Kinect Adventures is the game that most people will get when they buy their Kinect and is a good example of what the Kinect is capable of whilst still managing to be a great deal of fun!

The idea is basically that you are one of several Treasure Hunters seeking Treasure Pins all across the world and that you are given several different forms of challenge to complete in order to win Trophies, Achievments and Living Statues. These last are perhaps the most amusing as you are given the chance to animate your awards, lending them your voice whilst busting some moves! And if you are not happy with them , you can re-record them at any time you like!!

The challenges you have to play consist of several different types of game that require different levels of energy. These are alternated during gameplay so that you don't end up exhausting yourself tooo quickly and if you play for too long, a message appears reminding you to take a break or stop if you are sore! Your character in the game is represented by your Microsoft Avatar but you can change this if you like.......also you can win clothing items and accessories to use on your Avatar; something I have only seen previously on Left4Dead 2!

The first game you will probably encounter places you on a rubber dinghy which you have to jump up in the air to activate. This sets you off down a path of winding, rushing rapids with either Treasure Pins or Clock Symbols that you have to collect depending on the challenge. Along the way are ramps that lead you to secret areas and hidden stashes of booty and when you travel up the ramps, you often have to jump in the air again to ride up amongst the clouds and collect your rewards. Steering around obstacles in the river is done by either stepping to the left or the right and this is a constant theme of the games so it is important that you leave yourself plenty of room!

The next game you will encounter is a variation on Dodgeball. A wall of blocks appears at the far end of the screen and a ball drops down that you have to hit with your body to smash the blocks. This is lots of fun but requires a lot of swinging your arms around the room in order to stop the balls from disappearing off-screen!

Next up is perhaps one of the most exhausting and certainly the hardest of the games! You travel along a pre-designated track on a small cart that is started by pulling a couple of bars in front of you at the beginning. Jumping up and down makes the cart go faster but along the way you have to duck under red barriers, jump over blue barriers and step left and right to avoid pink crash pads. There are also more bars along the way that you can pull to speed up your progress to what feels like super speed!

The third game sees you in a glass cage far beneath the ocean. Several different types of fish and a very annoying shark smash into the glass at increasing intervals and you have to put your feet and hands over the gaps to fix them!

The last type of game you encounter is set in space. You are this time seconded in some kind of air-lock in a Space Station and as bubbles are released from vents in the wall, you have to burst them by flapping your arms and rising in the zero gravity to reach them! This is by far one of the easiest of the games and much more relaxing than any of the others though it can get a bit manic!

I love the Kinect~ it is like a vastly improved version of Sony's EyeToy but with better games, graphics and much more that you can do with it ~ and Adventures is a great little game to help you keep fit at the same time as having fun. A half hour session on here soon leaves me sweating and has the advantage of also earning me Achievments easily and hence more Gamer Points for my profile!

The only thing I have noticed is that if you move too far out of view for too long, either by sitting down or by stepping too far to your left or right, then you have to wait for the Kinect Sensor to find you again! That said, if you walk too close or are only out of shot for a few seconds, the system DOES tell you to step backward or step left.

Also there are only a limited number of challenges and once these are complete, the only real options you have are playing On-line which may not be to everyone's tastes. I have not gone On-line with this yet though so cannot comment on how good that paticular feature is....

Overall, I really like this game even if, at times, it feels like a bit too much hard work for a simple piece of fun! Still, it is better than my experience on the Wii and would highly recommend it especially if you have a family! I can well imagine playing this could become highly competitive!