Child of Eden X360 Review

Child of Eden at the very least is something to look at. A spiritual successor to Rez, it's graphics consist of brightly coloured enemies, explosions and environments - some can really take your breath away.

Child of Eden takes place years in the future when our world is the Internet (only now it's called Eden). Lumi (a young woman) was the first person to be born out of the Internet and so she is the Child of Eden. But Eden is under attack by viruses, and it's your job to destroy those viruses! In that sense Child of Eden is a Rhythm-Action-On-Rails-Shooter!

That's about as deep as the story goes! But this game was never going to be about story. It's about fun. And in that sense it succeeds for the most part. It's a fun game that can be played with an X360 Controller or with Kinect. I went with the Kinect option for the most part. It's not particularly superior, but after spending £130 on Kinect I wanted something to use it with! And for the most part it works well. Using your right and left hands to use different guns is a system that works usually, but when things get more manic at the end of each level, problems occur. And the amount of Kinect-related deaths you get can be pretty infuriating. 


But, that's not to say it's bad on Kinect. There is fun to be had through using Microsoft's motion sensor, it's just that maybe the controller is the more accurate way to go.

The main issue people seem to have with this game is its length - and yes it's not the longest game in the world by a long shot. With only 5 levels it is what many would call short. But it's not too unreasonable. The levels each offer a challenge and so can require playing through multiple times, and if you're a fan of high scores then you're in for a treat! Not to mention the different difficulty levels. I thought it lasted long enough to avoid being a rip-off.

One thing I didn't like about this game, and one thing that may put people off is the lack of checkpoints. If you're anything like me you will find yourself getting to the tail-end of a level, dying, and being sent to the very beginning again, this is one of the most annoying things that can happen in gaming - and it will happen here!

There is a mode titled 'Feel-Eden' in which you can play through levels without taking any damage, but having no danger at all ends up making things a little boring.

Although that doesn't stop it from being a good game. At the end of the day this is a fun game, and something that will stop your Kinect from gathering dust for a little while. And due to poor sales, it can be picked up cheap pre-owned and it's even being packaged with new Kinect sensors along with Kinect Adventures, so there has never been a better time to pick it up if you can get past the sometime inaccurate Kinect controls, and an annoying lack of checkpoints. It's by no means perfect, but it is one of the more interesting uses of Kinect on the market.

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