Interview: 10 Things About "Kinect Star Wars" That Might Surprise You

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Kinect Star Wars is one of the most polarizing Star Wars games ever to be released, and it's only just come out today. As a flagship title for Microsoft's Kinect, itself an incredibly divisive peripheral, gamers either despise it on sight or decide they're willing to give it a chance. Sure, it can come off as a rather tongue-in-cheek take on the legendary Star Wars universe, but is there enough substance to appeal to hardcore gamers as well as casual Star Wars fans?

We spoke with Microsoft's Kudo Tsunoda, who worked hand in hand with LucasArts on the development of Kinect Star Wars, to come up with these ten things about the game that you might not expect. Read on, and may the—well, you know the line.

The controls are responsive

One thing that Kinect is constantly criticized for is lag between player movements and game actions, but Tsunoda insists that "it's instantaneous what you're doing with your body and what you're seeing the lightsaber do onscreen. I think especially for core gamers more, just seeing how responsive that lightsaber is to your every motion is going to be surprising," he said. "And I think Kinect Star Wars is really one of the first things that is a true, getting to be V2 version of Kinect products. You can see how much more responsive that lightsaber is than perhaps you saw stuff in V1 Kinect products."

"I think it's the thing that Kinect really does well," he continued, "allowing you to do these very natural and free-flowing motions that work exactly as you'd expect them to, as you've seen Jedis doing them in the movies your whole life."

The story is epic

Kinect Star Wars's main story mode is called Jedi Destiny, and its plot takes place just before Episode II: Attack of the Clones. "This is a Kinect game that has a very deep and immersive narrative," Tsunoda said. "So it's very story-based. And I think that's stuff that you would expect out of any Star Wars experience. It's such—you know, the IP is just so rich with great narrative, and really delivering that compelling story in a great way."

It's not all lightsaber duels, though. "Anything that you can remember as having seen Jedis going through in any of the Star Wars movies is incorporated into that mode," he promised.

There's a lot of variety

We'll let Kudo describe the game's different modes:

Jedi Destiny: "That is the full-on, immersive and narrative-based campaign mode of the game. So obviously you get to play as a Jedi, but it's not just about the force and the lightsaber, which—obviously those are awesome parts of the experience—but there's epic space battles. You get to cruise around on speeder bikes."

Duels of Fate: "My favorite memory of Star Wars movies was the lightsaber battle between Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, and that's kind of like our 'Duels of Fate' mode. It's those really intense one-on-one lightsaber battles where you get to go up against a bunch of different enemies, culminating in that super great battle with Darth Vader as well."

Podracing: "Awesome, super high quality podracing mode. You know, really giving you a bunch of different planets with a bunch of different tracks, and getting in and testing out a bunch of different pods that you can race around."

Rancor Rampage: "Just getting to stomp around as a giant Rancor, picking up Storm Troopers and eating them, knocking Tie Fighters out of the air. That mode is to me one of the funnest modes in the game."

Galactic Dance-Off: "I think everybody remembers the Princess Leia dancing in front of Jabba the Hutt scene in the movie. Just having a really fun kind of play on that, with a bunch of great, you know, Cantina band music, and really making it something that is fun for everybody to do."

Familiar scenes can play out in new ways

The Duels of Fate will let you experience legendary battles, but other scenes will be familiar as well, including the Rancor Rampage mode and the Cantina scene in Galactic Dance-Off. "We started off at the very beginning of this product working very closely with LucasArts and really wanting to deliver an experience where, you know, no matter what type of Star Wars fan you were, or when you started  getting into the Star Wars universe, that we could enable you to really play out and live out your most iconic Star Wars memories," Tsunoda said.

"I think all of the stuff that you see in the Rancor Rampage and the Galactic Dance-Off modes are really good, fun takes on the Star Wars universe," he said.

The gameplay encourages creativity

"The ability to be super creative and the immersive gameplay that comes from using the force inside the game, that's some of the stuff that to me is the most fun," Tsunoda said. "Because it isn't even things in lots of cases that we scripted into the gameplay, as much as just the system inside that Jedi Destiny mode allows you to use the force in such unique and creative ways that you can just make up on your own.

"One of my favorite things to do is, I just call it 'Force bowling.' Where you can like, you have a bunch of enemies that you're battling with, and being able to pick one of them up with the force and just chuck 'em across an open area to wipe out a whole sea of guys that are in front of you, or droids that are in front of you. Just being able to make up a little game like that, like Force bowling, inside that Jedi Destiny mode, I think that just shows the kind of richness and depth of the game, that there's so many different ways to play, and that really it's your creativity in using the Force that best enables you to build those cool Jedi moments on your own."

Faithfulness to Star Wars source material

"I think the stuff that everybody will enjoy no matter when you came into Star Wars as a fan is the familiarity of the characters, the settings, the things that you really would expect out of a Star Wars experience are all very authentic and true to the IP," Tsunoda said. "Our main inspiration over the course of the product really was just making a Star Wars title that Star Wars fans and gamers are going to love."

"You can see obviously the more narrative-based mode, and the podracing mode, and even the Duels of Fate try to be really authentic and true to how you would expect those experiences to be from your context in the movies and shows."

It was developed by Star Wars fans

Kudo's been a lifelong Star Wars fan. "My exposure to Star Wars really started with the very first movie," he said. "The cool thing is how hard we really worked to make sure the development team is all full of Star Wars fans as well."

"We spent months really immersing ourselves in every little bit of the Star Wars universe. Whether that's movies, shows, books, anything like that that we could get our hands on. And there's stuff like—no matter what, being able to go out to the Skywalker Ranch is just super awesome. Getting to collaborate with the people at LucasArts. You go to their offices and there's so much original Star Wars memorabilia and things that you remember from the movies and stuff that you get to see that really you never would have access to except for getting to work on this game."

"It's been one of the most exciting parts of working on the product," he added.

It's inspired by the classics

"At the end of the day, that podracing mode could probably be a whole game unto itself," Tsunoda told us. Like Episode I: Racer, the podracing game on N64? And "the epic space battles"—Rogue Squadron, anyone? 

"We definitely played all the different Star Wars experiences, Tsunoda explained, "and it's funny because it's everything from those classic games to—we even went back and found the old Star Wars  arcade machine that we were able to bring in. Again, it's just one of the super fun parts of this job. I'm just a big believer in a very method-acting approach to game design, where you really want to immerse yourself in the content and the universe of the experience that you're building."

("I loved that old Star Wars arcade machine," he added. "I can't tell you how many hours as a kid that I sat in a local arcade playing that thing and having a great time.")

It's better with a friend

The game is fully co-op friendly, and Kudo says that's the best way to play. "I think just getting to play this experience with somebody else really makes it awesomely fun," he said. "Obviously the single-player's great as well, but playing in co-op's something I really enjoy."

Things you've never seen before

"The Rancor Rampage mode is something that is totally different than you see in any of the other Star Wars experiences," Tsunoda insisted. "Adding new things that you haven't seen before is a much different thing than taking something that people hold near and dear to their hearts and changing it. And I think that's the fun part of the Galactic Dance-Off mode and the Rancor Rampage mode. It isn't changing stuff that people really expect to be a certain way into something different. It's about creating something totally new and fun that people haven't seen before."

"It's not just the setting or the environment, but being able to do things with authentic Star Wars characters that you wouldn't normally see in the movies I think is just rich throughout both of those modes," he added.

Excited to pick up the game today? Still skeptical? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!