We’ve had our hands on the sequel to Kinect Sports, and it sure was fun to try out with a couple nice people in a friendly competition.

Season Two have the same graphics, the same sounds, the same way of playing. They basically kept what was good and refined the gameplay with enhanced movements, better steering and more complex games.

Add six new sports to your library

I was surprised to see American Football in there, and boy it was exhausting to play – a really good workout. With running, stepping to the side and throwing the ball in a lenghty game, most people will at least be able to feel the workout. With four downs to get to the opponents end zone for a touchdown and no extra downs if you gain 10 yards, the game aren’t following the official rules fully. With no defensive play, you can only hope that the opponent won’t score enough points to gain in on your score.

Dart seems to be more true to the original game, with 310 points going down. Score points by throwing darts and hitting the big targets and finish off by hitting a double-point to reach zero. The game offers an assistant, to tell you which target is worth going for. You can turn this off though, and I advise you to do this, unless you’re horrible at math and can’t put two and two together. It is incredibly difficult to aim – more about that in the critique section later in the review.

As with the football event, the Baseball minigame is a very simplistic representation of the real thing. It’s basically just a gameplay comprised of hit’n’run’n’throw’n’catch. But that’s what we would expect from a minigame with a baseball theme, isn’t it? Even though baseball is a sport that is non-existent in my country, I still know a thing or two and I can still enjoy the minigame, nonetheless. You play two innings, once as a hitter and once as a pitcher, in each inning. It doesn’t sound like much, but it seems fitting in a minigame like this., you would grow bored with a full fletched 9 inning game.

The Skiing is pretty fun. Going down the slope you’ll have to go through the slalom gates to avoid a time penalty by leaning to either side, all while making jumps and proceeding with a certain speed that’ll secure you first place by standing . The overall winner after two rounds gets the cake. Even though there is no cake. In the game, that is. I’ll refrain from coming with a Portal reference here, so just go out into your kitchen and make your own cake.

We only tried Golf and Tennis very quickly, but they work as you’d expect from a Kinect game. Swing your arm to hit the ball in tennis, stand sideways in golf and step to the side to aim in the right direction – and remember to swing both your arms in the right speed to get the ball to the green.

Virtual worlds are bound to include some fantasy, and Kinect Sports Season Two does just that with their including of Special Events. In skiing there’s Downhill Dodge, in golf there’s Ocean Driver and Dart has a pop version, just in case you want a more festive experience.

Encountering problems

Dart works great most of the time, it is absolutely horrible at other times. You have to imitate holding a dart in your hand, as you would if you were playing the real thing. And then you have to aim the little crosshair over the desired target. Often, that would be the triple-twenty target, until your score is low enough to go for the win. This actually work great, but when your crosshair is lined up perfectly, you have to pull your arm back and prepare the throw. A lot of times, the Kinect sensor simply reads your motion as a wrong input, and moves the crosshair instead, which requires you to reset and aim the crosshair back to the desired target. This gets frustratingly old, when it happens four, seven or even ten times in a row. But when it works, it’s actually pretty fun, and you convince yourself that it’s pretty entertaining. But that feeling only lasts until the next time the crosshair flies all over the place.

Even if your game library already contain the first Kinect Sports, unless you don’t play it, I highly recommend that buy the second season. With six new sports to play and refined Kinect movements, it’s worth the buy. It’s fun at parties with friends and family, just make sure to have enough space and no fragile things nearby.