On a gloomy, wet and cold day in Cologne, Germany, El33tonline set off on an adventure through the streets of the city on a quest to discover the location of Microsoft’s pre-gamescom event, the ‘ Play Day,’ a product showcase that was said to give games media extended (and first time) hands-on time with a slew of Kinect titles, two blockbusters, and a few recently announced games and initiatives.

Once we found the event (situated in a peculiar location, in a row of highly unassuming buildings housing factory equipment), we also found that we hadn’t been led astray – there were indeed a host of upcoming Xbox 360 and PC (Games For Windows LIVE) titles available to play.

And play was done.

Upon entering the building, visitors were met with a row of Kinect games to demonstrate, ‘in the flesh,’ the promise and reality of Microsoft’s controller-free gaming device.

Kinect Dashboard

One of the main draws for the Kinect and its ‘controller-free’ nature is how this technology will aid the navigation of menus, and luckily there was a demo station set up where visitors could test out how Microsoft intends using Kinect to full effect while navigating through the Xbox 360 Dashboard.

The Dashboard, at least while using Kinect, is very different to the current menu system used for the Xbox 360, and is almost comparable to the console’s first ‘blade-based’ dashboard system, with menu items located to the left and right of the currently selected menu.

By moving your hand in front of the Kinect camera, an on-screen hand cursor moves across every available menu option and location, ready to select. Leaving your hand over a certain option will bring up a quick (circular) timer that counts down until your selection is made, and you then move into the next menu. No button press required. You can also quickly flip through full menus with a quick swipe of your hand, resulting in a very slick, fast transition.

Playing movies and other media with Kinect is also very intuitive – to fast-forward through a movie, for example, you’ll only need to move your hand over the timeline (the hand icon ‘snaps’ to the selection) and then gesture back and forth along the timeline to fast-forward and rewind.

Is this the future of menu navigation? Not quite in this iteration of the technology, but I can definitely see gamers starting to prefer this method over using a controller in hand.

Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach’s brand of the Firefight mode from Halo 3: ODST was on display at the Play Day event, and there was never a shortage of players to join one another in a bit of multiplayer action and team up to fight off waves upon waves of enemies. Each wave of enemies steadily became stronger and stronger, and before long, weak fodder was traded in for fearsome foes.

Funnily enough, Halo: Reach looks and plays very much like a Halo game. This is sure to come as good news to Halo fans who haven’t yet had a chance to sample Reach’s multiplayer, and even despite numerous improvements and tweaks to the gameplay and ‘feel’ of the game, there’s never any mistaking Reach for another game. The art direction is similar, the sound effects are familiar and classic, the weapon models are still suitably punchy and effective in different encounters, and you’re constantly mixing up between large scale and intimate combat, with the necessary strategy that comes with such a large number of elements mixed together.

Halo: Reach multiplayer, as far as I’m concerned, is ‘classic’ Halo… for better or worse.

Fable III

Fable III was looking very interesting at the Play Day event, and an entire section of the story was available to play through with a fairly powerful character to help visitors along. Peter Molyneux has said it before, but Fable III is indeed very much an action game with role-playing elements, rather than the other way around. Certain areas and combat scenarios felt a lot like a third-person hack ‘n slash game in terms of the amount of action involved in wading through enemies, while spells are also available to cast so as to damage and affect enemies.

From the looks of demo at least, Lionhead is making sure players are able to feel incredibly powerful and even stylish while performing special moves, casting spells and swinging an implement of death – enemies will be sent airborne with a swing of a mighty hammer, while there’s no stopping a certain magic spell that uses two orbs of energy held in either hand to cause devastating area of effect damage to foes.

Fable III is also looking particularly impressive with great art direction and moments during combat that slow down to increase the satisfaction of smashing an enemy in the face. Lovely.

Age of Empires Online

A newly announced title called Age of Empires Online was present at the event, and it must be said that it’s looking quite snazzy, with great stylised graphics and colourful visuals to represent an isometric view of the landscape.

Age of Empires Online is, of course, the continuation of the classic PC strategy franchise, Age of Empires, only this game will feature (of course) online accoutrements and is aimed at old-time fans as well as gamers who’ve never heard of the series before. Age of Empires Online is set to be a free-to-play online game available over Microsoft’s Games For Windows LIVE service, although a release date is currently unknown.

Sonic Free Riders

One title that hasn’t been covered extensively due to its relatively recent announcement is sonicfreeriders for Kinect, an Xbox 360 game that gathers all of your favourite characters from the Sonic universe and pits them against each other in a racing game, where Sonic and co. run and slide around futuristic winding courses while jumping off of ramps, performing special moves in the air and trying to catch as many special items as possible.

To begin a race, you must slide your foot across the floor (as though you were kicking off on a skateboard), and then in order to manoeuvre your character of choice around the race course, you’ll need to lean left and right to control that character. Physically jumping as an on-screen character hits a ramp will allow players to fly higher in the air, and then while in the air, you must flail your arms around in order to collect items.

Lots of motion. Quite fun in practice.

Kinect Adventures

After a bit of a rocky introduction period from its reveal at E3 until now, seeing Kinect Adventures in person makes it seem as though it’s finally coming together and has the potential to be a lot of fun… although it’s dubious how long the fun will last.

Kinect Adventures, as you may have seen, combines many disparate adventurous activities and puts them together in one package to let players go river rafting, climb into a space chamber, balance on unstable platforms, and many more, all while trying to collect as many special items as possible by physically jumping and waving your arms to control other movement (like flapping your arms once to move in zero-g environments in space, for example).

These mini-games are all great fun for a few tries, but I fear that once you’ve experienced the games on offer more than a half-dozen times, you may grow tired of them. It’s also entirely possible that you could find your favourite game amongst the offerings in Kinect Adventures, much like the way players found their favourite game in Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort and continued to play that game only.

Dance Central

Dance Central was clearly one of the more exciting and favoured titles shown at the Play Day event, as evidenced by the large crowds of onlookers that swarmed, dissipated and then billowed again around the two display areas.

While I didn’t try Dance Central out for myself (for semi-obvious reasons), it seems to be an extremely friendly title for newcomers, as well as those who fear that their dancing ‘efforts’ will become the next YouTube sensation… for all the wrong reasons.

Dance routines are shown on-screen and players are invited to mimic the movements made by the on-screen avatars (directly mirrored to your orientation, i.e. their left is your right and vice versa). These routines can range from very simple actions like arm movements and basic steps, to crazily complex combinations of steps, body motions, arm gestures and more… you’ll need vast quantities of coordination to keep up with Dance Central at the more difficult levels, but as mentioned, the game is extremely friendly to players without an ounce of rhythm.

If the game detects you’re having trouble with a certain sequence of moves, it’ll break the movements down for you and slow the actions so you can get the gist of it, before going back into full speed again.

Dang… now I wish I had tried Dance Central… but for me, this is a game I might want to indulge in in the privacy of my own home, thank-you-very-much.

Kinectimals

Another stellar-looking Kinect game, Kinectimals features the antics of a selection of feline friends (cubs of larger cat varieties), and allows players to interact with these animals with arm and body gestures. Sometimes you’ll even ‘suggest’ actions for your cat of choice, by clapping to get the cat to catch a firefly, for example.

Simple movements like leaning sideways and spinning around on the spot will make your cat perform different tricks (like playing dead and jumping in the air, respectively), and you can also interact with the cats using chew-toys.

Obstacle courses also await, where you take semi-direct control of your cat as it runs through tubes, jumps over hurdles, and balances on beams, all controlled with your own body movement.

Kinectimals is more of a charming interactive experience than a solid, tangible game, but graphically, it’s outstanding and really sells you on the idea that you have a living, breathing pet in your TV.

Kinect Sports

Kinect Sports is another title that may find its way into a schedule of entertainment during social gatherings, but not at any other time.

Competing against another player while running down a sports track (performed by physically running on the spot), or boxing (by physically pumping your fists) or playing soccer (by taking turns to strategically kick a ball from player to player) is a much more enjoyable activity, I would imagine, than partaking in any of these activities on your own in the virtual realm.

Kinect Sports could end up as a great party game, and may even inspire players to include it as an exercise regimen (it’s takes quite a lot of puff)… but who knows if gamers will still be playing even a year from now. Let’s watch…

Your Shape and Kinect Joy Ride

The fitness game, Your Shape, and the motion-controlled Kart racer, Kinect Joy Ride, were also both present at the Microsoft ‘Play Day’ event, but due to there being quite a few titles to look at during the course of the show, we didn’t manage to get proper impressions of either title…

…except to say that people playing Kinect Joy Ride look fairly ridiculous with their arms stretched out in front of them, furiously twisting, turning and shoving forward in the air as though locked in fierce battle with an imaginary foe, all in an effort to control a kart around some great looking environments and boost ahead of competitors. Looks fun though.

Your Shape, on the other hand, will make players look pretty slick as they perform different yoga moves, as well as kick and punch in mid-air to destroy sets of blocks. Well, that last one may make you look like a buffoon, but if the Play Day is anything to go by, this is what Kinect is all about.

Microsoft’s Vision for Mobile Gaming

Microsoft had a central area of the show floor dedicated to showing off the ‘Xbox LIVE experience’ running on Windows Phone 7 – this service will include everything you’d expect from Xbox LIVE, with Achievements, friends lists, Avatars etc. but running on a mobile phone.

Unfortunately we didn’t get any hands- or even eyes-on time with this technology, but we’re sure to hear more about it very soon, as Microsoft introduces the first set of Xbox LIVE games to mobile.

That’s All, Folks

That was pretty much all that was available at Microsoft’s pre-gamescom ‘Play Day’ event, but it was quite effective in giving media some quality hands-on time with the company’s upcoming crop of games, and further fuel excitement for the Kinect device. Dance Central and Kinectimals would be the top picks of the games on show, but that sentiment probably hasn’t changed amongst gamers since Kinect was more fully revealed at E3 this year.

There’s at least one more Kinect believer amongst the team at El33tonline, that’s for sure!

Look out for the release of the device on November 4th in the US, and on November 10th across Europe.