Take Two will bring its mini-game series called Carnival Games to the Kinect in a new version. The game will feature several different carnival venues that most people will be familiar with. There is a batting cage for one to get in their swings and hit the target with the ball, hot air balloon races, knocking down milk cartons, ring toss, and other midway type amusements. The Kinect will track your movements so that it would be as if you were actually there. At least that is the theory, but we’ll have to see how well it performs with the tracking. ...

Like Kinectimals, THQ Fantastic Pets will allow you to interact with a virtual pet on the screen by using the Kinect system. But this game will go beyond what that one will in terms of game play and configuration. When you first enter the game, you will be asked to pick a pet and you can customize it with various things like color, hair color, etc. The four types of animals are cat, dog, horse and lizard. You will then be tasked with training your pet, but as you go through the levels, you will notice that your pets morph into fantasy creatures, such as the horse becomes a unicorn and the lizard becomes a dragon. The system will use what they are calling EyePet technology, meaning that it will put you in the pictures of the competitions and trainings with your pet. Also players will be able to give their pet voice commands to train them and put them through their paces. This will be one of the first games that seems to make extensive use of the voice capabilities. ...

Since the Kinect is designed to track your body movements including arms and legs, a bowling game would seem to be right up its alley (no pun intended). And SVG Distributors has answered the call and is about to release Brunswick Pro Bowling for the Kinect. Expanding on a port already released for the Playstation Move and the Wii, the game promises to use the motion capture device to its best ability. Imagine actually playing the game as you would in a bowling alley, running up, swinging out the ball and releasing it, and without having to change your shoes, at least not in real life. ...

Since Michael’s death, it seems that everyone has been trying to get on the bandwagon with everything from 3D movies to even a show at Cirque de Soleil. So it’s not surprising that UbiSoft would port their dancing game to take advantage of this trend. And while the game is already released on the Wii, Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable, its scheduled release date for the Kinect/Xbox 360 and Playstation Move is not until first quarter of 2011. Since the game will differ from the current version, this is a preview rather than a review. ...