First Week with the Kinect

So as you probably know by now, we decided to get a Kinect for the Xbox 360 which came out last Wednesday. The Big Three consoles now all have their own "hands-free" controllers now, of course, but there's been interest in the Kinect because it truly is hands-free; there's no wand to be held.

First impressions? Overall it's fantastic! Once you've gone through the calibration of the system (and optional fine-tuning, which I recommend for rock-solid recognition) you're good to go. Below you'll see a list of Good, Bad and Neutral points; these are all personal observations of course.

Before I get into that though, there's a side-story to tell. A while back the missus and I decided to split the usual living room contents into two rooms. The living room on the ground floor would be a place to socialize without the idiot box becoming the central piece. We could read, dine, listen to music and entertain guests. We then converted one of the spare bedrooms to a Media Room, where the TV, DVD and XBox 360 lives.

One thing you need to know about the Kinect is that it likes a lot of space - at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) is needed from the TV to get a decent play experience going. The Media room is quite small and we only just managed to make a clear space. Even then, two-player games were a definite no and there were a couple of times I hit the wall to the left or the sofa behind me.

I mentioned this in passing to Linda last Sunday. I happened to tell her at the right time though, it seems, because she turned into Mrs. On-a-Mission, which she is wont to do from time to time.

To get to the crux of the story, we visited both Media Markt and IKEA that very day to buy a new Xbox 360 S, a new 40" TV and a second "Poäng" lounge chair and changed the living room around a bit. So the Media Room stays as it is and a portion of the living room has now become the Virtual Play Area. The Kinect has now become one of the more expensive items we've bought, if you throw in all the extra stuff we bought just to get a good experience out of it. Such is life!

Anyway, onto my observations.

Good Points

• No controllers in the hand
• Rock-Solid recognition. Set up the Xbox to recognize you when you come into the play area - works like a charm!
• Skeletal recognition has been spot-on. To paraphrase an English expression, it can tell my arse from my elbow
• Included game (Kinect Adventures) was a good choice; really gives you a good impression of what Kinect is all about
• Microphone calibration (on setup) is good. This allows for Noise Cancellation, so when you are in a video chat (for example), any background ambience or sound coming from the Xbox itself is removed
• Built-in servos allow the Kinect to move up or down to keep you in the picture
• 3D positioning is spot on - it knows when you're moving toward or away from the screen as well as left and right.

Bad Points

• First wave of games not to everyone's taste. In order to appeal to families, especially coming out for the Holiday Season, Microsoft have focused on family-orientated games. Personally I have no problem with that (as I'm having fun with Kinect Adventures and working out with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved), I can see that some people will be disappointed.
• You need space - LOTS of space. Microsoft recommend between 1.8 and 3 meters (6 to 10 feet) which I agree with, so if you have a small game room, rather than having the Xbox in a big living room, you're going to have trouble.
• Voice recognition is not yet available here in mainland Europe. That was another selling point to me when I pre-ordered it; then I read the news that it won't be switched on at launch, instead coming in Spring 2011. BOO to Microsoft.

Neutral Points

• There's been some rumblings about the delay between you moving and the Kinect keeping up. While I have noticed this delay (for instance looking in the Kinect Tuner where you can "see" your body as Kinect sees it), it's not been a problem in anything I've played with - even Your Shape: Fitness Evolved which, with some activities, needs you to keep in time with the virtual fitness instructor.
• You're not going to get the most awe-inspiring snapshots from the RGB camera - it's a VGA (640x480) camera using a Bayer filter so the picture can be a bit "speckly", especially in low light conditions. But you don't really buy a Kinect to become the next Photographer of the Year. Much fun is to be had from the likes of Kinect Adventures when it takes a snapshot of you mid-game and the pictures are decent enough to share - if you are brave enough!
• Some people have moaned about the price. For the kind of electro-magic packed inside the unit, I'd say you were getting a bloody great bargain.

So, to sum up: Kinect == Good! It's not going to be to everyone's taste, but then again, nothing ever is. I recommend you at least try it out though; go to your local store or, even better, go to a friend's house who has one and test it in the "real world".

Would it be worth buying an Xbox just for the Kinect? Personally I would have done, but again, this goes back to the point about the range of games on launch. It's not going to replace your first-person shooter anytime soon.

 

Yes, of course we got a Kinect

It a

rrived a day after the release date, thanks to the lacklustre Swedish Posten, but it's arrived - the Kinect that we had pre-ordered in July. There's mixed reviews come out, but then again, there always is with stuff like this.

Proponents of Kinect are enthused with the feedback and clarity of knowing where everyone is in the room. The first wave of games that came out at the same time are very "Family Friendly" and that reflects the drive that Microsoft wanted ready for the holiday season. Kinect Adventures is included in the pack and is a great way of getting used to having a hands-free controller - a bonus being that it takes random photos of you which you can post to Facebook later on and show everyone what an idiot you look like when playing.

Opponents of Kinect mention the relative shallowness of the games so far ("too" family friendly) and some people have been having problems getting Kinect to follow them properly - but that is explained quite clearly by the Kinect help guides that you need to wear clothes that contrast with the room colours and have good lighting.

Reviews are only ever other peoples' opinions though. Personally, I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with Kinect!

Six Years and Counting

When I first started broadcasting the BBB, it was an acronym for the "Bowness Bit o' Bollocks", with my surname, Bowness, being said slightly differently to sound like "Bonus". This was because it was an irregular mid-week bonus to The Z Show which was transmitted every Sunday with co-host Kenz. On 18 June 2005 I moved to Sweden. This meant the end of Z of course - while one could theoretically have two hosts in two locations, it just doesn't have the same dynamics because two people feed off each other with body language as well as speech. The BBB had become regular and - thanks to Slaygon - continued almost immediately after my move. The show came simply to be known as BBB and, for the sake of closure, was given the backronym of "Boz's Bit o' Bollocks".

The first BBB was on Wednesday 3rd November 2004. Tomorrow I would have been doing the show for six years. Initially, when I had worked out the dates, my reaction was "who'd have thunk it?" But the more I think about it, the less surprised I am.

I am, after all, doing a hobby which I enjoy. I'm playing remixes of old Commodore 64 tunes, which satisfies both the inner child and the inner geek. I was at the right age to own and appreciate a C64 and the SID soundchip inside, especially with the "two generations" of composers that came along[1] - hence, the inner child. Like-minded people came along, listened to the originals and made remixes using modern equipment - the inner geek.

More importantly, there's the listeners. The listener count has waxed and waned over the years but there has always been a core of regulars, some of which I have had the opportunity to meet in real life and some of whom have become good friends. The regulars know how the show works and I can count on them to come up with a line on the chat service that feeds my next dialogue between two songs.

I've never pretended to be professional by any stretch of the imagination. As I mentioned, it's just a hobby. When one thinks about it, it's just a random bloke from the Midlands playing tunes that he likes to play and having a laugh with a bunch of other guys that just happen to be listening.

That's the best feeling anyone can have.

Here's to six years of the BBB. Maybe we can raise our glasses in four years' time for the Big Round Number.

Thanks everyone!

[1] I've always thought that there were two major generations of SID composers. The first wave included the likes of Hubbard, Galway, Daglish et al. The second wave was Maniacs of Noise, the Follin brothers and so on.

 

Unnecessary Thrust Dance

Download now or watch on posterous

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So, picture the scene if you will, dear reader. It was my 40th birthday party. It is in full swing and everyone is dancing to Doop. I'm wearing a white T-Shirt which came with special material-friendly felt-tip pens for people to write and draw on (thanks Anne and Mark!), and Andreas and I come down the stairs after lining up a few songs on the laptop and have to join in with the dancing. Because Linda (who is filming) is on the ground level and I'm a few steps up, a rather disturbing camera angle ensues...

Lovely Day

I couldn't have asked for a better day - just chillaxing at home, and we're out for a meal this evening. Skål!

Lovely day

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What better weather to have? A perfect day to chillax.

You turn your back for five seconds...

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There I was making myself some food, which would have included scrambled egg. I turn my back on the egg mix just make sure the rest was cooking OK and I failed to notice that a small visitor had just learnt how to jump up onto the kitchen bench.

Saturday Shenigans

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This is what I do on a Saturday evening when the wife's away...

News in Briefs FTW

Ah, you've gotta love The Sun's Page 3. It's been running for yonks now (and is quite famous even outside of the UK), and a relatively recent thing they do is have the delightful play on words, "News in Briefs" where the current Page 3 model expresses an opinion about the big news of the day.

Unfortunately, I'm finding it very difficult to believe that these quotes genuinely come from the model in question. (Understatement much?)

To demonstrate, let's take Ruth, 26, from Kent (who happens to be my favorite Page 3 model at the moment). She wanted to express her opinion (allegedly) on the age-old argument that A-levels are getting easier in Britain (from Friday August 20, 2010):

GRAMMAR school girl Ruth is unimpressed with claims that A-levels are easier. She said: “Measuring grade inflation requires objective means of differentiating changes in nominal awards on a common set of exams, and distinguishing from shifts resulting from changes in value such as quality or performance. Rather than focus on that, we should congratulate everyone who got the grades they wanted and give everyone who didn’t a nice big hug.”

I understand that I am taking this out of context somewhat, especially when I'm not showing another quote, but basically they are all written in the same manner. It's almost as if someone is pretending to be the model of the day and putting words into their mouths. But, The Sun wouldn't do that, would they?

I guess the question I want to ask is: WHY? Why are you doing this to us? Are you suggesting that the average IQ of "White Van Man" (the highest demographic of yer average Sun reader) is so low that they're going to read this, stroke their chin and say "Hmmm... yes, this young lady with her tits out raises a very fine point on said subject. I shall pass this information on to my friends down the boozer when I sup on a frothy bevvy."? Boggleth the mind.

If you don't live in the UK and would be fascinated to see what the Page 3 model of the day (Monday to Friday) says, you can always go to their online site (the News in Briefs usually appears in the afternoon, I've noticed) at www.page3.com. (Kind of NSFW: the landing page usually doesn't have any nudity, but be warned that it is a site dedicated to scantily-clad ladies. I've always wanted to use that phrase.)

 

Rez HD for XBox 360

I made it a personal goal to use the BBB RSS feed a little more often, than to just say "this show has been cancelled". I have also signed up with Posterous which makes "one-stop posting" much easier; sharing one post on multiple social networks, should I ever need to do that.

So, I suppose it's a little weird that my first post with this new attitude in mind isn't about the BBB itself. It's about a game that's been on the XBox 360 since 2008. The reason I'm blathering on about it now is twofold: I've been playing it again as part of going back to old games I've downloaded in the past. And, there is a sequel coming out.

Rez HD is a rail shooter in which you control an Avatar that has hacked into a supernetwork with an AI that is beginning to question its existence. You need to get to the heart of the system and force a reboot, battling against viruses and firewalls on the way. It is presented in first-person 3D and is a "rail shooter" in that the path you take is predetermined - you just control the Avatar within the bounds of the screen (sometimes able to rotate the screen somewhat).

Along the way you will meet end-of-level bosses for four levels; and a final boss-rush at the end of level 5, eventually meeting Eden (the AI) and battling her defenses to reboot her. You also get blue power-ups that increase your evolution (able to withstand collisions from enemies and bullets), or give you up to four Overdrives (once activated, it automatically kills enemies for a short period).  Shooting is performed by a lock-on target - you move the target over an enemy and press (or hold down) the fire button. You can lock-on to up to 8 enemies at a time and once the fire button is released, they are fired upon.

As mentioned, you can evolve, starting as a normal sphere (lowest level before dying) to a high-res human-like Avatar. Blue power-ups increase a gauge at the bottom-level; when this is filled, you evolve to the next-highest state. Hitting an enemy or a missile devolves you. Colliding with an object at the lowest level (sphere) logs you out of the system (game over).

What makes this game different to normal shooters, however, is the synesthesia - the coordination of the gameplay with a soundtrack. Each level has a different tune, and the actions you take go to the "beat" of this track. The track progresses on each sub-level until you have a full-blown soundtrack when you get to the boss. Even your player and some of the enemies pulse to this beat. It keeps you going along with the game, trying to build up the tune at the same time as killing as many enemies as you can. My favorite tune is on Level 5 (when you are on the way to meeting Eden). The track is called "Fear" (a remix of Mind Killer) by Adam Freeland, a well-known UK DJ now living in L.A.

Levels are locked when you first play the game, so you can only play Level 1. Completing levels not only open up the main game, but bonus levels as well, along with Time Attacks and other bonuses.
Rez HD is basically a "High-Definition" remake of the original Rez that appeared on the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. A sequel of the game, called Child of Eden, is being worked on for the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 - the XBox 360 version has been confirmed to be able to use the new Kinect system (formerly Project Natal). I'm gonna have to get me that!

Rez HD is available from the Live Marketplace, with a trial version to evaluate the game.

Fascinating Fact: The Japanese version of the original Rez was also available as a "Special Package" which came with a USB gizmo called the Trance Vibrator. The idea was to hold it, put it in your pocket or sit on it and it was a vibration package with more "umph" than the vibrator built into the controller. Needless to say, there are several reports that this was also used as a sex toy or masturbatory aid ;)

More info on Wikipedia, with information on the sequel, Child of Eden.

I'm on XBox Live as BozRetro.

2010-08-11 CANCELLED

Hi everyone,

Due to the flood that happened over the weekend, we're still cleaning up the mess, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel the show this week.

Hopefully things will be back to some sort of normality next week!

Thanks for understanding,

Boz.

Gathering 2010 Mission Success!

Thank you to everyone for making the Gathering 2010 such a great get-together! Some regular gathering guests were there but there were also new faces, which is always good to see!

Thanks also to the guys at Kville Biljard for making the whole weekend go by swimmingly.

Apologies to those of you I didn't get to say much (or anything) to... hopefully you could see that, with the amount of people there, it's difficult to get to see everybody. But you all looked like you were enjoying yourself and that's the important thing!

See you next year!

The first Gathering casualty

Ace needs a break from the action. Unfortunately we haven't even started it yet! ;)

SLAY Radio Hotline

Slaygon and I were having a bit of a chin-wag about the upcoming SLAY Radio Gathering and, while we would love to give everyone our cellphone numbers to contact us in case of emergency, it just doesn't make any common sense.

So, we decided to set up the SLAY Radio Hotline, the number of which will be revealed on the website. It is basically a mobile number you can call if you get lost and need to know the way, or find out where everyone is.

Obviously we are trusting that you, gentle listener, will not abuse this service and just call up willy-nilly with completely non-relevant questions or "just for a chat", because that's not what it's for. But we know we can rely on you, can't we?!

More information will be posted over on SLAY Radio over the weekend, and reiterated on my pre-Gathering show.

Sometimes I over-analyze things...

I just had a brain-fart while speaking to the Wifeoid-type device.

She phoned me up and said, "I'm afraid you're not going to see me tonight, I have to go in and work a late shift. My colleague has fallen off her horse."

Now, remember that I'm a Brit married to a Swede. For some bizarre reason - let's say it was misfiring psynapses - I thought this was a Swedish euphemism for someone having a nervous breakdown.

Anyway, we carried on talking about what times she's working, and then I followed-up on the original reason. "So, what happened? Did she just have a breakdown, gone mental?"

Silence for a few seconds.

"What?" asks Linda.

"Well, you said she fell off her horse. Is that some sort of way of saying she's had a breakdown?"

"...  No. No, no, no. No, silly. She owns a horse and physically fell off it!"

The penny dropped and I laughed embarrassingly at my inept Brian (who, you recall, lives in a Petri dish by the front door).

Still, you've got to admit, "Falling off one's horse" is a great euphemism for a breakdown, no? I think we need to make it a regular saying.

BoZHQ in the evening

This is at 10pm from our back garden. Those of you who say Swedish winters are bad should stay for summer :)

This week's show CANCELLED

Ello!

Yep, as I warned you, the grandparents are visiting, so this week's show is not happening. I can't reschedule either because the rest of the week is pretty busy too.

So, looks like I'll be seeing you lovely people next Wednesday (28th April).

Until then, have a great week and I'll see you soon!

More Tremors in the Force

Ello peeps!

I've got a couple of things to talk about this time. The "Defcon 2" warning I gave out last week is given out again this week, as the Grandparental-type units may be coming to visit any time next week, which may mean Wednesday of course. More news as and when.

In other news, C64Glen spotted a piece of disturbing news about Ning, which you can read here. As you may know, Ning powers BBB's "social networking" site and it looks like they won't be providing a free option in the future. I'm not a tight-wad but BBB is done as a hobby, so I'm not liking the idea of paying a premium.

Of course, the Facebook page has been around for ages, so maybe I ought to build that up a bit more and move us all over to that instead.

What do you think? Those of you who read this - send me an e-mail ( boz -at- slayradio ~dot~ org ), and it can even just contain one number if you're lazy:

[1] if you think I should bail out of Ning now and build up the Facebook page,
[2] Find an alternative site,
[3] Don't bother about a web site at all.

Thanks, and seeya later!

Boz.

Possible tremor in the force next Wednesday

Ello matey-peeps,

Normally I tell you when a show is going to be cancelled a day before the actual show (or sometimes even nearer); but this time I have had some news in advance, so I thought I'd tell you about it now!

A little bird has told me that The Grandparents-in-Law (Da Da Daaaaaah) are visiting "some time next week". When exactly this "some time" is, is anybody's guess, but there's a 40% chance that Wednesday evening is going to be disrupted because of it.

So, there may NOT be a show on 2010-04-14. Just a heads-up really, I'll keep you updated when I know more.

2010-03-17 Cancelled

Ello...

Sorry guys, I'm still not 100% and, after last week's show where I was back on form, I don't want to broadcast something that I'm just being a robot on. So, I've decided to cancel tonight's show.

I should be back with you next week though!

Sorry and I'll see y'all soon!

BBB minisite has moved!

Ello everypeeps!

It's been a while since I've used this Blog as anything more to tell you that I've had to cancel a show, so it's nice to be able to give you some news!

If some of you have tried to go to the base of boznet.com recently, you would have seen the news that I'm letting that domain die out when the renewal comes around, which is May 17. Unfortunately that meant that the BBB minisite would have died along with it.

But fear not, dear listeners! It gave me an excuse to update the site and move it to a new location:
http://bbb.bozretro.com

It puts all the necessary stuff onto one page - specifically this means the webcam of course; but it has other info on there. Of particular interest is that I'm actively trying to get the social site going. It's powered by the good folks at Ning and it's over here at http://club.bozretro.com.

Have a look at the new stuff and I'll see you next Wednesday!

Cheers,
Boz.