With Kinect Star Wars coming soon for the Xbox 360, Microsoft is releasing yet another version of the console, this time with a very slick Star Wars theme to the console itself and the controller. Kinect Star Wars may be what many gamers have been wanting, a Star Wars game using motion controls which actually has one-to-one movement. Using the Kinect also frees the user from being bound to a controller. If you’ve seen gameplay videos, pretending to swing a lightsaber or holding both hands out to lift a heavy object using the force are both ways in which you can interact with the game using just your body.
Onto the centerpiece, though, announced to the joy of Star Wars fans. I’ll start with the controller because it’s gold and shiny. That alone should be a hint that the controller is meant to incorporate design elements of the protocol droid C-3PO. When I say it’s shiny, I do mean it, and you can see for yourself in the pics. Silver accents the D-pad, while the “inner rim” of the controller (for lack of a better term) has a design which looks like groups of wires much like the ones visible between C-3PO’s upper and lower halves.
As a fan of little astromech droid R2-D2, however, I’m really loving the redesign of the Xbox 360 console itself. Primarily white and blue, the console features lots of neat little design features and details which should immediately make any Star Wars fan recognize it’s based off R2. When I first saw this, my mind immediately went to thinking how awesome it would be if the console made R2-D2 sounds. Luckily, the designers of the console thought the same thing and actually incorporated it. Turning on the power or ejecting the tray will cause the console to emit a series of beeps, boops, chirps, and whatever other onomatopoeia you might choose to describe R2-D2’s method of communication.
Overall, many Star Wars fans will see this console as a must-buy. Current owners of Xbox 360 consoles might be faced with the tough decision of buying a second console to show off their Star Wars love, although those in possession of the older, more problematic versions of the consoles known for their Red Ring of Death issue might find this the perfect excuse to upgrade to the new hardware. At $449.99, this bundle comes with the Kinect Star Wars game and Kinect Adventures, a unique white Kinect sensor, 1 controller, a 320 GB hard drive, and a wired headset, as well as downloadable content. If you’d rather just look at more pretty 360 mods, there are plenty such as this Millennium Falcon. For something more decadent, there’s this ridiculously awesome R2-D2 8-Console Mod.
