Fruit Ninja Kinect takes all the frenzied fruit-slicing action from the highly addictive hit mobile game and brings it full scale, allowing players to swing their arms and legs to attack fruit. With multiple local multiplayer modes, players can battle each other or team up to slice through an endless cascade of flying fruits while trying to avoid dangerous bombs.

Developers Twisted Pixel are proud to announce that Gunstringer is now available for the Xbox 360 Kinect as their first retail title released. Play as a gun toting, cowboy, skeletal marionette as you shoot away as enemies only using you swift fingers, hands free for Kinect only.  The game also comes with free DLC entitled ‘The Wavy Tubeman Chronicles’ as well as a code for Fruit Ninja for Kinect for free!  You can’t beat a deal like that for only $39.99.  Check out the launch trailer above and the full press release below as Twisted Pixel has said this is the craziest thing they have done yet.

Sept. 13th, 2011 – Austin, TX – Today is a red letter day for Twisted Pixel, as their first retail title, The Gunstringer, hits shelves nationwide.  In The Gunstringer, you control the fiery gun-toting marionette through his adventures, combining solo platforming and shooting mechanics into fun, competitive action with a full suite of collectibles, unlockables, abilities, rewards and more.  Our story begins with you buried alive and left for dead by your former posse.  As a skeleton cowboy marionette you begin your journey of revenge, aided only by your gritty resolve and trusty pistol. Track your betrayers down, one by one, and bring justice upon them. They will pay a mean price on their own turf, from the plains of the high desert, to the swamps of the bayou, to the east Asian mountains, down to the depths of the undead underworld. Nothing can stand in your way, nothing will stop you on the vengeance trail.

As a special bonus to celebrate the release of The Gunstringer, players can also download a free add-on pack for the game at launch called The Wavy Tube Man Chronicles which pits players against the time-traveling son of Wavy Tube Man, the first boss players battle in the game. As “The Stranger”, fight side by side with Wiley Wiggins as Future Buddy and Aisa Palomares as Future Vixen in this full live action epic.  And let’s not forget the always unpredictable Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Films as Doc Lloyd as you aid him in reclaiming his stolen Time Traviz device.

Along with the disc for The Gunstringer, the retail package will include a token code for the full
downloadable version of Fruit Ninja Kinect via Xbox LIVE. Fruit Ninja Kinect is an amazing evolution of the slice-em-up genre created by Halfbrick, which brings the worldwide mobile gaming phenomenon to Kinect so you can use your arms as blades in an epic battle against the world’s most delicious produce.   All this for $39.99 and in stores now!

Fruit Ninja Kinect took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting the mobile version of the game to scale so well on Xbox 360.  Half Brick studios optimized the game well on the iOS platforms, to an extent that it was incredibly responsive. Here they’ve managed to show how well Kinect can track movements, and I believe this is one of the most addictive games you’ll play this year. The core of the game is the same here, as you would find on the iOS platforms. However, it manages to retain the high octane action, and gives your body a good workout. It’s not that easy standing and waving your hands trying to hit all the fruits. Due to the decent tracking, it isn’t solely based on luck but your quick thinking and presence of mind as well.

The calibration is pretty simple, and does not require you to waste more time in it. You can start playing almost immediately, due to the nicely designed user interface. Getting high scores, however, depends on luck, as it is difficult to say, score 700 odd in the Arcade mode. It is possible, though. The leaderboards are nicely integrated in the game and you can compare your scores with other Xbox Live members pretty easily.

The goal of the game is to slash as many fruits as you see, ranging from watermelon, apples, and bananas which look really colorful. In a way, it’s a bit satisfying to slash because of the “squishy” sound. It doesn’t take a lot of effort mind you, since it barely lasts over 1 minute in the Arcade mode, but slashing the Pomegranate in the end can get a bit tricky. Yes, you guessed it right, based on how you perform on the Pomegranate at the end of the round, depends on how much points you accumulate. Compared to the exercise to the index finger with the iOS version of the game, the Kinect version gives your arm a good workout.

Let’s be honest, you won’t be able to play more than 3 rounds when you begin unless you are really fit, because exerting so much on the Pomegranate at the end can zap away all your energy, but it is very satisfying when you have that ‘perfect’ round. It doesn’t take a lot of skill, because you can slice most of the fruits easily, it does get a bit tricky when you have to avoid the purple bombs that ruin your overall score, though. This is the advantage the iOS version has over the Kinect one, because avoiding bombs there is really easy.

There are a lot of modes in the game. Arcade mode, Zen mode, Classic mode and challenge modes. There are local two player options available, which makes it a lot of fun playing with a friend side-by-side. The core gameplay of most these modes are same, and just have various little twists that isn’t that hard to understand. The basic premise of the game is slashing fruits and gathering as much points as possible and boy, it’s a lot of fun.

The game is priced at 800MSP, which can be a lot when you consider it is an iOS port, but considering the quality of the software on offer and optimized really well for the Kinect, it is a good value for money. The game will give your arm a good workout and keep your glued to the screen especially when you compete with your friends over scores.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.