Parents' Guide to

Kinect Joy Ride

By Chad Sapieha, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 7+

Clever racer overshadowed by frustrating motion controls.

Game Xbox 360 2010
Kinect Joy Ride Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Kinect Joy Ride Game: Screenshot #1
  • Kinect Joy Ride Game: Screenshot #2
  • Kinect Joy Ride Game: Screenshot #3

Community Reviews

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age 8+

Based on 1 parent review

nuenjins
nuenjins Parent
January 15, 2018
age 8+

Do not get the kinect version. But , the NORMAL version is VERY fun.

This is, perhaps, the best 'other console' arcade racer that lives up to the Mario Kart standard of fun and playability to date. As many titles struggle to get even close to manageable controls and keep both adults and kids mutually engaged, this title delivers detail and very well executed variety without being too complicated or borishly simplistic. There's alot here, including weapon pickups to turn the tables in a race, a variety of unlockable vehicles and whimsical repaints. Also, each race has a variety of alternate routes for those wanting more of a challenge which yields better power ups as a reward for traversing more treacherous terrain. There are only 10 tracks in all, but the game also includes "arenas" which encompass very large areas to explore like a massive sandbox, here you can collect loot tokens which also encourage the multiplayer, split screen fun with up to 4 players. These places highlight another unique gameplay feature which is a stunt and flip mechanic that allow you to turn your vehicle any which way in mid air during any given jump. As there is no 'wrecking" mechanic, lest you are caught hopelessly upside down when landing, giving your avatar the ability to fly entirely across the map with crazy multiple flips and scale walls with the proper momentum. This makes for hours of simple fun and experimentation causing you to push the limits of these mechanics to get to the craziest places, often hundreds of feet from ground level. During the races themselves, executing these spins and flips reward your landings with an equal amount of speed boost as to the number of rotations you manage to pull off. The tracks are very unique unto themselves often with jumps vertical turns and unique obstacles which makes them all interested in their own way even though the number of tracks aren't as much as a sixty dollar title would be. However, as this game is $20 at initial full price in it's online , kinect free version, anything below that makes this a must have for cart racing fans looking for a fix.

This title has:

Easy to play/use
See all 1 parent review

What’s It About?

KINECT JOY RIDE, a kart-racer for Microsoft’s new camera sensor control system, has players pretending to hold steering wheels in the air. They turn their hands to turn their cars and lean a little to initiate a drift for a faster turn. Speed and braking are handled automatically. And there’s more to it than just traditional kart races. Some events will have players trying to boost their way to faster times down mostly straight raceways by repeatedly pulling back the steering wheel and pushing it forward, while others are set in massive half pipes that encourage players to collect floating cherries and perform tricks by leaning back and forth and from side to side while in the air.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1):
Kids say: Not yet rated

There’s little wrong with Joy Ride’s concept or overall design, but it does suffer from one pretty big problem: We couldn’t get a feel for steering. If, in an average corner, we didn’t drift, we’d end up sliding out in too wide of a turn. However, if we did drift we’d usually come in too sharply. It doesn’t help that players have no control over braking or speed. The game says it will control these variables for the player, but after messing up turn after turn I began to pine for manual control.

However, kudos go to developer Big Park for fleshing out the game with so many extra trick, dash, and battle modes. Some of these play modes are a lot of fun, particularly those that don’t require much in the way of precision handling. Kinect does a lot of things well, but it may turn out that vehicle steering isn’t one of them.

Online interaction: This game supports online play for up to eight people, but does not offer communication capabilities. We were unable to test online play during our pre-release evaluation.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about getting physically active while playing games. This game requires a modest amount of activity, but still requires players to stand and move their arms and torsos to control their cars. Did you feel tired after playing? Do you feel like it was a healthy experience? How does it compare to the level of activity required by other Kinect games?

  • Families can also compare and contrast racing simulator games with kart racers. What distinguishing features do these games have that make one suitable for kids and the other not? Do any kart-racers or racing simulators straddle the line between the two genres? How can parents decide whether these games are safe for their kids?

Game Details

  • Platform: Xbox 360
  • Available online?: Available online
  • Publisher: Microsoft Studios
  • Release date: November 4, 2010
  • Genre: Racing
  • ESRB rating: E for Mild Cartoon Violence
  • Last updated: August 30, 2016

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