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I don’t know if this is, like, a new thing with Kinect. This whole series of TV games.
If it is, great. That’s something I can actually get behind. I mean, there’s Sesame
Street TV, and now, there’s this. A guy making out with a bear.
It’s Kinect Nat Geo TV. Freaking nature.
So if you were foolish enough to miss out on Sesame Street TV, uh...good job, you missed
one of the coolest Kinect games of all time. You got to play catch with Grover. Oh, wait,
you didn’t. I did. And it was awesome. In fact, it’s not even a game. It’s just
episodes of the TV show, but with lots of interaction via Kinect.
This is the same thing, only these bears don’t like crayons. They eat people.
All joking aside, though, this is actually a really interesting piece of software. It’s
a collection of episodes from the TV series America The Wild, but again, adapted for Kinect.
They’re basically turned into motion-based edutainment games.
And it’s a lot cooler than it sounds.
So as you watch the episode, there are opportunities for player involvement. One example is...the
host will be tracking a bear, and he’ll ask which direction you think he should go.
So you have to check out the area and apply what you’ve learned from the show. And of
course, there’s also dumb stuff. So you might have to yell “snap!” when there’s
a photo opportunity, or...you know...turn into a bear and eat butterflies.
So obviously, like the Sesame Street game, this one also feels like it’s intended for
a mostly young audience, right? Like for elementary school kids, this is just an awesome educational
game, although...I mean, some of the subject matter is a bit strange. Like, sometimes it’s
more about tracking wildlife than the wildlife itself.
And of course, like any Kinect game, frustrations with the device are pretty much inevitable.
It never works perfectly, there’s always some hiccups with detecting the player...but
frankly, that’s inherent to any Kinect game. And what makes these TV games work so well
is that the motion is actually fairly limited.
So there’s no crazy flailing about. Until you’re a predator. Then there’s lots of
that.
I think one of the best things about both this and Sesame Street...is just how well-made
they are. They’re really polished, they look fantastic...and you know, this game also
has an app that lets you stream episodes and get all kinds of additional content. So if
your kid’s moved beyond Big Bird and now he wants to see Big Bird get, like, eaten...
Well, there’s Kinect Nat Geo TV...a really slick edutainment game for Kinect.