Fruit Ninja Kinect

Yet despite being limited, and baring both cost and control issues that makes it, for all its HD sharpness, a lesser version of the iOS game that it was borne from, Fruit Ninja Kinect is in no way a humdrum or ineffectual title. It's enjoyable to play, addictive (to a point) and has that brass sense of style that has you imaging an arcade version with a cabinet made of bamboo and covered in ninjas. (If you could see them.)

The premise is so simple, there's not even need of a tutorial. You slash the screen with bodily parts (we default on hands, but hey, you go wild and experiment) to chop colourful fruit as they're launched into view. Bombs will also appear with increasing regularity in all but the explosion-free Zen Mode. Dice them, and you'll either lose time or earn a strike against you depending on the mode.

Cutting the screen, with different coloured 'blades' unlocked as you play, follow the movement of your hand. There's a set length in which you can cut, so no screen-wide cop-outs here. While any slice over a fruit's position will gut it, you'll find yourself altering your cutting angle to try and dice in as straight a line as possible.

You don't need to hold your hand in a chopping position - even a clenched fist will do - but you do need to make your arm swing decisive and fast to cut. You'll tire quick, and find yourself adopting ludicrous Karate positions instinctively.

Problem is though (and six months ago you'd have laughed at us saying this) Kinect is too eager to respond to any movement.

Here's the kicker. On the iOS version, all tiny screen and one finger, your digit swipe on the screen was the only register that you wanted to cut. Therefore slicing around the path of bombs, or snagging a fruit cluster on one side of a bomb would be easy - quick reaction time, and steady finger was all that was needed. No difficulty.

Kinect's different, and requires a play style that counter-intuitive to the game. Your whole body is superimposed as a shadow onto whatever background you've playing with. Fruits and bombs sail through the air. You move your arm to position your hand ready to land a strike in the right spot, but Kinect marks the entire movement as intent to attack and cuts a path on screen anyway, making missing bombs frustratingly difficult, and hampering any chance of successfully slicing fruit in close proximity of their explosive counterparts without accidentally swiping those too.

The only concession you could make is to slow the movement of your arm until at the position needed. But in a game requiring fast reflexes, this is clearly a bad choice, and makes you look like a badly choreographed extra in a Michael Bay movie.

It limits enjoyment of the game to an extent, and adds a sense of hazarded randomness to Leaderboard participation. It's not so horrific on Arcade Mode, as maximum numbers of cut fruit are more important than precision to an extent, but in Classic Mode, where each missed fruit tumbling off the screen is a strike against you - lodge three and its Game Over - it too easily turns from difficult to frustrating.

Along with the aforementioned bomb-less Zen Mode there's also a Challenge setup, offering a variety of custom game modes (usually revolving around "Hit X number in Y time"), and a score-based Multiplayer mode for two players to dice it out at the same time.

But all offer little remix from the central play style, and thus strips the game of any long-lasting appeal other than the occasional firing it up between other long-haul titles when friends are over.

Cost is any issue as well. At 800MP it's less than its other Summer of Arcade brethren, but if you've got a iOS device you're aware you can buy essentially the same game - without the control issues - for under a quid. Even if you're only rocking Xbox Live, we can't say with honesty this is a bargain at the price given the content. Wait then until it hits a sale for 400MP, which the price point this arguably should have been in the first place.

The game's bizarre style does stir fond memories of Namco's Point Blank and Konami's Bishi Bashi, and there's definitely a niche here for XBLA Kinect titles of the sort ripe for exploitation. We had fun playing the game but however variety is key - and while Fruit Ninja offers a decent bunch of modes to fiddle with, their sell-by date hits much too soon.