At this point, the game demos began. Nothing seemed particularly exciting at first: River Rafting, then a Mine Cart game. The racing game looked fairly nice, and featured some half-pipe car tricking, and then a strange mode where wings were affixed to the sides of the car. One avatar stood atop each wing, and the two had to work together to steer.
Then, a Disney logo. Tinkerbell flew around the screens, and some fireworks, but interestingly, this led to nothing. I don't know what it was meant to imply. Maybe I missed something while tweeting?
This was followed, however, by the highlight of the night: the Star Wars demonstration. It did NOT feel like a live demo, but it was incredibly impressive. He was force-throwing tanks and enemies with a flick of his wrist, deflecting lightsaber shots, dashing forward with a certain body motion, and using an AoE force blast by doing that think Goku does when he turns into a Super Saiyan. It did feel pre-baked, and it did feel on-rails, but it was a rush to watch. Excited.
After that was Microsoft's response to Wii Fit, a very peaceful yoga and taichi based program. Here, the avatar was shown on screen, but so was a glowy red silhouette of the woman's actual body. The game was checking her alignment and joints to ensure she was performing adequately. It was what it was.
Then, a boys v. girls two-on-two, featuring hurdles (Power Pad, run in place), javelin, bowling, a head-to-head 100m dash, soccer, then beach volleyball. All felt very similar to Wii Sports, in that movement is generally automatic. The girls won, 12 to 11. (Hmph.)
Then, a Kinectimals (sorry I wasn't up to date on the title) demonstration, which was a little creepy. I like cats and all, but the girl was all over this ****ing baby tiger. She did all the Nintendogs things: food, fetch, whatever. It's what you'd expect.
Finally, a hip-hop dancing demo. The kid failed the first two movements ("elbow throws"), so the game slowed down the beat and let him practice at a slower pace until he was a bit more proficient. Other moves included "guitar" and "seduce". Really.
