Customer Reviews

Kinect Joy Ride

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't judge this one by thinking it is just a racing game. Sure, it is not a hard core racing title. I wouldn't even compare it to Mario Kart. Sure, it has the mode that has missles and freezing, but it doesn't make or break the race. There is even an achievement for winning a battle race without using an item (which I got with not too much effort).

Just last night, I put in this game, thinking I would just go through a race and grind out an achievement. However, as soon as I got my first boost and jump, it didn't feel like grinding at all. I was having so much fun that I kept playing. It is nice because the more you play, the more you unlock.

A lot of people see this as just a racing title. It is much more than that. If it was just racing, it would probably get dull. However, the other modes make it a lot more fun. There is the dash mode, where you go as fast as you can with boosts, etc. There is the crash mode, where you knock out statues and crash into stuff. there is the jump mode, where you are doing stunts and gaining huge air time. There is the pose mode, where you fly in the air and have to match poses.

Overall, this is fun. It supports two players in the same room and has online play for the racing and battle modes. Don't expect a Mario Kart sim or a detailed racing game. This is just a fun, casual, racing game that uses your body to race.

One last note on the conrols. For me, for the most part, they work just fine. I was holding my hands close together at first and the car would make bigger moves. However, if I hold my hands slightly further apart (about as far apart as a normal steering wheel) then I have much more control. If I find I'm going out of control, then I stop and look at how I'm holding my hands and I see that I'm all goofy looking (arms twisted, etc.) The more you play, the more you'll see these controls DO work.

Some of you may recall that Kinect Joy Ride was originally supposed to premiere as a free game for Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers; however, that changed when it got pulled into the Kinect lineup. While they have expanded the game beyond what was originally intended, it is still hard to justify the $50.00 price tag for what is offered on the disc.

The controls for Joy Ride require that you stand up for the duration of the game and they hold onto an imaginary steering wheel to control. Flips and other stunts are accomplished by twisting and turning your body off of jumps. While fun for a while, soon I was left wanting to sit back down and relax. However, as far as interactive entertainment racing goes, this is quite fun. Add in your friends or family and it is more enjoyable. Additionally, a nice touch is that Joy Ride offers (along with Kinect Sports & Adventures) is the use of KinectShare.com to share photos of you failing your arms about on Facebook.

I didn't really notice any lag while driving, but overall I would still say that steering an imaginary vehicle is hard to accomplish, but that may just take for time. It's hard to understand why Joy Ride doesn't offer speed control over the vehicles when the E3 promo video for Kinect had shown the player placing a leg forward or backwards to speed up or slow down. Maybe that is not possible since they reduced the quality of the Kinect Sensor camera to get production costs down, but I really have no clue.

The weirdest thing about JoyRide is that the entire game is only 1.5 GB in size. Given that some Xbox LIVE Arcade titles (i.e. Lara Croft: GoL) far exceed that size, I do not know why this simply could not have been a $15 arcade title (and it probably should have been). There is only a small selection of cars and tracks, but being Microsoft, I wouldn't be surprised to see some DLC come down the pipes for this. Ideally, I would really like to see Xbox partner with Hot Wheels to provide digital scans of the cars into the game. (The box states that it has the capacity for object scanning, but Microsoft has yet to reveal how that is to be used, if at all.)

Overall, I would recommend this game to anyone who bought a Kinect. It is fun, but whether it is worthy of the price remains to be seen. Ultimately I figure I will have enough enjoyment out of it to justify buying it and I think a lot of people are going to like this game.

My Wife and I are both overweight and bought the kinect for our X-Box 360 in the hope we would move more. Joy Ride is so much fun that we will play until our knees give out and we have to sit down. After a rest break we're at it again. I can't recommend this game more highly.

I was surprised to see quite a few negative review on this title. I picked this up locally and took it home, and opened it up on my new Kinect. The menus are easy to use, letting you play tournaments, battles, and online. It's very much like Mario Kart. All of the cars have unique twists, and you can customize them and paint them how you please.

You can play the game standing or sitting. It didn't pick me up well in my big recliner, so I put an old Drum seat in the middle of the room. You hold your hands out to drive, pull back and forward to use boost, and then make fun gestures and move around in midair to make cool moves. I spun around in my drum chair in midair, and my character got out of his chair and spun around the car. The motion controls are a blast, I really found myself getting into it. Sure it can be a bit quirky at times, but not enough to be noticeable, the motion control is fantastic, I much preferred it over the Mario Kart wheel on Wii.

The amount of content is great, the tournament mode has all sorts of great tracks and secret portions of tracks. Each one is unique and different. The stunt mode lets you break out some pretty cool car stunts, which I've never seen in a game before, but it's a blast. The online is great too, being able to play these great tracks not with bots, but people.

The multiplayer is a blast, I took a 2nd drum chair and put it next to the first one, like a real car. Of course you can cheat easily by slapping the other persons hand down, but can't you do that on any game with or without a controller?

Anyway, I though it was a blast. I enjoyed it a lot, the motion controls are fun, and the maps are cool and colorful. I'd highly suggest it if you have a Kinect.

I wasn't sure about buying this initially. I didn't think it would measure up to Dance Central or Kinect Sports in terms of fun as well as gameplay. I'm glad to say it does.

Before you buy this, know that this is not a serious racing game. Don't expect it to be PGR, Forza, or Need for Speed. It is a fantasy racing game and has a fun blissful tongue-in-cheek approach to auto racing. When your car has airtime you do poses to pull "stunts" that makes your car spin in different directions. Your avatar will jump out and hang on the car like Tony Hawk would handle a skateboard or bike. It's extremely unrealistic but it's fun! There's even a stunt mode where you can play on half pipes like a skateboarding game.

There's also the option of using powerups to slow other players down, but you can turn these off when you play in race mode. There is not much of a campaign. You just do whatever events you please and as you gain more "fans" you unlock new cars, tracks, and other items. I have to add that choosing color for your car is pretty cool. You hold up whatever item that has a color you want to the Kinect camera. For example, if I wanted my car black, I can hold out the sleeve of my black shirt up and make that the color.

In conclusion, it's a great Kinect title. It's great to have especially for parties. It could be better if it had a deeper campaign but at the same time makes up in its simplicity which makes it great for parties.

I got lucky and picked this up used so I saved $5. Yes, it is a little high on cost, but it is Microsoft. Anyway...the game overall is really fun. Reminds me of Bandicoot's racing game. My teenage son and his friends got a kick out of it as well as the wife. You paint your car by the color it reads off of you (or you can hold up a color) which I thought was neat. No lag. I tried to hold an object (wii wheel) to help me steer, but the game is anal and won't let you. The tracks are fun and not too long. You can run 3 laps in 2-3 minutes which is great due to only 2 can play in-console at a time (up to 8 on LIVE). The two things keeping it from going to 5 stars was the sticking out your left arm to use your abilities. Raising your hand would have been better so as not to knock the other driver out. The second is the price. This is not a high end game. Should have been $34.99 at most. Overall, very fun. My nieces (9-11) picked up on it quick and were soon kicking my buttocks.

I gave this as a gift to a 65 year old man who wants to play this game with his grandkids. It is a smashing success! Everyone is happy. I've never played the game, so I'm just saying that they love it.

We got this game for our kids. They are 7and 4. They love it. It is easy for my 4 yr old to do.

This game is a great implementation of the Kinect controller. The driving and racing are fun, but in a "cartoon" kind of way. The driving experience is more like Crash Bandicoot than Gran Turismo.

We all got used to the controls pretty quickly. The only thing that seems strange is that you only steer your car; besides the thrust, there's no way to control the throttle. You can also use drifting to influence your speed.

I'm the only one in our family who is too uncoordinated to reliably work the thrust. That's no big deal in the racing modes, but the trick levels are nearly impossible if you don't activate the thrust. I can't complain though, because it levels the playing field for my kids.

All in all, the video, audio, and overall experience of this game are very well done. Compared to some of the other Kinect titles we've played, this one has very few control-related flaws. You really forget about the controls and immerse yourself in the game. Isn't that what it's all about?

This game is priced far too high for what you get. There just isn't that much content. It should be a $24.99 retail, not $49.99. It's not very fun to steer. There's also a lack of accelerating and breaking. This game should have just been a bundled game with the Kinect.