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Microsoft Kinectimals Impressions
I returned from the strangest video game-related event of my life, and now I'm going to write about rubbing virtual cats with Microsoft Kinect. During Microsoft's Cirque Du Soleil event tonight in Los Angeles, a young girl demonstrated a virtual pet game featuring a fully interactive tiger cub.
This appears to be the first glance at Kinectimals, Microsoft's controller-free pet simulator. On stage a young girl motioned to her pet tiger, which responded accordingly. When she jumped, the tiger mimicked her, often to disgustingly cute results. Fetch, jump rope, and playing dead were also among the critter's repertoire. When the two were done playing, surrogate hands appeared on the beast as the girl gave her furry friends a rub down. The tiger responded realistically, folding its ears back, closing its eyes, and moving contentedly.
Overall the game seems to share a lot in common with Nintendogs. The first-person P.O.V. and the animal's movements seems reminiscent of the Nintendo DS game, obviously replacing the stylus with your own hands.
After the two were done with their playful hijinks several other wild cats showed up. Among them were a puma, snow tiger, leopard, lion, lynx and others. Though the official name of the game is Kinectimals, so far only we've only seen cats. There's nothing wrong with a game all about playing with digital cats, but we're still waiting for an eel simulator.
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