It’s a mobile phone craze trailing only the likes of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope, and now it takes it act to the big screen. Fruit Ninja Kinect has arrived, with an asking price 10 times of what you’d pay on your phone. Does it really scale up?

First of all it’s important to discuss the controls and whether they work as you would expect. On the phone, you simply swipe a finger at the screen in the direction you want to slash, and it “just works” (though some mobile devices perform better than others). On the Kinect? Well your body is mirrored as a shadow on the background of the screen, giving you an idea where your arms and legs are in relation to the playing field. Now before you think this is like every other webcam game you’ve ever played, remember this is Kinect and it can actually determine depth. This means that you don’t actually slash until your hands and feet come out towards the screen, a difference that really makes things completely natural and also makes it easier to dodge those nasty bombs. On the whole it actually feels like a game that was developed for the Kinect first and not vice versa. The only place where it falters is in the game menus, where things are a bit cluttered and it’s easy to end up someplace wrong simply by scratching your head.

Most of the game modes are basically the same as the mobile version. “Classic” mode, the most challenging, has you slicing fruit until you either miss one or hit a bomb three times. “Arcade” mode hands you a set amount of time to rack up as many points and combos as you can, with bombs only subtracting from your score, and power ups to mix things up like slow down time. “Zen” mode does away with everything but the fruit, allowing you to meditate on the philosophical implications of chopping them to bits. New to the game is a “Challenge” mode which mostly revolves around one upping your friends accomplishments, which are ever present in the leaderboards between each season. Finally there’s the two multiplayer modes, both cooperative and competitive, obviously only possible with the Kinect and plenty of room. If you’re willing to brave the idea of flailing your arms and karate chopping fruit right next to somebody then this is where the real fun begins. The cooperative mode is self-explanatory. In competitive mode each player has their own fruit to slice on their side of the screen, with free for all fruit crossing both sides to compete over. You are penalized for slicing the wrong fruit, so things don’t get too violent!

The graphics and sound are completely faithful to the original and seeing them in HD with added particle effects really brings the game to life. In the end, you have to ask yourself, is it really worth 800 MS points, or $10? Maybe if you need a really good party game or find it to be a workout program. There’s all the unlocks in the “Dojo” like the original, so there’s replay value in that and in beating friends scores. This is one of those games where you get exactly what you expect so it’s just a matter of whether you enjoy the idea or not. Try the demo first and see if you want any more besides the “Arcade” mode that comes with it. Of course you could also get it free with The Gunstringer, a wonderful Kinect game itself and probably the best deal for it overall, until an XBLA sale comes around perhaps.

Gameplay

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