Kinect Rush: Fun For Everyone

Photo courtesy Microsoft

If you own an Xbox 360, the Kinect and are a Disney Pixar fan, you need to play Kinect Rush. You jump into the world of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, UP, Toy Story and Cars to solve puzzles and uncover hidden secrets.

Before you start, the Kinect scans your face to create a customized cutesy character of you. The character is then dropped into Pixar Park, from which you can access everything. This is the game’s central area that ties all the worlds together, and where you’ll interact with other players and make your way to areas throughout the park. As you meet other folks in the park, you can embark on your adventures with them.

Geared toward keiki, Kinect Rush focuses on participation rewards and team work as opposed to competition. It doesn’t matter how long you take to finish the game, you’ll still gain rewards. The kids will have fun swimming, driving, jumping and prize-collecting. Even my 2-year-old was able to enjoy this game.

Getting adjusted to the controls can take a little extra time, and at times it’s a little frustrating when you have to vigorously move your arms, practically run in place, just to move forward. The characters don’t seem to have the greatest intuition, but the audio and visual effects of the game make up for that.

Overall, the game does a good job of capturing the Pixar world, and is sure to give you and your keiki plenty of entertainment and exercise as you complete the game’s mission set. It’s a great title that you can enjoy together as an ohana.

Kinect Rush is rated E for Everyone and retails for $49.99 exclusively for the Xbox 360. Find it at your nearest Toys n’ Joys (toysnjoys.com), Game Stop (gamestop.com) or Amazon.com.

Click Chick’s Mobile App of the Week: SayHi

You may remember me recently writing about the translation app Vocre, but during my current travels to foreign lands, I discovered SayHi. This is very similar to Vocre but better. SayHi only works for your iPhone or iPad (unlike Vocre), but it’s comparable to having an interpreter living in your device.

This app will quickly interpret what you need to say without having to thumb through a clunky dictionary or phrasebook. Plus, rather than butchering what you say, you can have SayHi play back the translation.

Twenty-three languages and dialects are supported. You should download it quickly since iTunes has it on sale now for 99 cents (regular price $2.99) until the next upgrade.