Kinectimals Impressions

Kinectimals is a game about the player and their "pet" wild cat. The starting predators are a: tiger, lion, panther, cheetah and leopard.  Supposedly, you can unlock a few more species as you progress.  i am looking forward to unlocking the Saber tooth tiger.  Basically, this is a mini-game collection masquerading as a pet sim. 

The game centers on challenges to get the score up enough to unlock stage challenges.  If you unlock the challenges, then you can move on to the next stage.  Some of these challenges are stuff like:
* kicking a soccer (football in the rest of the world) ball
* driving an RC car (or Warthog) on a course (sometimes knocking down items)
* Volleying a volleyball
* Spinning a jump rope (harder than it seems)
* Throwing a Frisbee (maybe knocking stuff down)
* Spraying targets with a squirt gun
* Catching butterflies in a net
* Highlighting buried treasure so the cat can dig it up
* Having your pet perform tricks: which can be done with gestures or voice recognition
* Tossing an item (like a ball, a toy or a boot)
* Obstacle course - where you may have to run, duck, jump or balance

You get some form of in-game currency that you can spend on stuff like collars, variations of toys and decor for your house.  Yes, you can decorate your house.  There is also a scan stone that can be used to scan in the special tags on certain Kinectimals plush toys. 

This games seems to be one of the better Kinect launch titles.  Some mini-games control better than others.  The camera control takes a little bit of getting used to, stepping a certain direction moves the camera the other direction.  If you just sit around, the animal will bring a toy to you to play with.  So, in that way, the experience is kind of "on rails".  For some reason, i can't get the tossing one to work all of the time.  Basically, you go around the island earning exploration points by playing mini-games which unlock parts of the island (like challenge sections or new places).   i would probably put this as the number 4 best launch title (after Adventures, Sports and Dance Central).  Graphically, it is colorful and looks decent.  Kinectimals is probably the only launch title to actually incorporate voice commands.  If only they would release a non-cat add-on (like maybe bears and wolves)...  Kinectimals seems to be targeted towards a younger demographic (but the more chronologically advanced kids can have fun with it too). 

Motion: this is not Kinect Adventures or Sports that require a ton of movement. The games here seem to be more along the lines of holding your hand out, throwing a flying disc (or sombrero), tossing a toy underhand, some running in place and jumping, controlling a RC car (Joy Ride style, sort or) and a little kicking.  The lateral movement is mostly to change the camera.  So, basically - standing in place and moving your upper body (with occasional jumping or kicking).