In 2006 Nintendo launched the Wii console revolutionised gaming, due to its motion-controlling. Around 75 million sales later and it is safe to say that the Wii is a success. The novelty of motion-control gaming brought the system into the houses of adults who would never usually buy such an expensive console; the Wii became a party piece.

Four years on, and Microsoft have finally hit back with their high-tech Xbox alternative to motion-controlled gaming and they’re a step ahead, because there aren’t any controls!

Microsoft describes the Kinect as ‘Full body gaming’ with the idea you use your body to as a controller. That means no handheld controls or headpieces, the Kinect even has face and voice recognition.

The gadget uses an RGB camera and depth sensor to analyse the movements of the players (two at a time), by focussing on 48 key joints and tracking their movements. You can use your voice to control the menu, by simply saying ‘Xbox’ the menu will appear.

The Kinect costs around £125 and comes with the Kinect Adventures game, which is packed full of mini-games designed to show off the features of the ‘controller’, similarly to Wii Sports. Microsoft have devised a whole range of interactive entertainment, including fitness and racing games. It is clear that Microsoft aim for the Kinect to bring in a whole new, wider group of users, much as the Wii did for Nintendo.

On paper the Kinect sounds like an amazing, groundbreaking piece of technology which could transform gaming as we know it, and it many ways it is, but naturally it doesn’t come without setbacks.

Full use of the Kinect requires space, at least 8 foot of it for a two player game. This is obviously an issue for many people and involves timely rearranging of furniture. One particularly noticeable issue throughout playing was a time lag between the players and ‘avatar’s’ movements. It is clear that pre-programmed movements are triggered by the user’s moves, as opposed to fully mirroring our body movements, as we had hoped it would. Thi s means that no matter how high you jump or hard you punch you will always have the same effect on the game, and will always be a split second ahead.

Finally, the Kinect can sometimes struggle with the face and voice recognitions, causing the whole gaming experience to slow down dramatically.

At the end of the day, all exciting new technology has teething problems, and we hope that these issues will be solved in the next versions. In the meantime, keep hold of your failsafe handheld controllers, but definitely give the Kinect a try for a fun and exciting introduction to full body gaming.