People want Microsoft to bolster their first party offerings. They want Rare to revive some of their old franchises. They want Rare to get off the Kinect and return to their old peak, which people loved them for.

Two of those things may be happening.

Speaking to OXM, Simon Woodroffe from Rare talked about the studio’s future beyond Kinect Sports Rivals, which releases next year.

First, a word to those who may be slightly prejudiced against the game because of it being on Kinect- this one is not solely a Kinect game, and uses the Xbox One controller in conjunction with the advanced motion sensing afforded by the new Kinect technology. So this might actually turn out to be a pretty good title, not just on its own merits, but also a good title period.

Anyway, Rare is looking at making similar Kinect enhanced games in some of its historic, classic franchises.

“When we launched Kinect obviously there was a big focus on ‘everything must be Kinect,'” he said in a behind-closed-door chat at the show. “Now it’s in the box, use it where it make sense, don’t where it doesn’t. It can be used in some really – not gimmicky ways, which is what I think you’ll see a fair amount of – but ways that actually really enhance the game. We’ve got some ideas for how to use it in the right way.”

Could this be in a new Perfect Dark, OXM asked.

“Maybe! We’ve got an idea for that. It would be controller plus Kinect. We’ve got ideas for most older Rare IP, you won’t be surprised to hear. There’s quite a lot of desire to do that, and Viva Pinata, Conker… Banjo’s very popular internally, a lot of people want to do stuff with Banjo.

“So if we can find the right – we’re all about giving people new experiences, that’s what we want to do. It’s a very technical studio. I’m relatively new, what I’ve learned is they’re brilliant at technology, they really know how to make creative things out of technology.

“We want to find that thing that nobody’s ever done before and make a game out of it. We should be inventing new genres, inventing new ways to play. And this sensor gives us new opportunities to do it, with the fidelity it has now.”

There was one more thing he said, which is likely to be heartening to fans of the classic studio’s heyday- the studio will, like before, start working on multiple titles at once following Kinect Sports Rivals, and also get better at providing post launch support for its games.

It almost sounds like Rare might be primed for a comeback, but those among us who know better know that can’t be right.

Well this is marginally disappointing.

When Microsoft said Rare was working on one of their own franchises, we were hoping it would be more Banjo and less Kinect Sports. Unfortunately, it’s Kinect Sports.

That’s right, Microsoft announced that they have Rare working on Kinect Sports Rivals, a sequel to their Xbox 360/Kinect Kinect Sports games. The new game, which uses the newer, enhanced Kinect bundled with Xbox One, promises more accurate body tracking to provide deeper and better gameplay. It also promises, for some reason, a deeper, richer story, as well as some ‘platform pushing technology.’

Whatever, Microsoft. Why won’t you let Rare be awesome again?

At least we have Killer Instinct in the meanwhile, though that’s not being developed by Rare either.

To keep up with our E3 coverage, stay tuned in to GamingBolt. We will have more for you as it happens, when it happens.

Big surprise.

Microsoft announced the sequel to Rare’s Wii Sports rip off, Kinect Sports, at their E3 presser today. The game looks like a poor (or rich, depending upon how much money you spent on the Kinect) man’s Wii Sports Resort, although it clearly won’t be half as fun.

God damn it Microsoft, won’t you just stop it with the Kinect stuff already? We get it, you’ve justified the Kinect enough already!

Check out the trailer below.

Microsoft have announced new DLC for their motion controlled Kinect Sports game, titled Calorie Challenge.

The Calorie Challenge DLC will be released on Xbox Live on April 29, and has various lunchtime snacks take on the forms of your Calorie Rivals. Don’t like the idea of that full fat milk you just drank putting some pounds on your gut? Now’s your chance to jump into a boxing ring to kick the crap out of said milk carton.

The add-on also includes 250 new Achievements Points and two new Avatar Awards, says MS. See the list of Calorie Rivals below:

Steady Celery (25 calories)
Blazing Banana (92 calories)
Supersonic Soda (133 calories)
Mighty Milk (198 calories)
Peppy Pizza (302 calories)
Chocolate Challenger (416 calories)

Thanks to CVG for the info.

Top Ten for the week ended 15th January.

01. Kinect Sports (Microsoft)
02. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard)
03. FIFA 11 (EA Sports)
04. Dance Central (Microsoft)
05. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft)
06. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (EA)
07. Your Shape: Fitness Evolved (Ubisoft)
08. Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda)
09. Fable 3 (Microsoft)
10. Halo Reach (Microsoft)

How so many Kinect titles are toppling blockbuster titles like COD and Assassin’s Creed is anyone’s guess, but it looks like this is good news for Microsoft. Love it or hate it, Kinect is here to stay and this week’s UKIE/GfK-ChartTrack figures prove it.

The package consists of six sports: Football, Bowling, Boxing, Volleyball, Table Tennis and five track and field events. All of the games have their own charm and generally feel very responsive in their use of the Kinect motion sensor. The bowling and boxing are probably the weakest of the events on account of a general monotonous nature. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with the way the games play, in fact I’d honestly be more inclined just to blame the fact that bowling and boxing are quite repetitive as sports in general (sacrilege I know.) Apart from these two getting boring after a while, the games are generally fantastic. The motion controls respond absolutely perfectly. Even though there is a fractional lag as was the concern prior to the Kinect’s release, this actually has little impact on the enjoyment you’ll have while playing Kinect Sports.

This how all games should be played. In glorious split screen

The other four games are real quality entertainment and, provided you get some buddies involved, are just pure and simple fun. No two ways about it. You also have the ability to play most of the sports either competitively or cooperatively, both locally and over xbox live (in most of the cases anyway.) Playing volleyball in co-op and setting each other up is a definite highlight, and the grudge matches you can form in football and table tennis are noteworthy. What really separates Kinect Sports from competing titles in the genre is it’s ability to track your whole body. Sports such as football and volleyball wouldn’t be possible in the same way without it, and the ability to move your character around in table tennis really adds a new dynamic to the sport. It must also be noted the deceptive nature of the track and field game, which houses five games within it as separate events. This one was the most demeaning of the sports, but there was no doubt that a whole lot of laughter filled the room when we were all done. The actual on the spot running required in hurdles and sprint was much more fun than I thought, and was really good exercise to boot.

They went for a simple cartoon graphic style to acomodate the avatars, but they could have tried a bit harder

Once you get done with the main events you’ll be dazzled by the variety of mini-games that deviate from the standard sport formula. They are all related to the main sporting events in some way, but are different enough to keep the proceedings fresh and exciting. You can also play several of these games in turns as teams in the party mode, which is a great way to get more than two people involved in the multiplayer shenanigans. As you play all these modes you gain experience points that level you up over time. In earnest the levels are just numbers and have absolutely no bearing on the game’s mechanics, but they help add a necessary sense of progression.

Though the game itself is solid, I was somewhat disappointed with the flippant aesthetic values of Kinect Sports. The sound is generally solid as, even if the commentators are quite irritatingly voiced, there are a wealth of licensed tracks that really add a sense of immersion to your victories. I don’t know who decided to play Chariot of Fire during victorious moments in the track and field games, but he deserves a promotion.

Now if only the Kinect could support this many players at once…

Possibly one of my only hands down issues with the game is the potential replay value of it all. Kinect Sports is certainly the kind of game you can play over and over but, with some of the games lacking much depth, it is a concern that things might get too boring too quickly. It certainly is a concern but, if we’re being honest, this is the kind of game that you’ll always play with friends. As a result of this you’ll find that every new player you bring to the game adds a new dynamic of fun to the package that makes it well worth the asking price. Now if you’ll excuse me some of my buddies need to be schooled at table tennis…

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Rare, Nintendo’s premiere in house developer at one time and now Microsoft’s not so premiere developer, has stated that it has no qualms in admitting that its upcoming Kinect Sports and Nintendo’ motion controlled classic Wii Sports can be compared. In fact, he admits that Rare had a good look at Nintendo’s offering before they set out to make a ‘better game.’

“In terms of the competition, we looked very carefully at Wii Sports,” said Rare’s creative director George Andreas in an interview with Edge. “We didn’t shy away from it – we actually attack it head on, if I’m honest.

“We looked at Wii Sports and, okay, if we were going to do this better, how much further can we go with this and will the consumer see an obvious improvement?”

Apparently, they have succeeded in their goals.

“The user feedback and user testing said we were coming back as a superior experience, and we added a lot of bells and whistles,” he commented, before reiterating: “We never shied away from the Wii Sports comparison.”

Oh, Nintendo. You’ve created a monster, you have.

Kinect Sports hit the stores this November, as one of the dozen launch titles for the peripheral.

Even though a lot of people who tested Kinect say it has lag, Rare says that, “As with any prototype stuff, of course it was in the past. That’s to be expected.”

“Where we’re at now, not at all. Yes, we’ve done a lot work to make sure it wasn’t a problem, but when you’ve got something that’s copying what you’re doing you can’t have a lot of lag.” said Nick Burton, exec producer at Rare.

Burton also said that their focus is now only in casual games, saying that, “It’s been the focus for the past couple of years, but we’re going to do all kinds of stuff, obviously the rebrand for us was more about we wanted to freshen up the image – it was just time for a chance. We’ve done it before, we’ll probably do it again.”

“We are continually looking at what the next thing’s going to be. It might be casual, it might be core, we’ve had such an eclectic mix over the years and we’ll continue to do that.” he added.

But he later on went and said that, “It’s not always going to be as casual as [Kinect Sports]; this is just something we got really excited about.”

And finally he was asked about the similarities between Wii Sports and Kinect Sports, yet Burton said “There’s so much more data, so much more fidelity, so many more things you can do, Kinect’s not just about tracking – there’s voice recognition, identity, so many things. It’s more than the sum of its parts. I’ve been involved for a couple of years and even now we’re like, “Wow, there’s all these things we could do!”

Kinect Sports is set to be released this Holiday season, and will probably be bundled with Kinect.

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