1st Impression: Fruit Ninja Kinect

Fruit Ninja Kinect is a free download when you purchase a Kinect.  It's fun for the first two minutes, but gets boring far too quick.

In Fruit Ninja, your task is pretty much what it sounds like from the title: fruit will come flying onto the screen, and you try to slice the fruit in half before it leaves.

You have a shadow displayed on the wall behind the fruit so you can more easily aim your slices, which is a very well-thought detail.  Unfortunately, that's the most creative aspect of the design.

There are many kinds of fruit, most of which slice like all other kinds.  However, when you slice certain kinds of bananas, you might slow down the speed of the fruits, or double your points for a short time.  If you strike a dragonfruit, you zoom in on it and can continue to slice it for a huge combo.

There are also bombs that are thrown which you must avoid, which can make you lose ten points, or end the round prematurely.

There are a few different modes to the game with little difference: some modes are timed, others let you keep going until you miss three fruit.  There is also a Challenge mode which simply mixes up the modes and gives you a goal to reach each round.

There are also two-player modes where you can work together or compete.

However, there is little in the way of variety and the rewards simply aren't worth the trouble (different colors for your slashing motions, new backgrounds).  There are also 21 Xbox achievements to unlock, which seems like way too many.

Ultimately, Fruit Ninja Kinect is no more than a party game, and even then it is not one you'd spend much time on.  It's a minigame that should have been included in a different game.  It might have worked well if it were a sixth game in Kinect Adventures, for instance, but it did not need to be its own entity.

But while the game is fun for five minutes, what kills the experience is the menu.  You activate buttons by slicing them, and I find myself slicing the wrong button when I am simply moving my hand to reach the right button.  The scrolling menu for selecting visual options also seems to behave too quickly:  when I try to slide the menu down, it slides up.

I wish I could write a longer review, but there's is nothing else to talk about.  It is that simple a game.

Fortunately it's a free game, so the most you are wasting is some space on your Xbox.

At the end of the day, Fruit Ninja Kinect is better suited to a Mario Party minigame than a standalone Kinect experience.  It's okay that it shows off the Kinect's abilities, but Kinect Adventures does this already, and far better.