[Review] – Fruit Ninja Kinect

[Gamercide]

Cutting fruit.  Sounds simple right?  Well, when put in game form it becomes an astonishingly addictive concept.  You are a ninja whose sole purpose is to cut fruit.  Previously it was limited to the mobile market.  Deft finger flicks would allow you to slice through fruit and avoid bombs.  Can Halfbrick bring this same game play to Kinect?

If you’ve played the mobile version, you know the deal here.  Fruit is thrown up on the screen and you have to use your hands to slice it.  Slicing multiple fruit at once gives you multipliers and you gain more points.  Occasionally, game ending or point sapping bombs will be thrown across.  Don’t slice those.

“Slicing” may be a bit generous here.  While the mechanic works great, it becomes more of a flailing of your arms than precise ninja like skills.  It’s not as easy to pick up and play as the mobile version, but overall it works much better than anticipated.

There are multiple game modes to keep you entertained.  Classic Mode asks you to slice as many pieces of fruit as possible without slicing a bomb or missing 3 pieces of fruit.  Arcade Mode adds in bonus bananas that can double your points, freeze the timer, or put everything in slow motion.  Zen Mode is pretty straightforward. You get 90 seconds to slice as much fruit as possible.  No bombs.

Halfbrick has also added in multiplayer.  Competitive 2 player mode highlights fruit red or blue and slicing your opponent’s fruit reduces your points.  There is also team based multiplayer where you are out to get more points than the opposing team.  It really was the most fun I have had in any Kinect multiplayer game to date.

Last, but not least is Challenge Mode.  When you go to this mode, your Fruit Master gives you different goals to achieve.  They will range from generic “Score 250 in Classic Mode” or it will pull directly from your friends list and tell you to beat the highest score.  It became addictive trying to beat the others on my friends list and gloating to them over messages when I finally did.

The only drawback to the game is the menu interface.  The hands-free control just feels clunky and will cause frustration when you select something you didn’t mean to select.  It is a small problem, but really did frustrate me at some points.  Especially in the unlockable screen.  Speaking of unlockable, there is a lengthy list of new blades, backgrounds, and shadow textures to unlock.  As with the main menu though, selecting these is an exercise in frustration.

Halfbrick really did a great job of taking a dead simple mobile game and translating it to the Kinect.  Menu problems aside, the game is addicting and chock full of fun, especially with friends.  There’s nothing more satisfying than getting that 9 hit combo at the last second to beat your friend’s high score.  I highly recommend this to any fan of the mobile versions of the game.  Now, go my pupil and slice some fruit.

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