Wreckateer: Throwing balls at castles

From conkers to knocking tins off a wall with stones to Angry Birds, it seems we can't get enough of throwing things and destroying stuff. Step forward Wreckateer, one of the latest downloadable Xbox 360 Arcade games which uses the Kinect motion sensor.

Wreckateer

For: Xbox 360 + Kinect

From: Iron Galaxy

In a 3-D world of castles and comedy goblins, you play the part of a trainee ballista (a huge crossbow-type thing which fires balls) handler who, by means of a pretty good tutorial, is taught the hows and whys of castle demolition.

The controls are simple, if a bit awkward at times. Basically, you put your hands together to grab the projectile, take a couple of steps back to increase power and move left and right and raise and lower the ball to change trajectory. By the time you've finished the tutorial, you'll have it mastered.

Once the ball is released, you have a bit of control on its flightpath before it crashes into the castle, destroying all in its path and earning you points.

To add a bit of variation, there are a few different types of projectile, other than the standard metal ball: the guided shot sprouts wings and can be "flown" into targets; the split shot breaks into four pieces which you use your hands to direct; and the exploding shot, well, explodes.

It all works pretty well, although I did struggle to activate the missiles occasionally, which is frustrating because messing one shot up ruins your score for that round. But in general, the Kinect performs well.

Overall, a great addition to the Kinect arcade and well worth a download of the demo to see if it is your cup of tea.