Kinect Star Wars hands-on: Engadget and Joystiq get in touch with the Force
![](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/VKYOA9i5bqiXsYHENuMYfg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MA--/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/avQtoHKb7Bx0eRb0ZNFJZw--~B/aD0zMDY7dz01NDQ7YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b24-/https://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/06/6-7-11-kinectstarwars.jpg)
We've been waiting for nearly an entire year to carve up battle droids with a Kinect-controlled lightsaber, and we got the chance last night, donning virtual Jedi robes alongside our friends at Joystiq and calling upon our inner midi-chlorians in a series of brief co-op fights. The interactive demo of Kinect Star Wars version is a fairly scripted affair -- your light side avatars automatically dash from encounter to encounter with the occasional cutscene between, without any prompting from you, and when you get into a melee, the computer controls which enemies you face as well. Still, there are quite a few maneuvers available once combat begins in earnest. You can swing your right hand to swipe with the lightsaber, bring up your left for a powerful Force Push, jump to flip over hapless destroyer droids, step forward to dash directly at a foe, and tilt your body to dodge and flip. There's a bit of a delay between the time you gesture and the time the game recognizes your actions, but it generally seemed to follow our saber strokes, and a product manager tells us a lag fix is inbound. Long story short, we can't tell you quite yet if your 1:1 slicing fantasies will be fulfilled.