Rather than judge Fantastic Pets by my own standards, I let my children do most of the playing while I observed, noted down things, and ultimately wandered off to do something in the garden. Yes parents, grown-ups, and anyone over the age of roughly 8, there?s not going to be a great deal here to hold your attention I would imagine. But the kids, they seemed to be enjoying it.
Luke is 5, and is pretty adept with most console control methods, including Kinect. Ethan is 2, and is not so adept, but he?s learning to try to tackle pads and mice, and touch screens. Kinect is no different really. Luke had no trouble guiding the shiny orb cursor around the screen, while Ethan simply lacks the patience and hand eye co-ordination at this stage to make the console do what he wants. So Luke did most of the controlling while Ethan shouted from the sidelines. The game?s PEGI rating is 3, but don?t expect your child to get much out of the game unless they?re a) pretty competent with Kinect, and b) able to read a little. Despite Luke being perfectly capable of playing the game, there were still times I was called in to read bits and pieces out for him. He?d also take the opportunity to show off his pet.
One thing that Fantastic Pets has over Kinectimals is the use of ?augmented reality?. In plain English, this means you get to see yourself on screen using the Kinect?s video camera, while the digital 3D computer animals are painted on top of whatever?s going on in your living room. This went down particularly well with my two, as pointing a camera at them never fails to get them to act up. Ethan would leap into shot whenever these sections happened, and wave his arms around madly, generally shouting at the pet on screen. Kinect coped reasonably well with this, occasionally getting confused as to who was the ?primary? player, but more often than not managing OK. During the AR sections, you can tickle and interact with your pet directly, performing a number of gestures to get them to do things like fly (flap your arms), breath fire (gesture from your mouth outwards), and sit (bend your knees). There?s a pleasing number of different instructions to give, and this kept the children amused for a while before they carried on with the game.
Ah yes, the game. The general idea is that you?ve been left in charge of your uncle?s research while he jets around the world investigating new animals. You?ll periodically unlock new animal parts with which to customise your pets, along with new activities and toys to play with. Your pet can be customised at any time, and there are a selection of pet types to chose from. My boys were extremely keen to pick a dragon, but there are dogs, cats, and unicorns to play with too. Along with the playtime style AR sections, there are mini games to take part in, most of which serve as training for the talent competitions you can subsequently enter your pets in. While you?re playing you?re earning GEMS, the game?s currency, and these are used to unlock more and more bits and bobs.
And that, in a nutshell, is about it. Rinse, repeat, until your kids get bored or they?ve collected and the bits and pieces. Which might take some time, depending on your kids, naturally. You can enter one talent competition a day, and in the meantime amuse yourself with mini games, playing with your pet, and customising how it looks using the fairly comprehensive editor. While you can?t go mad, there are limits on size and shape to a certain extent, you can still swap skin colour, eye shape, wing style, and more to create pretty unique looking pets.
Graphically the game is enjoyable, it?s not going to win awards, but it?s not really approaching Wii levels of low res ugliness. There are some lovely pet animations, and the use of the Kinect video is a genuinely nice touch. For example, during a video chat at the start of the game your picture is featured in one of the windows, complete with head tracking if you move around the room. Similarly your picture will appear on screens during the talent competitions. It?s all pointless fluff, but it goes down well with the game?s target audience, and it shows an above average level of commitment from the developers. You genuinely get the impression that they?re taking some pride in what they do, rather than hacking out something that on paper could have been a tired rip off of what?s gone before.
That?s not to say Fantastic Pets is terribly original, it?s not. The whole thing can somewhat lazily be described as Kinectimals meets Eye Pet with a large dash of Nintendogs. But it has a charm of its own, makes good use of Kinect, and, well, dragons. Which was enough of a selling point for my kids.
At its reduced price, if you have children who?ve expressed an interest in it (there?s also a demo on Xbox Live, so you can try before you buy) then Fantastic Pets should provide several hours of entertainment. It will not change the world, and it won?t win any awards, but as kiddy friendly, non-violent entertainment for your Xbox console Fantastic Pets is worth a look.
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Source: http://www.blogomatic3000.com/2011/05/13/review-fantastic-pets-xbox-360kinect/
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