Dancing with Solo: Star Wars Kinect

While viewing the “I’m Han Solo” dance video that’s been floating around YouTube, I found I wasn’t sure whether I ought to be amused or dismayed. The hardcore geek in me wants to shriek over how George Lucas (or Kinect, in this case) is once again smacking around my childhood. Han Solo? Dancing? Seriously? Lobot as a DJ? Really?

FEEL MY GEEK PAIN.

The less serious side of me thinks it’s freaking sweet and makes me want to run out and buy, in no particular order, a Kinect, Kinect Star Wars, and a television that can actually support such an endeavor. I’m using a hand-me-down TV set that might actually be as old as I am, so it’s something of a wonder I even managed to hook up the cable box to it. Kinect is out of the question. But for this game, I might just be inclined to splurge.

“I was wondering what Kinect Star Wars was like,” I remarked to the friend who sent me the video. I’m pretty sure we each watched it multiple times, utterly mesmerized.

“Me, too,” she said. “This is how I would like to think Harrison Ford acts every day before getting ready for battle.”

Frankly, I’m surprised there wasn’t a Kinect type of SW game earlier. Say what you will about the prequel trilogy, Jar Jar Binks, and how serious the series is or isn’t, but I’ve been waiting for years to fight in a genuine lightsaber battle. I’ve played most of the Star Wars games out there, and even the ones that let you run wild with a lightsaber (Jedi Knight II and The Force Unleashed come to mind) weren’t overly convincing, if only because a lightsaber battle is...well, it’s a really badass swordfight, and jabbing away at a controller gets boring after awhile.

But Kinect lets you actually participate in the fight. How freaking cool is that? Granted, the Galactic Dance-Off segment of it is...unexpected, but it’s also all in good fun. I love Han Solo. I love dancing. Now I can make Han Solo dance.

Everyone wins!

The five sub-sections of the game are Jedi Destiny (train in the Force), Rancor Rampage (DESTROY EVERYTHING!), Podracing (channel your inner Anakin Skywalker), Galactic Dance-Off (self-explanatory), and Duels of Fate (aforementioned lightsaber madness). As you can imagine, I’m most interested in Duels of Fate. Can you patch Kinect games? I know some games allow users to upload their own maps and/or character/villain skins (and some games don’t allow this, but users find a way to do it anyway). I have this wonderful mental image of fighting zombies...with a lightsaber.

This needs to happen.