Kinect titles seem to be all the rage lately. At first, people were excited about the possibilities. Then, it became more of a childish toy because of a lack of hardcore titles and support. But lately, we’ve been seeing quite a few solid games being made for Kinect, and the latest trailer out from Warner Brothers isn’t any different.
Taking perhaps one of the largest franchises in the world to Kinect, WB has announced Harry Potter for Kinect. And after watching the trailer, all we can say is that we’re not even close to impressed. But we won’t leave it there; there are a few reasons we’re just not all that jazzed by it:
1) Kinect Star Wars. Everyone knows what a disappointment that game was, and while it managed to partially redeem itself with an incredibly cool console bundle counterpart, we’re not sure we can ever forgive that game. Harry Potter for Kinect looks to be about the same thing.
2) Graphics. Sure, the game is still a work in progress, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting anything better than what we’re seeing in the trailer. And what we’re seeing in the trailer is utter garbage. Sure, face recognition via Kinect is cool and all, but why does it have to look so bad?
3) The use of the name Kinect. Steve Jobs once said something to the effect of, “we figure out what we want to do and then build the technology to do it.” It seems this is backwards here. Rather than going the Jobsian route, WB seems to have this – arguably great – piece of technology and is applying one of their franchises to it. And the fact that it has the word ‘Kinect’ in the title tells us that the game wasn’t designed as a game first, it was designed as a branded tech demo, of sorts.
What is it with Kinect games requiring so much power that the graphics are taking a hit? It doesn’t make sense after we’ve seen games like Ghost Recon: Future Soldier use Kinect in a very unique and successful way, without any hit to graphics or fluidity.
Either way, the unpolished graphics and the glamorized use of Kinect technology in Harry Potter for Kinect is just far too familiar for us to not compare it to Kinect Star Wars. WB has a few months to prove us wrong. Take a look at the trailer below and let us know your thoughts in the comments.