7.5

Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure

The latest Kinect game to land on the XBox 360 is Kinect Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure which stars some of the most memorable Pixar characters from Toy Story, Cars, The Incredibles, UP! and Ratatouille in this interactive game made for kids.

Best of all, with the Kinect technology, players can "scan" themselves into the game as they become one of the characters from these movies such as Buzz Lightyear, Mr. Incredible or that chubby kid from the film UP! as they engage in a variety of fun mini-games.

Interestingly enough, most of the mini-games play quite well in this title as you use your body to interact with these cartoon worlds from balancing games to racing and lots lots more. Although the game works well as a single-player game, by getting a friend or relative to join in, this opens the game up for some interesting cooperative play.

Before starting the game, you first need the Kinect camera to scan your body and you need to ensure that you have plenty of good lighting and room to play this game. It's actually quite surreal as the game transforms you into one of these Pixar character such as Mr. Incredible or that rat from Ratatouille.

Once you are scanned in, the game detects your movements quite well so when move your arms and legs in real-life, you will see your characters move, although this is definitely different for the cars and the four legged characters.

Although the story takes a backseat, there are plenty of Pixar references in the game to give fans of this films what they want. The only issue I had with the controls was the menu system of the game which was a little fiddly but thankfully the mini-games worked well with the controllerless technology. It's not perfect but it's easily one of the better Kinect titles around.

The mini-games in the title have been well designed and more importantly, play quite well. Even though I'm an adult or some would say a kidult because I'm still into video games, my 9 year old nephew had a blast playing these titles as we swam, flew and balanced ourselves through the various worlds.

Each of the mini-games does have a set number of objectives that must be completed such as helping Buzz escape from the evil toy room in the kindergarten which is reminiscent of Toy Story 3. This does add to the overall enjoyment factor of the title. The game is also quite physical at times so don't expect to be sitting around because you do need to stand and flap your arms and legs around like some strange bird.

Graphically, the developers have done a great job at recreating the five Pixar worlds. All the environments have this great cartoon feel to them and all the characters look perfect. Although it does look a little Spartan at times, the simplicity works well, especially with the colourful effects and great lighting. Music and voice acting is equally as enjoyable.

Final Level

It took us just over 3-hours to complete this, however the game contains a large amount of hidden goodies to be found from different paths to completing levels and lots of hidden objects and power-ups littered through the gaming world. Thankfully all the games were quite fun to play and with two people, the whole experience is made considerably more enjoyable.