Rez was one of those niche titles that was a masterpiece that nobody seemed to know about. It sold horribly despite good reviews. Now comes Child of Eden, which is Q Entertainments chance at financial as well as critical success.



For those unfamiliar with with Rez may wonder what I'm talking about. child of Eden takes you on a psychoactive trip through the future where the Internet has become it's own being and it's up to you to free a girl from its confines, the first person born IN the Internet. It sounds Matrix-y, but is far from it. The game, at it's basic core, is an on-rails shooter. However presentation is what makes Child of Eden shine. You use your left arm to control an always firing machine-gun, the right arm controls a lock-on option that can target and eliminate 8 opponents at once and raising both hands in the air lets out an attack that wipes out everything on screen. When you take out an enemy, the music and graphics are all tweaked in real time to give you a visual/audial feast of colors, lights and sound effects. Everything you kill effects the pumping, techno-inspired soundtrack. This array of multi-sensory actions is what makes CoE stand out as it immerses you further than any other game ever has. Colors, objects, fractles, particles...all exploding and blooming throughout your trip in each level. Easily some of the most astounding visuals I have seen in a game yet.



The game can be played with a controller as Rez was, but there is no reason to if you have Kinect, as it was obviously the main control method developed for this title. The controller seems slow and unresponsive compared to the magic that have managed to pump out of Kinect. There is also the option to activate 4 controllers and strap them to yourself somehow (pockets, ducttape), then you will feel the vibrations of the game as you play. this heavily adds to the wonderful immersion factor.



Eden is quite short, at about 3-4 hours for the main archives (stages). However, there is much content to unlock including entirely new visual effects to play the game with, which makes the same level seem totally different. The budget price makes it worth it, though.



Kinect is finally getting some killer apps and the old "where are the games?!" statements are slowly becoming obsolete as long as developers keep working on fresh ideas to use Kinect. Child of Eden is a glowing example of what you can accomplish with a truly controller-free immerse experience.