Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 may be the most educational game I play all year.
Did you know that pineapples are actually hundreds of small ‘fruitlets’? How about that banana skins can be used to relieve mosquito bites? Not only does Halfbrick’s hand-to-fruit combat simulator provide you with a reasonable excuse to keep the Kinect sensor hooked up, it also educates you!
Halfbrick was one of the few developers to get solid, responsive controls out of the original Kinect hardware. The swipe and slice nature of Fruit Ninja translated well to motion control and placing the player silhouette in the background overcame one of the biggest hurdles to good use of the Kinect hardware: precision. Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 doesn’t stray from that formula and adds full body movement to the mix, with only so many ways you can slice fruit with your hands, Halfbrick now has you dodging spotlights and shurikens as you slice fruit in two of the four new Festival game modes.
Ducking and dodging adds an interesting element to the game but one that didn’t extend beyond novelty for me. I found more fun in the traditional Arcade and Zen modes and Nobu’s Bamboo Strike, another new exclusive mode. This was the most interesting take on the traditional gameplay; missing bamboo seeds as they fall results in bamboo shoots blocking your view until they are sliced away, a tricky task when bombs have a nasty habit of nesting within the verdure.
The final Festival game mode, Han’s Apple Range, is by far the weakest due to lacklustre mechanics and the ambiguity of the control scheme. Fluid arm slices are replaced with clumsy throwing motions that show the strings of Fruit Ninja Kinect 2. You’ll throw a lot of false shots, target aiming is difficult and pinning fruit to targets with throwing knives would be uninspired even with air tight controls.
The rest of the single player game is what you have seen before. Arcade is fun but lacks punch as a score chasing game thanks to the random nature of the power-ups. Zen takes away the flash and just lets you slice fruit while Classic mode requires a level of precision that even the improved Kinect for Xbox One can’t manage. It punishes mistakes more than any other mode, mistakes that are easy to make waving your arms frantically. This isn’t the fault of the hardware, more the nature of trying to get precision out of long, sweeping movements of your arms.
False movements aren’t a major concern but if tested the game shows the help it is giving the player; I sat back on the lounge and in the process of checking my phone started a new game and even managed a few combos when fruit passed over my static right hand. Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 certainly doesn’t play itself (this isn’t Kinect Joy Ride) but just remember when you think you are God’s gift to violence against fruit that you may be getting some assistance. To the games credit I never noticed any input lag, whether that is the strength of the new hardware or clever use of assists and the player silhouette I’m not sure, but Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 feels very responsive. My only technical gripe is that the game is too quick to jump to attract mode, playing an obnoxious, loud video after only a short idle period on the post-game screen.
The multiplayer suite is much improved on the original. Party mode offers unique mini games interspersed with traditional fruit slicing, Ninja Pose was a personal favourite and dodging shurikens encouraged full body contact with your partner. Battle mode is meant to be more competitive and sees you slicing power-up fruit to make life difficult for your opponent, making their fruit tiny or fast moving, or sending them an onslaught of bombs. Fruit Ninja isn’t a great competitive game thanks to the reliance on randomness, some games one player got the better run of bonus fruit that turned contests one sided, but if played in the right spirit it is still a lot of fun in short bursts or big groups. It is probably for the best that this isn’t Esports level tough, encouraging too much competition usually results in painful hand clashes; my fiancé and I came away from one particularly competitive battle session with bruised hands and wrists from flailing away at the golden pomegranate.
Multiplayer really is the draw here. The new game modes aren’t innovative or interesting enough to justify their limited number, it doesn’t feel like Halfbrick left a lot on the cutting room floor with Fruit Ninja Kinect 2. Single player challenge is limited to score chasing and levelling up by completing various missions, some game mode specific (such as slice 200 bamboo seeds or dodge 50 shurikens) and some generic (slice 500 fruit, score 5000 points). Only three missions are offered at once so you can find yourself stuck when particularly laborious or difficult missions come along, but some do inspire you to play the game in new ways and challenge you without being too frustrating. Some are just plain silly such as score under 50 points, a remarkably difficult task in Arcade mode it turns out.
Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 is fun, both as a single player diversion and a party game that isn’t as embarrassing as Dance Central or Fantasia but still gets people swinging their arms about laughing and occasionally slapping each other. If you milked Fruit Ninja Kinect for all it was worth there isn’t enough here to justify coming back, there is only so much you can do with such a limited platform and Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 doesn’t even reach that low ceiling. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game but I also don’t see myself ever playing it again. Kids and those new to virtual fruit dissection will find plenty to like.
Fruit Ninja Kinect 2 was reviewed using a download code on Xbox One, as provided by the publisher.
Review: Fruit Ninja Kinect 2
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