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E3 2010: Joy Ride hands on

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Joyride

I’m not a fan of racing simulators but I do love racing titles like Burnout or Blur so when I walked into the Joy Ride room at E3 I was in two minds about whether or not this was going to be any good or not.

I went first and very quickly realised that this was no racing simulator at all, I stood in front of the camera and stuck out my arms feeling only a little silly and was instantly picked up by Kinect… the journo next to me however didn’t have as much luck and while it picked him up it didn’t seem to respond to his movements accurately.

The racing mechanic is as simple as you can get really, you turn your hands to go around corners (don’t cross your arms) and then when your boost bar is full you pull your arms towards your body and push them back out again to boost.

To fill your boost bar you need to perform tricks or drift, drifting is accomplished by sticking your ass out to one side while turning your arms the other way. Refer to embarrassing picture above…

Stunts are performed over jumps, while you are in the air you simply need to lean forwards or backwards, or spin around or drag your hands down left or right… which may be what they are really doing in that image above for a barrel roll.

After the demo was over I stuck around for a few minutes to try out stunt racing which is when you drive your car around a half pipe and pull of huge stunts while collecting apples and hitting bombs during your jumps… so maybe not entirely realistic after all.

All in all the game was enjoyable but nothing spectacular, I wouldn’t mind owning a copy but I severely doubt I would pay full price for it and with the Kinects ability to take pictures during the race I highly doubt I would ever play online.

The pictures are funny in-house but I prefer to remain as anonymous as possible and wouldn’t want my ugly mug plastered all over the internet more than Nick already has.

JoyRide2

Notice our GEAR friend in the background was around a meter behind Nick and yet wasn’t interfering with the camera… mind you he is the one the camera struggled to pick up at the best of times.

Last Updated: June 29, 2010

9 Comments

  1. Fred

    June 29, 2010 at 12:40

    Sounds like fun … for about 5 minutes.

    Reply

  2. Fox1

    June 29, 2010 at 15:35

    Damn! Those with butt implants are going to whip our ass :biggrin:

    Reply

  3. riezo

    June 30, 2010 at 16:55

    Ive been meaning to ask you.

    How did you accelerate and break with Kinect?

    Reply

  4. Nick de Bruyne

    June 30, 2010 at 17:26

    Well that’s something which I see becoming a major issue. In earlier showcases when they played Burnout with Kinect they accelerated and braked by moving their left or right foot forwards.

    There was none of that at E3 though, Joyride automatically accelerates with the player only needing to steer and drift. As far as I know, that new kinect mode in Forza is specifically a “mode” because you can’t accelerate and brake.

    I really don’t see the harm in adding a controller into the mix to be honest, because with some buttons I just don’t see it working out. I’d rather have kinect add some features to games that use controller, like the head tracking in GT5 or something like that

    Reply

  5. Nick de Bruyne

    June 30, 2010 at 17:28

    Actually what could be very cool is if they used the depth sensors to sense how far forwards or backwards your hands were, pull your hands towards you to break, and the push them forwards to accelerate.

    I just don’t know if kinect is good enough at picking up fine movements where depth is concerned.

    Reply

  6. Bobby Kotick taking the fun out of gaming

    June 30, 2010 at 18:54

    So what we’re really looking at is a sneaky return to rail gaming (from the early 90s arcade games)? You know the ones where the character moves forward and you do specific actions at specific times, rather than have actual control over its actions?

    Doesn’t really sound like the evolution of gaming to me :getlost:.

    Reply

  7. Gavin Mannion

    June 30, 2010 at 22:21

    Yup that would be about right especially when you are talking about Joy Ride and the Kinect adventures

    Reply

  8. riezo

    July 1, 2010 at 07:19

    Thanks, Im hoping they release a race peripheral, maybe like an accelerator or something with buttons.

    Come to think of it the accelerator would be silly because you have to stand to play these games.

    Sorry Professor Xavier, no Kinect for you :(.

    Reply

  9. Bobby Kotick taking the gaming out of fun

    July 1, 2010 at 12:14

    It would make sense if they eventually added a controller of some sort, because just imagine if they’re finally brave enough to apply this technology to a GTA game or something similar, do you really want to run or walk or simulate walking on one spot by lifting your legs (for what could be kilometres at a time)? I’m not a couch potato, but the mere thought of that actually tires me out.

    But it seems more likely that Kinect games will be reminiscent of those old lightgun peripheral rail games (but without the lightgun :cheerful: ).

    Reply

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