There's a strain of game that I think I'll never quite "get," and it's the ones where players are allowed to see themselves in the game. I'm always curious about the appeal and whether there's a prolonged sense of pleasure at seeing oneself on the TV. Personally, I'd rather not—I have a healthy shame of my body and its occasionally lurching, often awkward movements.
If you're not a great, big awkward weirdie like me, then you might be the audience for UTV Ignition's Kung-Fu: High Impact.
THE BASICS
Kung-Fu: High Impact smashes together a couple of elements to stand out above the rest of the current crop of motion capture titles: it's a comic book-themed side-scrolling brawler which involves real-time scanning of the player's body to show them kicking and punching the waves of enemies the game throws at you. All of this takes place within the context of a martial arts adventure involving your character wrangling with baddies ripped from the pages of the comics. So, basically, you get to see yourself throwing down with the game's enemies (or gesturing wildly, your level of coordination may vary).
THE HIGHS
A Sense of Humor
The basic remit for this kind of game when it's being developed seems to always be "How can we get a bunch of people laughing at a screen together and laughing with the person playing." This is the important point: you're going to look silly playing KFHI, the developers know this, and they know that some of you might feel a little awkward about swinging your limbs around in mixed company. Their solution: exaggerate everything and let you completely lean into every double-punch, kick, and jump, and take snapshots of you posing for the comic panel breaks in the story. Yeah, you'll feel silly doing it, but that's kind of the point, and this is a game best played with a lot of friends watching and getting in a good laugh.
Surprisingly Diverse Move Set
Just make sure those friends have a seat kind of far from where you're playing, because you'll be moving around a lot. Like some of the best Kinect titles out there now, KFHI requires you to put your whole body into the experience. Ignition has come up with a fairly broad set of moves that you'll learn in your couple of hours with the game, and even after one level you might find yourself needing to take a little break to catch your breath and get ready for the next wave of enemies.
THE LOWS
A Problem of Accuracy
There are actually two issues here: first, the responsiveness of the game itself and second the frequently pulled-back view of the game. To the first, you're contending with mostly slow-moving AI characters, but at the same time there are so many of them, meaning you'll have to keep an eye out for the little colored prompts that indicate the direction of the enemy attacks. Wile I played there was a little bit of a delay, meaning I would keep taking knocks and it didn't feel like exactly a smooth experience.
Repetitiveness Sets In
Waves and waves of nearly identical enemies, I can not stress this enough. And sadly, much of the character design is functional and not especially inventive--ditto, the backgrounds--so the game is best taken in small doses.
THE VERDICT
This is a party game above all else. If you're picking this up, it's likely you and your friends and/or family are looking for something lightweight that will show off the promise of motion-controlled gaming. While this isn't anything close to the great leap forward in Kinect software, it's an amusing way to spend your first evening with the hardware.
Kung-Fu: High Impact is available now for the Xbox 360.
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