Video Game Review: ‘Fruit Ninja Kinect’ Brings Mobile Hit to Xbox

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CHICAGO – Millions of people have spent countless hours slicing watermelons, bananas, coconuts, and more via the incredibly-addictive “Fruit Ninja,” one of the most successful mobile phone apps in the history of the handheld device. Halfbrick and Microsoft have now worked together to replicate that beloved experience on your television with “Fruit Ninja Kinect,” a successful adaptation that may seem a bit like overkill for casual fans but plays well to hardcore ones.

Video Game Rating: 4.0/5.0

There have been very few games as cleverly simple as “Fruit Ninja.” It’s right there in the title. How do you play? You slice fruit like a ninja. As for how you advance in the game, it depends on the mode. For the app version, “Fruit Ninja” consisted almost entirely of slicing your finger across the touch screen either in timed mode, a freeplay style, or a variation with bombs interspersed with the flying fruit that end your game. Trying to get higher and higher scores probably caused a few people to miss their bus stops when they didn’t look up from their phones.

Fruit Ninja Kinect
Photo credit: Halfbrick

How well does it translate from your iPad to your TV? Naturally, it’s a pretty smooth transition given the simplicity of the title. Through the Kinect, you see a shadow of yourself behind the flying fruit. Using that as a marker to place yourself, you swing your arms like a ninja and slice away. Whether or not you wear a costume is up to you.

Fruit Ninja Kinect Photo credit: Halfbrick

As for game modes, everything from the phone version has been imported along with a challenge mode that offers a fun new variation and, of course, many players will relish the opportunity to bring their orange-crushing skills to their friends through Xbox live. What’s a skill if you can’t use it to crush your online “friends”?

What more is there to say really about a title like “Fruit Ninja Kinect”? The price point is a little high especially given most fans probably paid a dollar for it in the iTunes store. And I think thresholds for entertainment are different on the Xbox than they are on the iPhone. We’re accustomed to simpler games like “Angry Birds” and “Cut the Rope” (my two personal faves) but those would be disappointments on a machine with which we’re used to playing titles as deep as “Mass Effect 2” and “Red Dead Redemption.”

But this game isn’t designed for depth. It’s a pick-up-and-play diversion if you have some time to kill and, to be honest, it uses the Kinect perfectly. This is a technology that came screaming out of the cultural gates but has kind of died down since as there have been fewer and fewer reasons to use it. This could get you to dust it off and consider a part of your gamig routine again. If you go into “Fruit Ninja Kinect” knowing that it’s as shallow as you expect it to be, it works on its own terms. Prepare to crush some apples.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com