Fruit Ninja Kinect Review
Ever need to escape the doldrums of reality, and the only prescription is to use your arms to gesture-slice the crap out of a giant watermelon in slow-motion? No? Then you, my friend, are missing out, as the previously iOS-based, food-decimating Fruit Ninja Kinect offers incredibly insane amounts of quick-hit glee…if you have a buddy in tow.
The concept is ridiculously simple: various colorful fruits are tossed up onto the screen and your job is to slice the bejeezus out of ‘em by wielding your arms like you would finely sharpened knives. Chopping multiple fruits with one slash nets you combo points, while avoiding game-ending bombs in Classic Mode (or point-reducing tickers in Arcade Mode) and cutting point-multiplying bananas keeps you hacking, slashing, and juicing your way to higher scores and unlockables. Aaaaaand, that’s it.
Sure, you can take your newly mastered craft online to battle all comers over Live. Or even better, you can pull a friend in front of the Kinect with you to co-op your way to record-breaking points, or to compete in a split-screen obliterating frenzy. Fruit Ninja continually tosses you new records to gun for (like “Beat 300 Points in Zen Mode!”), but there’s nothing beyond more bomb-dodging and fruit-slicing in your future, really. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: it’s just that Fruit Ninja’s amazingly simple gameplay is strictly designed to be taken in small, party-based doses – nothing more, nothing less. And for $10, we were kind of hoping for more.
On Xbox Live Arcade (For Kinect)
- Silly, goofy, instantly accessible fruit-slicing fun — but mostly in multiplayer.
- The fun wears thin quickly; simple, arcadey gameplay is one-note throughout.
- Touchy gesture-controls can lead to many face-palming moments on menu screen.
- Where does this avalanche of fruit come from?
