Eye Toy: Kinetic
Gives a new meaning to the term “personal trainer.”
Tags: Eye Toy: Kinetic Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jan 17th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Eye Toy: Kinetic (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Other | No | ||
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Do you get a bit misty, even inspired, whenever you flip on NBC and watch an episode of The Biggest Loser, or perhaps VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club? Well then, has Sony got a deal for you! EyeToy Kinetic offers the videogame equivalent of your own virtual Bob and Jillian, driving you to perform everything from yoga to Pilates in an effort to either stay in shape or shed those pounds, depending on what your current health and weight goals may be. It’s an interesting use of Sony’s EyeToy camera peripheral, and a more exacting and demanding challenge than any sort of workout offered by a dance-mat game; with EyeToy: Kinetic, you have to move your whole body.
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One of the dangers of relying solely on EyeToy: Kinetic as your personal trainer, it should be noted, is that no matter how well-programmed it is, EyeToy: Kinetic is not a human being. It can’t track you like a person can, responding to signs of working out too intensely or gauging the level of activity to your personal health needs. Even though it sounds like standard legal disclaimers, there ultimately really is no substitute for a human personal trainer, at least part of the time. And of course, EyeToy: Kinetic is not something that should be used for serious health-related training programs without first consulting a physician. Diet and exercise are important, but too important to entrust solely to a PS2 and its toy camera.
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That being said, EyeToy: Kinetic can be a solid workout assistant in the same way, say, a Billy Blanks Tae Bo DVD can be a good workout assistant: just use with care and a dash of common sense. Unfortunately, unlike a workout DVD, EyeToy: Kinetic needs you to have a fair amount of space and good lighting for decent results; in fact, in that regard it’s one of the most-demanding EyeToy “games” released to date. I live in a relatively small house and where my living room lights are versus where my entertainment stand is means that I’m ferociously backlit. This is somewhat workable with more game-oriented EyeToy titles, like Operation Spy, but with Kinetic, that’s just asking for trouble. My limited space and lighting means I either need to put a couple lamps near my entertainment stand and shine them toward me, to be properly lit, or it’s just not going to work; also, to really get the full effect, my tiny house would have to pretty much be all living room and… well, it’s not. Cost of living in affordable housing, I guess. The main reason for the extra space and lighting needs, however, is that Kinetic needs to see all of you, not just your face or upper torso.
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Still, after a lot of experimenting, I was able to get Kinetic working just well enough. It does offer some unique challenges. For example, you can react to and interact with a number of different objects by punching, kicking, ducking, and weaving. In this way, it’s like a full-body version of Parappa the Rapper. Of course, seeing your fit or unfit self (as the case may be) projected on-screen is a bit of a shock to the system, especially if you don’t like what you see. And since you’re placed on screen next to a usually-quite-fit personal trainer, the comparisons may not be great for those who are easily discouraged. But at least Lara Croft isn’t among the trainer roster! Not, I’d wager, that a few plastic surgeons wouldn’t have liked the game to do just that!
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If you don’t like the personal trainer mode, there’s a more free-form routine-builder mode, but its level of challenge and helpfulness is more limited. In routine-builder, Kinetic asks you some question about your age and weight and so forth and sets up a regular routine for you; once it’s established, fail to follow it at the risk of a handy in-game scolding! The 12-week, three-times-a-week routine is actually usually pretty balanced and it offers you three levels of challenge, meaning if you’re out of shape, you can start on easy and, as you begin to build muscle and drop pounds, you can do another 12 weeks at a higher level of challenge, so that you’re always building on your progress. Just don’t over-rely on Kinetic to monitor your health, since it can’t monitor your pulse, check your blood pressure or realize that you’ve just suffered an embolism from working out at too high a skill level for your level of fitness and need an ambulance called right away.
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In all, there are 22 exercise options in Kinetic, offering training in four major areas, including cardio, combat, toning and mind/body. Anyone out of shape and just starting out will want to stick to cardio and mind/body until they’re within 20 pounds or so of their healthy goal weight. The workouts are smartly designed to include warm-ups as well as cool-downs, and are based on solid styles of healthy exercise, including yoga, martial arts and Pilates. Credit Sony for taking the title seriously enough to make it an exercise program first, and not really a “game” per se. There are titles that are a lot more fun than Kinetic, but if used wisely and under a physician’s supervision, along with a healthy diet, Kinetic can help you become a healthier version of yourself. When’s the last time you could say that about Grand Theft Auto? Heh.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Designed to be a serious exercise assistant, not a game per se… smart. + A fair amount of exercise variety and challenge. |
8.9 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Thin soundtrack and no way to import your own. - Should never, ever be used without consulting a physician and… at least occasionally, a human trainer. - Requires more space and more ideal lighting than most other EyeToy games. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| If used with the same care and caution as a Billy Blanks workout DVD, EyeToy: Kinetic is a great workout assistant, if you have the space and lighting to spare. | |
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Tags: Eye Toy: Kinetic
Posted by Craig "American Idle" Hansen on Jan 17th, 2006 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
