Jacob the Boxer

One of Jacob's birthday presents is Kinect Sports, a game for the Xbox. It's easy to play because the Kinect uses a camera to translate body movement into game play. The game includes soccer, bowling, track and field, boxing, volleyball, and table tennis.

Some games are easier than others. Bowling and boxing aren't too challenging for Jacob. Track and field and volleyball involve a lot of complicated moves; table tennis demands good timing. Jacob doesn't do quite as well with these, but he can still play them and enjoys himself even though he doesn't come anywhere near winning. (If only we all felt that way when playing games).

Jacob's favorite game is boxing. He's played that more than all the others combined.

Jacob's avatar hopes into the ring

Victory at the end!

A picture may be worth a thousand words, so a video is worth a thousand pictures, right? At least it's made up of a thousand pictures (more or less).

Kinect Kraziness

My birthday was in the very near past and one of the presents I received was Kinect for Xbox 360. For those of you who don't know, it is a peripheral for the Xbox console. What does it add? A very sophisticated camera set-up with a microphone so you can control the Xbox by either hand motions like Tom Cruise in Minority Report or by voice commands like Jeffery Goldblum in The Fly (at least until his voice becomes unrecognizable to the computer).

You can use more than just your hands to play on the Xbox. The in-package game, Kinect Adventures, lets you use your arms, legs, head and just about anything else to have your avatar run, jump, duck and otherwise have a fun time. An unexpectedly entertaining feature is the occasional photo it takes as you play. You can see the photos on the console and upload to the Kinect web site for two weeks. From the web site you can download it and post it to a blog, like so:

A game so great, it made me levitate!

The other cool thing about the Kinect is playability. A lot of people are intimidated by console game controllers, which have an awful lot of buttons and two sticks. With only a camera, even my three year old can play along, with a little help from Mommy:

Kinect Adventures actually has no dancing, alas!

Jacob was surprisingly adept at the car racing game called Kinect Joy Ride. We raced side by side and he nearly tied me the first time. Even Lucy wanted to try it out:

Suddenly, our living room got wider!