Double Fines’ Happy Action Theater Review
Happy Action Theater actually uses the Kinect to its fullest potential.
First and for most, Happy Action Theater is really not a “Game” in the common sense of the word, it is basically a collection of Kinect mini-games. The back story to Happy Action Theater development is when Double Fine was working on Once Upon A Monster, another Kinect game. Whenever they would have weird programming issues with the Kinect, Double Fine would start documenting these issues. Double Fine decided with these weird bugs and issues they could make some really cool games out of the other team’s misfortunes.
I have heard a lot about this game, but one of the main things I have always heard is that you have to play this game with a group and a party, probably does not hurt to have a beer or two. Now to tell you the truth, I am not a hundred percent sure how to review a collection of mini games but I can at least say what I thought was pretty cool. I am not going to lie, I have no idea what the names of the different so I am just going to wing it.
There are roughly around 18 mini games. I am only going to go into detail on a few of my favorites. Monster Destruction game was definitely my favorite. In Monster you are basically transported into a time when Godzilla ruled the world. The screen displays you and your friends in a black and white video with heavy film grain filter. The “objective” is to smash buildings that are being constructed in your living room. A nice little added bonus is that randomly throughout Monster Destruction the game will actually snap a picture of and putting that picture into a newspaper article, that gave my friends and me a couple really good laughs. Another fun game is something I remember fondly as a child is “The Carpet is Lava” now with Happy Action Theater and the Kinect I can actually see that my carpet literally is Lava. Ever wanted to be the controller for a game of brick breaker or Space Invaders? Well ,with Happy Action Theater, you can be. Happy Action Theater actually uses the Kinect to its fullest potential. I never realized how well the Kinect worked with depth but after watching some of the games it is obvious that the Kinect has some great potential. In some of the games the Kinect actually recognized different furniture around the house. There is one game where basically you are swarmed by pigeons. Now the cool thing about the pigeon game is that the pigeon will actually land on different furniture. It is kind of a weird feeling when you look at your TV and see that pigeons have defecated all over your coach and coffee table.
Like I said, in the very beginning of this review this game was made for parties and it doesn’t hurt to have a drink. Also, I believe if you have children this would be a fantastic change of pace then just sitting them down in front of uninvolved movie. So for a meager 800 Microsoft points this is a great way to shake up your usual Rockband and Dance Central.
Final Score: 7 out of 10
