Fighters Uncaged

Let's save us all a bit of time and get straight to the point. Fighters Uncaged is boring and a perfect illustration of the problems Kinect is suffering from.

Ubisoft are perhaps the publisher, apart from Microsoft themselves, who have put the most resources into Kinect development, and while their exercise game Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is one of the better launch titles, it's a completely different story with Fighters Uncaged and there are many reasons for this.

It starts of with an unbearably long tutorial, where you are being guided through the the various moves, and you are being taught the differences of various kicks and punches. All in all there are about 70 different strikes or moves, but I doubt that many will play the game long enough to learn them all. The game is simply too repetitive to keep your interest up.

The graphics are pretty good. It never reaches any spectacular levels, and falls short of delivering realistic environments such as the arena in Sports Champions, but it does the job. And the problem with Fighters Uncaged doesn't lie with its graphics. The problem lies with the most fundamental part of the game - how it tracks your moves. It's slow, extremely slow. And there are moments when I'm not sure that my evasive move even got registered, or if it was the lag that was to blame for my black eye.

Fighters Uncaged is simply put slow and imprecise.

The way in which you unlock new opponents forces you to rematch the same opponents over and over again in a seemingly endless loop. It's frustrating, because Fighters Uncaged looks good on the surface, and it was one of few titles that looked as though it could deliver a decent action experience with Kinect and your friends. Unfortunately there is no multiplayer, so there is not a lot to return to once you've grown tired of the main game.

I'm sure there are younger players who will enjoy this and live out their dreams of being Bruce Lee (or perhaps rather Jaden Smith). It's all very accessible, and easy get into.

But for the rest of us it's just a waste of time, and there are many better ways to do that. Pick up one of the other Kinect games, there are enough decent ones available at launch to choose from, because Fighters Uncaged is one you need to stay away from.