George Andreas (Lead Designer) was at this year’s Gamescom in Cologne, demonstrating Kinect Sports: Season Two and giving gamers their first taste of Tennis and Darts in action. With our loyal readers in mind, we smuggled a notepad and pen into George’s rucksack and threatened him with terrible punishments if he failed to turn in a diary of his adventures in Deutschland. Enjoy!

We started the week-long event by visiting five-time Grand Slam champion Martina Hingis at her hotel to give her some ‘expert’ tuition on Kinect Sports: Season Two‘s Tennis before the following day’s publicity shoot at the Xbox Play Day. I must admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew she was obviously a huge tennis star, but wasn’t sure how she would take to Rare’s spin on the real sport she once dominated so impressively.

After a few practice rallies, Martina was soon getting the hang of the game. She then looked at me with a steely determination in her eyes and asked if I was the best at this game… game on! I consider myself to be a highly competitive person given the right circumstances, but it was so ingrained in Martina that she wanted to win and win big. With very little tuition, she soon learned some of the more advanced tricks and techniques and we ended up playing for over half an hour. Needless to say, Martina was well prepared for the next day’s event.

She swept away the competition at the show and was determined to seek out a rematch with me between her publicity commitments. We found time and started a match. She beat me. In full view of a cheering crowd that had gathered to watch. Oh dear. Well done Martina.

For the rest of the week, Scott (Studio Manager) spent his days in the media booth talking to the press while both myself and Harry (Producer) spent time on the floor showing off both Darts and Tennis to the throng of showgoers. We must have had a good few hundred people at the very least play the game by the end of the week.

Tennis proved to be a big crowd-pleaser and was very popular with all who played it, as well as being a fun spectacle for those watching. It was instant, fun and most people got to grips with it very quickly indeed. At one point I had to demo to the Mayor of Cologne – but decided to drag him up on stage and play side by side with him instead. I think a picture of us playing made it into the local paper the next day, so that’s a great endorsement!

Darts proved popular too, and once people understood the mechanic of throwing the darts they had a lot of fun. I had one kid in particular who played darts in a league step up to “test it out” – as he put it. He threw two treble 20s and then a bullseye, turned to me and said “yeah, this is like real darts for me”! Which was great. And no, I wasn’t about to play him at the real sport.

So all in all, Kinect Sports: Season Two showed very well indeed and the entire team can be confident that the end product will be just as well received when it’s released in October!   – George