond spot for Half-Brick due to their last Arcade release, Raskulls. This has set my expectations for Fruit Ninja Kinect to be higher then I should let it be but I'm happy to say it has met every expectation.
The concept behind Fruit Ninja Kinect is rather simple. You are a ninja who for one reason or another must slice fruit, perhaps for training purposes or because you picked the short straw and must prepare the dojo’s salad to go with the evening meal. Whatever the reason you must slice fruit in accommodation to three different game modes: Classic, Arcade and Zen. In Classic you must slice all the fruits while avoiding bombs, because your fellow ninjas are jerks, fail to slice three fruit or hitting a bomb will give you a game over. In Arcade Mode you have a limited amount of time to slice as many fruits as you can while avoiding bombs tossed by those same ninja jerks from before. This time the penalty for hitting a bomb is losing points. Fortunately some of your ninja buddies are kind enough to throw bananas which help you by slowing down time or to start an almost endless stream of fruit to appear for a limited time. The end of each arcade game flies up a fruit which you can slice up plenty of times and the amount of times you hit it counts as a bonus to your score. Zen mode, which is my personal favorite, is just you and a bunch of fruits with a limited amount of time. Go nuts. The goal in all game modes is obviously to get the highest score you can. There is a challenge mode but as far as I can tell it is only a way to play arcade straight from the title menu. Fruit Ninja Kinect something you can easily pick up and play for ten minutes or for three hours. With a nice handful of achievements and unlockables, such as different blades or backgrounds, keeps things interesting and gives you a goal to work towards that is greater than beating zzxxlegitzsniperzzxx high score and as an added bonus after every game you are treated to a bit of fruit trivia.
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc192/Smore_ninja/pic3-2.jpg
This looks very much like a review for Fruit Ninja for the iphone/ipod/ipad/islab and in a sense the two are essentially the same game. Aside from the one glaringly obvious notable difference between the two and that is in the world of Apple only your fingers are sharp enough to slice the fruit while in the world of Microsoft; all of your extremities are a threat to anything with seeds. This makes the two games, while the same in every other spot, drastically different. Experience has taught me that using more than a finger at a time feels to be impractical on the i device. On the Kinect, it can easily use both my arm chops and if I had the coordination to attempt such a thing a kick at the same time. Kinect can track me very well even under poor lighting conditions and sees my kicks normally so I’m certain it won’t mind if I chop at the same time. There are two issues however; First is in the Dojo menu, which is where you can look through all the items you unlocked and select them for use. Navigating the menu is somewhat annoying. You slice up or down on the scrolling menu to scroll through your various options. This works on an i device because your finger is not always on the screen and you have a large amount of control over the scroll speed. While on Kinect you are always being watched by the camera and since it only registers quick movements you may find yourself overshooting your desired blade type several times before you are actually able to select it. Menu navigation is normal in all other instances where you slice the fruit corresponding to your menu option of choice and it works. The second issue is that there is no way to use your Kinect to select Fruit Ninja Kinect, you must use a controller to start playing Fruit Ninja Kinect. Sadly for those of you with a Krogan way of solving your problems you cannot headbutt the fruit. That being said; you don’t need to chop. If you so desired to, you could punch the fruit. Small and subtle changes like this really impact the game more then it should. Trust me, chopping fruit like you are Sheik feels different then if you were flailing around as if you have claws attached to your hands, like Voldo.
Speaking of characters you can impersonate; due to the Kinect you actually are not limited to only using your limbs. You can use anything you can get your hands on as a weapon to prepare the day’s salad. It mostly works rather nicely too with an odd slice here and there that you didn’t intend but overall it does work. I happened to reach my high score in Zen using a quarterstaff, and by quarterstaff I mean I took a toy lightsaber and swung it around like a quarterstaff since my room was too small to actually use it like a lightsaber. Obviously you will need to make sure your immediate area is clear of items you don’t want to accidentally break and that you keep a firm grip, or have it securely fastened to you, on your weapon of choice. Second, you need to not care if you look like a fool but then again, you are chopping imaginary fruits with your hands originally. Add a little bit of imagination and the options are limitless. You might start your session of Fruit Ninja Kinect as Voldo but you may find yourself wielding a katana like Mitsurugi or Yoshimitsu, twin daggers like Taki, Sword and Shield like Cassandra or Sophitia or even use a Quarterstaff like Kilik.
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc192/Smore_ninja/pic2-4.jpg
I’m not suggesting that Half-Brick has made some sort of weapon trainer or should try and make Soul Calibur Kinect next, not at all, but if they did I won't stop them. In the end Half-Brick has presented us with a fun and quick, well-priced Kinect title at 800 MSP. Fruit Ninja Kinect has enough replay value from it’s achievements, challenges and high score beating to keep you chopping until suddenly you find yourself in the early hours of the morning flailing your limbs so much you make a Wii Sports Boxer look like a couch potato and suddenly you've noticed you have accomplished your New Years Resolution.
Overall Rating:
9/10