Kinect Sports: Season Two June Records
Yessir. Time to see how your performances have improved since we posted the first set of Season Two records back in March. And it’s looking good, with quite a few scores sharpened up! For this edition we’ve also added activities from Challenge Pack #2 and the Basketball Challenge Pack, giving you even more big numbers to lock into your sights.
Just like the earlier records, most of these scores and times were logged during online play as the servers can’t generally track offline results. In the cases of any impossible-looking results or gaps in the data, we conferred with the sports’ designers and testers to either fine-tune the figures to something more plausible or substitute some of our testers’ top accomplishments.
If you’ve got proof (e.g. video, photo, uploaded to Facebook) that you’ve crushed one of these scores or times, send it our way and we’ll see how it stacks up!
Jun 2012
Top 5 Script Tweaks in KS: Season Two
The inspiration for this list was the Top 5 Lines Lost From Nuts & Bolts feature a while back; as it turns out, motivational sports commentary is a very different business to spouting witch-themed rhyming couplets and tangential weirdness for Jinjos. So this job came with its own set of challenges on top of many of the development considerations already encountered. We thought a quick glimpse into the process might be of interest. Unleash the examples!
TOP 5 SCRIPT TWEAKS IN KINECT SPORTS: SEASON TWO
According to… Leigh Loveday
1.“Stay frosty. That mole is trouble!” – Golf Commentator
Changed because… some of the activities were still being devised even as scripts needed to be written (the workings of the huge localisation machine and legal/geopolitical checks bring those deadlines way forward). As the first proposed Golf activity, Holey Moley would have challenged you to sink a putt past the disruptive beast – but it got replaced, so the script needed a rewrite. Turns out mole puns are trickier than you’d think anyway, so stumping up 10-20 variations on every line was challenging enough to take the edge off the game’s retirement.
2.“Human mind gone blank! Reboot!” – Darts Calculator
Changed because… quickfire maths lark Smart Shot in Challenge Pack #1 was all set to be voiced by the calculator mascot, before that role reverted back to the announcer as time ran out for new voice casting and the treatment needed to make it sound ‘computery’. Among the lines rewritten was the example above, which would have been triggered if you took too long to throw. Leaving it in there would have made the human Darts announcer sound like he was having some kind of breakdown. Darts runner-up: use of the phrase “three in a bed” (i.e. three darts in the same scoring area) was discouraged in case people somehow misinterpreted what we were trying to say…
May 2012
Basketball Challenge Pack Reaction Rundown
A couple of weeks into the life of the Kinect Sports: Season Two Basketball Challenge Pack, here’s a bundle of encouraging comments and feedback that we’ve found strewn from one end of the internet (yes, it does have ends) to the other. Showering our Basketball mascot Dunky Dino with praise and constructive criticism is all that prevents him from going feral.
Kinect Sports: Season Two add-on satiates basketball jones (XboxKinectFans)
Dunk Some Baskets in Kinect Sports: Season 2 (TrueAchievements)
New Kinect Sports: Season 2 invents a new sport called ‘basketball’ (Joystiq)
Basketball DLC added to Kinect Sports Season 2 (Capsule Computers)
‘Kinect Sports: Season Two Basketball Challenge Pack’ Review (Game Rant)
Kinect Sports: Season Two Basketball Challenge Pack DLC Review (The Controller Online)
Apr 2012
Challenge Pack #2 Reaction Rundown
It came out in March and added six new activities to Kinect Sports: Season Two free of charge, we rounded up some coverage and social media/comments thread feedback, then definitely didn’t forget to compile and post it. It’s right here. Witness: things that people said about Challenge Pack #2!
Kinect Sports Season 2 Gets Second Challenge Pack DLC (Kinectronic)
Grab the Kinect Sports Season Two Challenge Pack #2 for free (123Kinect)
Kinect Sports: Season Two Challenge Pack 2 Arrives (TrueAchievements)
Kinect Sports Season Two Gets Some Free DLC (The Controller Online)
Free Kinect Sports: Season Two DLC Adds Darts Vs. Zombies, More (Game Informer)
Zombies invade Kinect Sports: Season 2 DLC (GameZone)
Apr 2012
Kinect Sports: Season Two Achievements List
No doubt quite a few of you have made serious headway into these already. But to keep you occupied for a while longer, here’s the complete at-a-glance list of Season Two achievements. Get an idea of the ones you’re missing, decide whether to play to your strengths or break new ground, then limber up and fuel-inject that gamerscore!
Update: Basketball Challenge Pack released, adding 10 new cheevos for 25G each!
BASKETBALL CHALLENGE PACK
Party Animal: Score 75 points when playing Shot Party (25G)
Disc-Throw Fever: Clear two sets of music discs in 25 seconds when playing Shot Party (25G)
Disco Diva: Get a score multiplier x10 when playing Shot Party (25G)
Double Nickel: Score over 55 points when playing 3-Point Hero (25G)
Super Streak: Score 15 consecutive baskets when playing 3-Point Hero (25G)
3-Point Perfection: Score with four bonus balls within one single game of 3-Point Hero (25G)
Funky Dunkin’: Score 50 points when playing Alley-Oop Dreams (25G)
Dunky King: Pass to the green Dino 5 times in one game of Alley-Oop Dreams (25G)
Pass Master: Complete 15 passes in a row when playing Alley-Oop Dreams (25G)
Super Hooper: Score 200 baskets when playing the new Basketball Challenge Pack (25G)
MIDNIGHT MOUNTAIN SKI PACK
Blast Course: Blast-off time – Beat 01:50:00 on Midnight Mountain’s Backwoods Blast course (Champion difficulty) (25G)
Midnight Express: Out of the darkness – Beat 01:55:00 on Midnight Mountain’s Pitch Black course (Champion difficulty) (25G)
Opened All Hours: Clock is ticking – Beat 02:15:00 on Midnight Mountain’s After Hours course (Champion difficulty) (25G)
Gate Expectations: This is a classic – Pass a total of 500 gates on Midnight Mountain (cumulative) (25G)
Mountain Pressure: Pressure is on – You need a perfect run on each course of Midnight Mountain (25G)
Apr 2012
Behind the BAFTA Scenes
We’ve had the official News story on this month’s Kinect Sports: Season Two BAFTA win, but we thought it was worth complementing with a report direct from the scene. So we pinned down Simon, one of Rare’s delegates for the evening, and persuaded him to hand over a folder full of pictures and a rundown of the event from the rough vicinity of the red carpet and champagne seats….
Simon: The night started with the ten of us meeting outside our hotel, donning pretty much the same black tie attire, ready to set off to the Hilton on Park Lane. We were handed our golden tickets for the event before jumping into black cabs for the short ride.
Once we arrived, we made our way into the front entrance and then found out there was a red carpet around the back! As we realised this may be a once in a lifetime chance, we walked back outside, around the hotel and down the red carpet. No-one asked for our autographs for some reason, but it was worth it all the same…
We made our way upstairs for the champagne reception. The room was packed with invitees all dressed to the max, and we enjoyed catching up with some ex-Rareites whilst sipping the enormous amounts of champagne on offer. The room was quite large but you could hardly move, and after a couple of glasses of champagne it really started to heat up.
Mar 2012
Kinect Sports: Season Two March Records
Right then! It’s about time we rifled through the Kinect Sports: Season Two server data, identified some hard-hitting scores and times, verified their achievability against some of our testers’ best efforts and threw the resulting numbers out there for potential challengers to… challenge.
We see people on social media all the time claiming to be BEASTING at Season Two. Are you one of them? Think you could topple these scores? Fire up the game and go for it.
Note that as a general rule these performances have been logged in online games, as most offline results can’t be tracked by the servers. In some cases, if they looked impossible or we were short of data, our testers’ finest moments were substituted instead. If you’ve got proof (photographic, uploaded to Facebook or otherwise) that you’ve trumped one of these scores or times, send it to us and we’ll see if it climbs to the top of the heap! Challenge Pack #2 activities to be roped into the fun next time.
Mar 2012
Braving the Birmingham Bolt
On February 22nd, Rare dispatched the athletic equivalent of a hardcore SWAT team to the Birmingham National Indoor Arena. The reason for this was the Birmingham Bolt, a charity sporting event for UK Midlands businesses to compete and raise money for charity. With us having a couple of Kinect Sports games under our belts, it seemed rude not to.
Ex-Olympic 400m and relay runner Daniel Caines was on hand to commentate: no pressure then. But one hotly contested afternoon later, as the event drew to a close and the smoke cleared in and around the charity Thunderdome, the Rare squad had left their mark by finishing third overall. Contributing to this result was the long jump gold claimed by our man Simon, along with Eoin’s second place in the 400 metres. Not half bad!
Congratulations and thanks to all who took part, both for the result and the money raised. The full entry fee went to The Birmingham Civic Society’s Next Generation Awards, which works with over 13,000 young people in Birmingham to help them make a positive contribution to the city. Meanwhile all sponsorship money raised by Rare (and boosted by Microsoft) goes to our nominated charity for this event, Cancer Research UK.
Enjoy the pics of our dashing team in action. Or loitering around, or posing… but mainly in action.
Feb 2012
