PAX East 2011 – Kinect, Lord of the Rings

Spoony | Mar 16 2011 | more | 
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Since the Kinect didn’t really bring anything new to the show, why should I change my tune?

CORRECTION: Hm, I appear to have made another gaffe. I believe the Michael Jackson game is also coming out for the Sony Move. But like the Wii version, I think it’s best if we just pretend those don’t exist. Even so, it is my error.

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  • http://twitter.com/Timpedia Tim Northrop

    Just wanted to clarify: War in the North and the Kinect have nothing to do with each other right? There wasn’t really any set segue so I wasn’t sure

    • http://spoonyexperiment.com The Spoony One

      Correct. I was just getting LOTR out of the way while I was busy being a fanboy.

      • http://twitter.com/Timpedia Tim Northrop

        Gotcha. I have a feeling seeing that combination would have turned you into Spoon-Hulk and you might have destroyed PAX

      • http://twitter.com/Timpedia Tim Northrop

        Gotcha. I have a feeling seeing that combination would have turned you into Spoon-Hulk and you might have destroyed PAX

      • http://twitter.com/Timpedia Tim Northrop

        Gotcha. I have a feeling seeing that combination would have turned you into Spoon-Hulk and you might have destroyed PAX

  • http://twitter.com/Timpedia Tim Northrop

    Just wanted to clarify: War in the North and the Kinect have nothing to do with each other right? There wasn’t really any set segue so I wasn’t sure

  • http://twitter.com/Timpedia Tim Northrop

    Just wanted to clarify: War in the North and the Kinect have nothing to do with each other right? There wasn’t really any set segue so I wasn’t sure

  • http://twitter.com/yersifanel Rocio Quintanilla

    Whit the amount of things that we like that were ok and then a “new version” ruined them (White Wolf, I’m looking at you!) anyone would tell us that we should be used to this things, maybe we are, but it still hurts!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1798310608 Jan Pospíšil

    Oh boy. I was almost worried you’d like War in the North. Good, good.

  • Anonymous

    Okay, I can see with the Lord of the Rings “game” you’d be coming back from PAX pissed.

  • Anonymous

    Okay, I can see with the Lord of the Rings “game” you’d be coming back from PAX pissed.

  • https://profiles.google.com/shadcroly/about Shadsy

    We can all feel our childhood dieing, Spoony. We all can…

  • https://profiles.google.com/shadcroly/about Shadsy

    We can all feel our childhood dieing, Spoony. We all can…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben-Homeier/100000103707607 Ben Homeier

    Aww Spoony, what’d you expect with a mage class? I mean, I’m sure it will be better than LotR: Conquest…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben-Homeier/100000103707607 Ben Homeier

    Aww Spoony, what’d you expect with a mage class? I mean, I’m sure it will be better than LotR: Conquest…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000552012090 Mathias Kjeldsen

    Hey, at least it’s not a Song of Ice and Fire RTS. Now -that- really pushes my buttons.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000552012090 Mathias Kjeldsen

    Hey, at least it’s not a Song of Ice and Fire RTS. Now -that- really pushes my buttons.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000552012090 Mathias Kjeldsen

    Hey, at least it’s not a Song of Ice and Fire RTS. Now -that- really pushes my buttons.

  • Anonymous

    wow… that’s even more ridiculous than when I saw that preview of the Harry Potter game where you do the same thing… Don’t worry, Spoony, I’ll hold the extra gas cans.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1044746313 Thorsten Reimnitz

    This LOTR game is crazy. You can even see the sorcerer’s staff move backwards like a fired gun, when he’s “shooting” at the ork. So magic follows the laws of physic? Action equals reaction? Time for the wizard Albertus Einsteinium to make this clear!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1044746313 Thorsten Reimnitz

    This LOTR game is crazy. You can even see the sorcerer’s staff move backwards like a fired gun, when he’s “shooting” at the ork. So magic follows the laws of physic? Action equals reaction? Time for the wizard Albertus Einsteinium to make this clear!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Eric-Carlsson/100001008026756 Eric Carlsson

    Great series of videos! keep up the good work.

  • http://www.facebook.com/EternalSonata2010 Anthony Valunas

    Haha, you saved the best video for last this morning. The Kinect, like the XBox 360 itself, is a joke. Also, I’m not afraid to say that The Michael Jackson Experience for the Wii is a fun game; don’t knock it until you try it. I bought it for my fiance and thought it was going to be an incredible waste of money (IGN’s 3.8 ranking didn’t help, either), but once I saw her try it out and hopped in to give it a test drive, it’s pretty fun. Even better at parties.

    And War in the North…wow…I think you summed that up pretty well. Let’s just say your childhood isn’t the only one that’s been dying.

    • dennett316

      “…like the Xbox 360 itself is a joke.” Oh jeez, please tell me you’re not a console fanboy…unless you’re 12 and can only get Mum and Dad to buy you the one console, there’s really no excuse for “My console rules, yours suxxxx!” type posts.
      I own both (and a wii which gets precious little use at the moment) and while it obviously doesn’t have the on-paper grunt of the PS3, the 360 is easier to develop for and there’s been a ton of great games on it. I’ve had more use from my 360 due to 3rd party titles usually being better on that platform than the PS3, though the PS3 is getting use now thanks to the Prince of Persia trilogy.

      As for Kinect, I tend to agree with you considering the games being released (or lack thereof), when the best stuff it can do is coming from the homebrew scene, you know there’s trouble. It has the potential to be better than it is though, it’s whether or not the game makers get their act together.

      • http://www.facebook.com/EternalSonata2010 Anthony Valunas

        I’m not a fanboy at all. I’m a PC Gamer and also game on a PS3 and a Wii. My opinion of an XBox has always been a poor man’s gaming PC. The 360 has great exclusives I’d like to play (Alan Wake, Dead or Alive 4, Gears of War 2, the first Dead Rising, Geometry Wars 2, and the Mistwalker games (Blue Dragon & Lost Odyssey). I also credit Microsoft for making a great integrated online system for consoles for XBox Live.

        However, they REALLY dropped the ball with the design flaw that plagues the 360. For weeks I’ve been reading a 167-page and counting thread on a message board I frequent about people having numerous problems with their consoles and there’s even an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the system’s technical problems (the only console to have one that I know of).

        I just want a console that works, and I enjoy Sony’s exclusives and system more. My PS3 doesn’t give me any problems.

  • http://twitter.com/CedarMusketeer Bryan Gardner

    Glad to see you recovering from PAX East. It’s been too long since I’ve seen a video from you. I hate to say it, but the best stuff from the Kinect I have seen is what people are doing with it away from the 360. Macrosponge, I mean Microsoft, said that the wierd little camera could be used with the PC as well as the 360 and the code for the Kinect is open source so people have used the Kinect to do Motion capture work, to create light saber battles. I have even seen people using the Kinect to play MineCraft, one of the most addictive indie games out there. So, the Kinect itself isn’t a bad thing, but Microsoft put it out for the wrong platform.

    As for LOTROL, I think my brother is the biggest purest when it comes to the books and he won’t touch the games. I mean sure, he did play it for a bit to try it out, but he gave up on it becasue it was nothign like the book. Though he did have the most epic hobit name ever, Douche Baggins.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V7YJOI6GLXU7SZYVTUXAIUA2AI Common Thoughts

    Eh, I still feel the Move version of MJ Experience will be awesome. However, both the Kinect and Move don’t have much in line as far as games.

  • Anonymous

    geez you still hate teddie, why so mean to him shouldn’t you have gotten to hate him less as the game went on, or did you give up on Kanji’s dungeon or something?

  • Anonymous

    I disagree. Tolkien probably wouldn’t murder people like that. I think his ghost would just haunt them until they are convinced that this would work better as a Warhammer game.

  • http://twitter.com/Mordaedil Mordaedil

    Lord of the Rings just doesn’t work as a game, unless we’re talking about a Fallout 3-esque survival where the environment itself tries to kill you and there are no guns or weapons.

  • http://twitter.com/Mordaedil Mordaedil

    Lord of the Rings just doesn’t work as a game, unless we’re talking about a Fallout 3-esque survival where the environment itself tries to kill you and there are no guns or weapons.

  • http://twitter.com/Mordaedil Mordaedil

    Lord of the Rings just doesn’t work as a game, unless we’re talking about a Fallout 3-esque survival where the environment itself tries to kill you and there are no guns or weapons.

  • Anonymous

    Meh. Lord of the Rings games can’t hold a fucking candle to the Lord of the Rings Slot Machine Adventure. Yes, this not only exists, I have the T-Shirt to prove it.

  • Anonymous

    Meh. Lord of the Rings games can’t hold a fucking candle to the Lord of the Rings Slot Machine Adventure. Yes, this not only exists, I have the T-Shirt to prove it.

  • http://twitter.com/Brandchan Brandi Swenson

    Spoony, do you need some *ehugs*? The problem is people keep buying those shitty has LotRs games, which I’ll never understand.

  • Anonymous

    I find that LotR footage disappointing for an entirely different reason.
    I like to play video games with my father, who doesn’t understand any games except for beat-em-ups. Snowblind has made some of our favorite games to play together, and we were looking forward to getting this one because we thought it’d be more of the same. But seeing how mages are apparently going to be played, I guess it’s safe to say it won’t be a top-down beat em up, which means he won’t understand how to play it.

  • Anonymous

    Ugh. I really wanted to like War In The North. I love Hack & Slash, especially Co-op and since the only LOTR game that was ever any good was the BFME RTS’s, I was really rooting for this one. That mage staff just killed it for me. That is by far the most stupid animation for a mages auto-attack ever. They should really peek over at DA2′s Mage attack animation and do some stealing.

    Great videos, Spoony. It’s refreshing to hear someone’s original thoughts on new and upcoming games instead of a standard media outlet.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Williams/15618827 Seth Williams

    Inhuman. Relentless. Unstoppable. He has only one purpose: literature. Oh, and murder. The Tolkienator. Coming soon to an awesome, imaginary theater near you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Williams/15618827 Seth Williams

    Inhuman. Relentless. Unstoppable. He has only one purpose: literature. Oh, and murder. The Tolkienator. Coming soon to an awesome, imaginary theater near you.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Seth-Williams/15618827 Seth Williams

    Inhuman. Relentless. Unstoppable. He has only one purpose: literature. Oh, and murder. The Tolkienator. Coming soon to an awesome, imaginary theater near you.

  • http://twitter.com/Haitani Haitani

    Disco x Prince :D love that song!

  • http://twitter.com/Haitani Haitani

    Disco x Prince :D love that song!

  • http://twitter.com/Haitani Haitani

    Disco x Prince :D love that song!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tinja-Andersen/716121384 Tinja Andersen

    Did spoony just make a Jojo’s bizzare adventure reference with the WRYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

  • http://www.facebook.com/arribazacatecassss César Bowie

    For a man who claims not to like anime that much, he has made a fair amount of anime references via this medium

    Personally I’m guessing he found that Terl macro online and put it in the video just for the hell of it.

  • http://twitter.com/TromaDogg Tezz Williams

    So Kinect doesn’t have any meaningful software for it on the horizon other than party game shovelware and a port of The Micheal Jackson experience? Shocking. Who’d have thunk it, eh? At least people might realise that now because it was impossible to convince a lot of people not to waste money on it in the run up to Christmas last year, and those same people were continously bleating about what a great purchase it was despite the fact that Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports showcase pretty much everything the Kinect is capable of. No, wait! You can turn the Xbox on and off with voice commands! Great! That’s money well spent then.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alvin-Santiphanpithaks/683000179 Alvin Santiphanpithaks

    Funny how you specifically talk about Lord of the Rings: War in the North and its “Wizard” as being un-Tolkien-esque. It’s a common problem in adaptations of the novels in that they overemphasize “magic” in the universe to match Harry Potter or something. Several LotR videogames are like this. The miniature games are somewhat like this. Apparently the subtle difference of “High fantasy” and “low fantasy” just pass over some people’s heads.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Discordius-Erisianus/100000352364153 Discordius Erisianus

    They should burn for doing such a thing to the Lord of the Rings. My childhood is dying too and I’m 10 years younger than Noah.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Discordius-Erisianus/100000352364153 Discordius Erisianus

    They should burn for doing such a thing to the Lord of the Rings. My childhood is dying too and I’m 10 years younger than Noah.

  • http://www.facebook.com/rolland.therrien Rolland Therrien

    Y’know, at least Lord of the Rings Online pays tribute to the Lore, and the only two classes that stretch the canon are the Loremaster and the Runecaster. And the Loremaster is primarily a pet-using class, while the Runecaster is limited to Elves and Dwarves, who might be justified in having some “magic” tricks that Men and Hobbits have no knowledge of.

    But this? This is Tripe.

  • http://www.spazoutloud.com/ SpazOutLoud

    That looks nothing like Lord of the Rings! Urgh….. Spoony I’m so glad you posted this.

  • http://www.spazoutloud.com/ SpazOutLoud

    That looks nothing like Lord of the Rings! Urgh….. Spoony I’m so glad you posted this.

  • http://www.spazoutloud.com/ SpazOutLoud

    That looks nothing like Lord of the Rings! Urgh….. Spoony I’m so glad you posted this.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-Ottoson/100000693361189 Joe Ottoson

    The Move does have the advantage of having a lot of games that have been patched to accommodate the motion controls. Not to mention that there are a lot more Move games in a variety of genres already.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Rodney-Delano-Jackson/100001892247934 Rodney Delano Jackson

    No one… no one’s gonna. Okay fine I’ll say it. Spoony I love you even more for the music selection for this video. DISCO★PRINCE from the We Love Katamari Soundtrack? I’d know that song anywhere.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Oliver-Meyer/1288596186 Oliver Meyer

    I’m getting a strong Dragon Age vibe from War in the North….an accident? I don’t think so.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Oliver-Meyer/1288596186 Oliver Meyer

    I’m getting a strong Dragon Age vibe from War in the North….an accident? I don’t think so.

  • Anonymous

    I read sites like Newscientist and I see the purpose of the Kinect is less a peripheral for playing games and more a tool to conduct SCIENCE!!!

  • Anonymous

    I read sites like Newscientist and I see the purpose of the Kinect is less a peripheral for playing games and more a tool to conduct SCIENCE!!!

  • Anonymous

    I have my 360 hooked up to my PC LCD and I Already feel goofy trying to play rock band on it. I can’t imagine having that bulky-assed camera on top and doing dance moves that would have you removed from a club for fear you may injure someone!

  • Anonymous

    I have my 360 hooked up to my PC LCD and I Already feel goofy trying to play rock band on it. I can’t imagine having that bulky-assed camera on top and doing dance moves that would have you removed from a club for fear you may injure someone!

  • Anonymous

    I have my 360 hooked up to my PC LCD and I Already feel goofy trying to play rock band on it. I can’t imagine having that bulky-assed camera on top and doing dance moves that would have you removed from a club for fear you may injure someone!

  • Anonymous

    Meh this isn’t the first game to turn LOTR Wizards into a magic machine gunning class. There has been like 3 before this that did the same thing. They made a Battlefront style game an the Wizard class could shoot fireballs an make forcefields an I was like what the **** is going on lol. I also read the books heh.

    An yeah Kinect is supposed to be revolutionary yet the games that are made for it are so freaking simple an weak. They are practically cell phone games.

  • Anonymous

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandalf’s got a gun

    What made Gandalf snap?
    Was he tired of Saruman’s crap?

    They say when Gandalf was arrested, they found the Balrog headless in the tra-a-a-sh. I hear the riders really runnin’
    now that the Grey is a gunnin’ nothing will be the sa-a-a-m-e.

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandal’s got a gun…

  • Anonymous

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandalf’s got a gun

    What made Gandalf snap?
    Was he tired of Saruman’s crap?

    They say when Gandalf was arrested, they found the Balrog headless in the tra-a-a-sh. I hear the riders really runnin’
    now that the Grey is a gunnin’ nothing will be the sa-a-a-m-e.

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandal’s got a gun…

  • Anonymous

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandalf’s got a gun

    What made Gandalf snap?
    Was he tired of Saruman’s crap?

    They say when Gandalf was arrested, they found the Balrog headless in the tra-a-a-sh. I hear the riders really runnin’
    now that the Grey is a gunnin’ nothing will be the sa-a-a-m-e.

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandal’s got a gun…

  • Anonymous

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandalf’s got a gun

    What made Gandalf snap?
    Was he tired of Saruman’s crap?

    They say when Gandalf was arrested, they found the Balrog headless in the tra-a-a-sh. I hear the riders really runnin’
    now that the Grey is a gunnin’ nothing will be the sa-a-a-m-e.

    Gandalf’s got a gun
    Gandal’s got a gun…

  • Anonymous

    Ah Kinnect. When you’re outdone by the dsi, you know it’s time to rapidly run into the legal department and scream at them to hurriedly come up with a viable patent so that you can sue Nintendo with for upwards of $50M. Either that or run screaming into the engineering department to see if they can quickly whip up a time machine so you can go back to 1997 and successfully sell the damn thing. … Although by that time, you’d probably be confronted by time-travelling agents from the future who don’t want you to go back and re-work the past because it would interrupt causality and cause the universe to devolve into a Higgs Boson particle, so it probably wouldn’t be worth it.

    Why am I rambling like a George W Bush knockoff with a frontal lobotomy? I’m not quite sure. Everything was fine until the kinnect segment ended. After that I just saw this red haze drift down over my eyes and then my memory goes blank. Hey, wasn’t Spoony going to talk about the new lotr game at some point?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S2UG632H55PI352IJ677VP3GJU Daniel Opel

    They do understand that you could basically count every last mage on Middle-earth with two hands, and that even guys like Sauron and Gandalf didn’t actually do any fancy stuff, right?

    Christ, the only way to rape the source material even harder is if the mage gets the option to dual-wield rods for a little bit of John-Woo-action…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S2UG632H55PI352IJ677VP3GJU Daniel Opel

    They do understand that you could basically count every last mage on Middle-earth with two hands, and that even guys like Sauron and Gandalf didn’t actually do any fancy stuff, right?

    Christ, the only way to rape the source material even harder is if the mage gets the option to dual-wield rods for a little bit of John-Woo-action…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dmitri-Porsche/100001795589159 Dmitri Porsche

    You should get used to Kinect and stuff, gimmicks sell, sell really good, even if it’s crap in some people opinion.
    Some system by some company sold really good and Kinect now in The Guinness World Records as the best selling gadget.
    Dragon Age 2, Kinect and Black Ops, bright future of gaming.

    • Anonymous

      I felt my soul wither just then.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dmitri-Porsche/100001795589159 Dmitri Porsche

    You should get used to Kinect and stuff, gimmicks sell, sell really good, even if it’s crap in some people opinion.
    Some system by some company sold really good and Kinect now in The Guinness World Records as the best selling gadget.
    Dragon Age 2, Kinect and Black Ops, bright future of gaming.

  • Anonymous

    Raaage! Magic in LOTR doesn’t work that way!! Also, there are only five wizards in Middle Earth. Who the Hell was that avatar? Didn’t look like Gandalf or Saruman, and I hope that’s not how Radagast looks like. (The other two has disappeared long ago).

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1140375550 Daniel Dowell

    The wizards staff reminded me of the jaffa’s staff weapon in stargate

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1140375550 Daniel Dowell

    The wizards staff reminded me of the jaffa’s staff weapon in stargate

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1140375550 Daniel Dowell

    The wizards staff reminded me of the jaffa’s staff weapon in stargate

  • Anonymous

    Gahh, for a second I thought he had a guitar!

  • Anonymous

    You are not wrong and in fact are very right. That LotR game looks like a nightmare. Way to rape a dear series, guys.

    Keep it for mass-friendly Dragon Age 2 type games.

  • http://twitter.com/BigPuppy_Stuart Stuart Phip

    They should use the Kinect to make a First person wizard RPG, where you use arm movements to cast spells. They should also rename LOTR: War in the north to….. anything else.

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