Microsoft's Kinect for the Xbox 360 has been one of the hot discussion topics since E3 2010, when the gaming industry first got a chance to play some of the launch titles for the new hands free gaming device. In a word, the Kinect is awesome. It's a step up from Wii gaming. Instead of Wii-waggle controls, the Kinect takes a picture of your body and charts out a map of your bones and joints; now, any movement you make is mapped to your on-screen avatar. Sound cool? Well, it's way cool despite a few glitches that will hopefully be fixed by launch. The Clik recently got a chance to play updated versions of three upcoming Kinect titles: Dance Masters from Konami, Deca Sports Freedom from Hudson Entertainment and Adrenaline Misfits from Konami. These three games will definitely bolster Kinect party excitement this holiday season, but they still leave the Kinect without a 'must-buy-worthy' launch title.

Dance Masters from Konami

If you love to dance, then you've probably played games like Just Dance from Ubisoft or everyone's favorite dancing simulation title Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) from Konami. Much like DDR, Dance Masters is completely hands free thanks to the Kinect. However, needing rhythm is a thing of the past since you no longer have to worry about where your feet go with the Kinect.

If Dance Masters is the first Kinect game you ever play, navigating the menu will take some getting use to. Your hand works like an in-air PC mouse. So large movements can be too much. Next, how do you press a button to confirm a menu option? Each game tends to be slightly different. Some games will ask you to raise your hand to accept a menu choice, while others will ask you to hold your hand straight out without moving for a progress meter to fill up. It takes some getting used to.

The object of the game is to match the green silhouettes that appear next to the lead dancer on screen. However, on lower levels of difficulty, the movements you will have to match come few and far between. The lead dancer will be dancing constantly so to fully enjoy this game you'll want to try to mimic all of his or her movements. Gamers will really need to be in shape to keep up because most of the movements are fast and are quite difficult for the untrained gaming dancer to follow.

Deca Sports Freedom from Hudson Entertainment

With Deca Sports Freedom, Hudson Entertainment makes their bid to steal the casual sports party crown from Wii Sports. This is the first time Deca Sports is on the 360. The game features 10 mini-games: Tennis, Boxing, Beach Volleyball, Archery, Kendo, Mogul Skiing, Figure Skating, Dodgeball, Snowboard Cross and Paintball. The Clik decided to check out the Tennis, Archery and Figure Skating mini-games.

Tennis functions much like Wii Sports Tennis - the controls never really seem 100% responsive, but you still manage to have a fun time swinging your arm like a tennis racket with your friends. Unlike Wii Sports, which only allows for backhand and forehand strokes, Deca Tennis allows you to add some extra spin to your swings depending on how you wave your hand. These movements are displayed in the in-game menu before the match starts. As with all the Deca Sports mini-games, the game will take still photographs of you while you play. So after the game, you can see just how crazy you looked waving your arms around.

In the archery game, you must position your bow hand parallel to the screen. Then, to let your arrow go, you will need to let your other hand swing out in the direction of the screen. The avoids any confusion from the Kinect device in having both hands positioned in-line like you were performing an actual archery shot.

In figure skating, your avatar skates for you. Your goal is to match the skate positions that appear on screen. The longer you hold each position, the higher your ranking.

While playing, the Kinect device often lost a player or confused player one with player two. We're not sure if this was a software issue or a problem with the hardware. We were told that it could be that the Kinect got too hot or that a light nearby may have been confusing the device. The problem was quickly remedied each time by walking up to the device and waving a hand in front of it. The Kinect would then pick up your body again and you would be ready to play. Also, sometimes in the Tennis game Player 1 became Player 2. We were told that this may have occurred when a third person walked into the Kinect's line of sight or when one player crossed paths with another player.

Adrenaline Misfits from Konami

Adrenaline Misfits was probably one of the most fun games to play of the three Kinect games we tried out. It's a fantasy snow boarding game. You position your body just as if you were snowboarding or surfing (or rather how you imagine snowboarding and surfing to look). Tilting your body backwards or forwards helps you turn, while jumping allows you to perform tricks. We were surprised to see how well Adrenaline Misfits registered your movements. The ratio of your body movement to the movement of your on-screen avatar was pretty much 1:1. The game also matched various in-air stunts you perform like doing a mid-air 360 (no pun intended). You need not always perform your trick in the air. If your character is still soaring, you can simply turn around on the ground and your avatar will replicate the motion. The only problem with this game was landing, which takes some getting used to. There aren't any real wipeouts in Adrenaline Misfits, but you will lose time, and inevitably the race, picking yourself up after a tumble.

Just like most of the Wii launch titles, these Kinect titles are all about group play. In order to really enjoy these games, you will have to play them with your family and friends. Single player play just isn't as exciting.