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Kinetic Review

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 20
Date: December 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I consider myself tech savy. I also consider myself open to new ideas. Thats why when I heard about this product I was intrigued in that it pormised a new and innovative way to work out.

That was the theory behind the product anyway. The program itself is fine. The problem that for the product to be effective as a whole there needs to be seemless integration with the hardware-the eye toy. Plainly spoken, the eye toy does not have the sensitivity and accuracy to pull this off. I have followed the instructions exactly and have experimented many hours on the lighting and also changing the background so that it may improve its performance-without much success.
In execution, this turns this product into a excercie in frustration. Do yourself a favor, don't buy this. If you want a good program consider yourself! fitness. I have used that product for months now. It is very effective and elegantly executed.

Could be a fun game - who knows!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: February 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The reason I say "COULD be" is because I haven't even gotten to get it working well enough to TRY it! I bought this game a few weeks ago and I have not been able to get it working properly. Lighting is apparently an issue, the camera barely acknowledges my movements at all. I have tried blaring three spotlights on myself and it is STILL too dark for the stupid camera.

Another problem is space. My livingroom is a decent size and even when I get as far away from the camera as possible my feet are still really cut off - even when my head is all the way at the top.

Also, I don't know why exactly, but every time I try to select things by waving my hand over it (for 10 minutes because it BARELY acknowledges any movement) it suddenly pauses itself and cannot be unpaused. I have yet to get anywhere with this game and I Have been rather persistent.

Good concept, horrible product. SAVE YOUR MONEY, I wish I would have! Guess I'll just stick to the regular old workout dvds.

Average, not worth $50 though.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After my first time playing the game I would have given the overall package a perfect 5 stars. Then, about after a couple days of play I began to notice all the annoying kinks in the game. The eyetoy itself requires a lot of space and a lot of lighting. I'm lucky enough that I barely have any furniture in my living room, but I still had to push everything further out. During my gameplay I noticed that the eyetoy would take points away for objects hitting my couch or the wall, making my score impossible to recover from. After a game I could tell that the calories burned was completely off, mainly because of the poor scoring done by the eyetoy. In the end of a session I would get a really bad score, and it would judge my performance poorly. It defintely isn't accurate in judging athleticism or skill.

I tried out the personal trainer mode, and it is not anything exceptional. Its not as "customized" as you may think. If you're looking for a virtual personal trainer, this definitely isn't the answer.

I don't reccomend it, unless you have perfect conditions to play this game.

A frustrating experience

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: November 14, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The idea behind this game is great, the problem is the eyetoy camera is simply not ready for the concept. Even if you have ideal lighting and space in the room w/ your PS2, there will be many times that your score is affected by the camera not registering hits. Some game modes work fairly well but some, like the aerobics section, fail miserably. I can't tell you how irritating it is when you're punching an orb ten times and it won't register a hit and the lighting in the room is perfect and there's no furniture in the background. Hopefully they'll come out w/ a better eyetoy camera if they make future versions of this game. It's simply too frustrating to stick w/ any kind of exercise program on here and I lost interest after a week.

A good workout, just hard to pull off

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A well thought out game with fun activities that DO give you a work out, is over-shadowed by the devil of all Eye Toy games: lighting.
The game requires your whole body to be in the screen to complete most of the activities. This is seemingly impossible for someone with a small and crowded house (such as mine.) And when you do finally get to a comfortable position, there's the issue of the lighting. The whole room has to be filled with light, otherwise the sensors won't pick your movements up.
While most of the games are reasonably do-able, some are not. Some games in the Mind and Body zone are more frustrating than in the Combat zone, and end up doing the exact opposite of what they're supposed to do.
But, once you do get adjusted it is a fairly good workout program. It also includes how many calories you've burned, a progess chart, a heart rate feature, and a weekly work out planner.
Over all, it's a decent game once you get past the downsides of it.

You need too much space

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was so excited when I received this game. However, I had to clear out my entire basement and put in a floodlight for it to work with the eye toy. I can't get far enough back from the screen and the annoying cartoon guy keeps telling me every minute or so to step back. If it wasn't for that, it would be a lot of fun.

Not much of a game, it's more of a workout DVD

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was disappointed that this game only has about 22 "games" and many of them aren't games at all, but are just exercise routines you follow (ab workout, arm workout, yoga, tai chi, etc., which require very limited or no interaction with the camera anyway.) A simple workout DVD would suffice and woudl be cheaper.

I found only a few of the games to be fun. You can choose what music you would like to listen to, but the selection is small and gets repetitive after a short while. If Kinetic had more games to actually play, more music, and more interaction, I would have given it a higher rating. I think they should have looked at this game more before they released it. At times getting the camera to work and getting the lighting right are difficult. You may have to move all of your furniture out of the way. On the plus side, a few of the games really do give you a workout and I would agree that this game can help you lose weight.

Fun, fun, fun! (but with drawbacks)

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The biggest drawback to this game is that it requires a large room in order to get a good workout. If you stand too close to the camera, then you don't need to jump or reach at all during the game. I solved this problem to some extent by mounting the camera high on the wall and pointing it downwards, but of course that makes the angle a bit wonky.

This game consists of lots of little mini-games, mainly involving bobbles on the screen which do various things, and you either have to hit or dodge. It's more fun than it sounds. It does an excellent job of adjusting to your current ability level and gives you a nice validation of how well you did and how you're progressing.

It doesn't work perfectly, though, whether it's due to bugs or camera problems. A bobble you were supposed to dodge will often get dinged when you were nowhere near it and sometimes you have to hit a bobble over and over before it actually registers. It works more often than not, though, and overall it's a fun way to work out.

Fun game to give you a good workout!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 60 / 60
Date: November 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game has 4 major elements: Cardio, Combat, Toning and 'Mind and Body'. The cardio and combat sections of the game are marvelous with lots of fun elements. The mini-games (in the combat and cardio sections) are 10 minutes each. Even the easiest level can get you huffing and puffing with lots of sweat. You are tested on your reflexes as well as precision. I don't know much about the strength part in the combat games because I kind of cheated by moving very very rapidly.

Just like what the company describes, you can set your own workout profile. It's as if you have your own personal trainer.

However, Sony needs to work out the kinks of the Eye Toy hardware. Our living room is quite comfortably sized for a couple with 2 cats, but Eye Toy doesn't think so. There is a distance of 7 feet between the TV and the couch, and the Eye Toy still doesn't think you have enough room. Unfortunately, Eye Toy isn't quite for apartment dwellers unless you mount the Eye Toy on the wall.

Lightings is another problem. The room needs to be EVENLY lit or else you'd have a hard time reaching one side of the screen. Setting the camera for 'dim room' helps tremendously. The camera sensitivity should set to Medium or even Low. I accidentally set it on High, and I saw my furniture playing the game with me.

Nonetheless, if you have a decent sized living room, and if you can get the camera working right, this game is AWESOME!!

Great Program if you have a big living room.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: November 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I think this product is phenomenol... I set it up and started playing, only problem is that I found my living room is a bit too tiny. I had to move all of my furniture!! You need a large living room to play!

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