Review: Fruit Ninja Kinect

I’m not very good at Fruit Ninja Kinect. Despite being quite adept at the iPhone version, these skills have not transferred well to the 360 version. Perhaps it’s down to my shocking ability to co-ordinate all my limbs at the same time. Hand to eye co-ordination is spot on but anything that involves moving my arms about and I’m screwed. This is precisely why I don’t dance unless heavily intoxicated. Diverting from that mild tangent, just because I’m not very good at Fruit Ninja Kinect doesn’t mean that I can’t see the considerable amount of fun that it offers. Providing you have friends to play it with that is.

A Kinect enabled adaptation of the mobile game, the concept behind Fruit Ninja Kinect is simple – fruit is launched upwards and players have to slash the food in half before it drops back down. Hitting multiple fruit with one slash offers extra points via a combo system. That’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s just that simple. Simple in this instance means two things – it’s ideal as a party game, probably even more so when there’s alcohol involved but it also means that Fruit Ninja Kinect is a little limited for the single player gamer.

You see, while at the price of 69p on the iPhone for example, Fruit Ninja is ideal to just dip into while on the bus. At 800pts however, there needs to be more of a reason to purchase it unless you happen to be rolling in Microsoft points.

It’s not that Fruit Ninja Kinect isn’t fun, it’s excellent fun. There’s Classic mode that requires players to score as many points as possible before they eventually succumb to dropping three fruit or slashing up a bomb by mistake. Arcade mode adds a timer and supplies numerous power ups that affect the game’s passage. There’s also Zen mode with 90 seconds of free for all fruit slashing madness. It’s not calming like one would expect from anything called Zen but there’s no sign of power ups or bombs to complicate matters at least. Finally comes the Challenge mode that encourages players to complete set objectives that are based on the scores of their friends

It’s all fun but alone, you’re probably not going to go back to it often. High scores are the key to encouraging the lone gamer to return which is why the chirpy reminder at regular intervals of who on your friends list is next to beat certainly helps. Still though, 800 points? You’re going to have to be pretty competitive for it to be worth that price.

Two player functionality is another affair however. Players can choose to either compete against each other with fruit coloured red or blue to indicate sides, or they ca play co-operatively. It’s frantic but fun.

Controls wise, Fruit Ninja Kinect shows all other Kinect enabled games how it should be done. Calibration is spot on with the game adjusting to people moving nearer or further away from the sensor with hardly a blip. Selecting menu options can be a little fiddly with a chop of the screen but it is at least very entertaining in a simplistic kind of way.

Simplicity is the ideal word for Fruit Ninja Kinect. There’s not a lot to it but what is there is definitely fun. Being the cheapest and only Xbox Live Arcade base Kinect game helps it a lot. There’s little competition after all. For the price, it’s worth it as a party game for those who want plenty of leaping around during their parties. It takes moments to download too. For a more solitairy gamer, especially those with mobile phones that can play Fruit Ninja, it’s just not worth it. Flailing your arms about wildly may be fantastic fun at first but the longevity is severely limited here.

Review: Fruit Ninja Kinect Results