Kinect

If you've read our December/January issue, you'll already know that I was won over by Kinect, despite my initial pessimism. It works a little differently from the PlayStation Move or the Wii, and it makes a huge difference. When you play Kinect you don't need any kind of controller -- you don't need to hold anything at all.

Kinect has an infrared camera that tracks your body's movements, and the software blocks out anything in the background it determines is not a person. It's essentially old technology -- a couple of webcams and some code -- but all of a sudden it's been developed into something that's very futuristic (and very Minority Report).

The technology is far from perfect. The setup takes a lot longer than the others do initially, but once you train it to recognise your face no matter where you are in the room, you can just step in front of the sensor and it will identify you and sign you into your Xbox LIVE profile. Creepy or cool? Either way, it's a bit easier than choosing your profile every time on the Wii (or, hell, on the 360 when it's not running Kinect), and a lot easier than calibrating every two minutes as you have to when using the Move. It's essentially a lengthy initial setup for a long-term payoff.

Kinect has some serious drawbacks that will need to be resolved in the next version. The key one is lag, which occurs when the finicky sensor isn't set up right -- and very occasionally when it is. The lag is only half a second, and may not annoy a non-gamer, but if you're used to gaming you'll definitely notice.