Kinect

It has now been awhile since we purchased the Kinect. I have to say that the entire family enjoys it a lot. While there are some buggy games out there (I'm looking at you, Zumba), if you do your research ahead of time, many of the games are tons of fun. My daughter's favorite is Kinect Adventures, which comes with the system. To be specific, she likes the Rallyball mini-game. It's a lot like Racquetball but your hand is the racquet. The goal is to use the balls to break boxes. You hit the balls with various parts of your body. It is a pretty interesting game. My favorite is Dance Central. Then again, I really like to dance. The moves are easy enough for anyone to pick up and you still get a decent workout from it. I haven't tried the harder levels yet. I'm working my way up to it.

I'm sad that there are developers throwing out buggy games for the Kinect. I really wanted to play the Zumba game. However, everything that I have read about it says it is terrible. C'mon guys, this is an awesome system. Take the time to develop the game properly before throwing it out there. The users will love you much more for it!

Xbox 360 slim

My husband picked up the new Xbox 360 yesterday. I haven't had the chance to play any games on it yet, but we did watch a few comedy specials via Netflix. With any luck, we'll be able to play Rock Band 2 on it tonight. I believe all of our files have been converted over. I also bought the 90s version of Lips and a movie trivia game. We're planning on playing those this weekend during my family's Fourth of July picnic. I'll try to post some sort of review on it at some point.

1 vs 100 on Xbox Live

My husband and I have been playing 1 vs 100 on the Xbox 360. Despite a lot of people saying it was awesome, I was skeptical. I expected the typical online gamers to ruin it. Luckily, I was completely wrong. The game is awesome. For those of you that don't know what 1 vs 100 is, it's basically a trivia game. On certain "live primetime" days, you can win prizes. From what I understand, the prizes are mostly Xbox Live credits, but the last time we played, they were giving away copies of Braid. Anyway, on the live days, you have the opportunity to either be "The One" or in "The Mob." The One tries to outlive The Mob, If you answer a question wrong, you're out. Whoever is left (The One or however many Mob members) wins.

During non-live days, you can still play. There just aren't any prizes. But you do rack up points that the game uses to determine who will be The One and who will be in The Mob. So playing on non-live days is really beneficial. We're not playing much this week due to the Torchwood mini-series, but we'll be back next week!

Xbox Live + Netflix = Fun!

I'm sure many of you know about this now. I'm going to talk about it anyway. If you have an Xbox 360 that is Live enabled and a Netflix account, you can stream movies and television shows right to your television. And it's not just a huge list of crappy movies either. My daughter is a big fan of Hannah Montana so we've queued up the entire first and second seasons of the show for her. My husband likes Red Dwarf so we have the last three seasons set up for him. I love Japanese dramas and anime so there's things like R.O.D. the TV on my list. It's a great way to spend a relaxing weekend - catching up on old TV shows or watching movies. If only there were more hours in the day for me to work through our queue!

Game review: Rock Band

Generally, I don't play a lot of console games. However, I really loved playing the Karaoke Revolution series on our PS2 and my husband loves the Guitar Hero series. So when we first heard about Rock Band, we knew we had to have it. My husband and my daughter went to the midnight release Monday night/Tuesday morning in order to be fully prepared for some Tuesday morning jamming. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, I'll try to explain it a bit. You and up to three friends play different instruments to form the perfect rock band. The game comes with a drum set, a guitar and a microphone. The guitar controller from Guitar Hero can be used to fill in for the bass. You don't have to physically be with your friends to play either. The game has online capabilities so, for example, my husband and I can play with our friends who live in Mississippi.

I got to play a bit last night. As I already said, I like karaoke games. Immediately I was dubbed the singer of our band, which is fine with me! My husband took the guitar part. (My five-year old daughter wanted to play the drums with us but she'll have to wait until she practices some more.) Together, we toured a couple of different cities and performed a bunch of songs. I absolutely love this game. The songs are kickass, the controllers are easy to use and it's just a really fun time.

After a few band performances, my husband took a World of Warcraft break. I decided to give the drums a try. Under normal circumstances, I'm not very coordinated. That's why I don't play the guitar in any musical games. Most of the games leave me frustrated and unwilling to learn how to use the controllers properly. While it was a little difficult starting the drums due to my inability to move my feet and my hands at the same time, I still found it to be extremely enjoyable. I actually want to practice more so I can be a real Rock Band drummer!

If you really love music or have always dreamed of being in a rock band, this would be the perfect game for you. Yes, it is on the expensive side but I think the game is worth the high price tag.