Konami’s Adrenalin Misfits doesn’t have it easy. It was one of 17 launch titles for the Kinect, and it was one of the least-promoted games of the whole lineup. To add to the problem, it was also one of two board-racing games released; the other being Sonic Free Riders. With the Kinect launch now behind us, was Misfits an under-the-radar gem, or was the lack of promotion warranted?

It’s hard to not compare this game to Sonic Free Riders. They both have a very similar concept and control scheme, and they are both home to similar control flaws. The main area in where the two games differ is the origin of the controlling issues. While Sonic Free Riders will become a semi-playable experience if you spend enough time with it, Misfits’ controls have fundamental flaws that are immensely difficult to work around. While the game’s controls get moderately better as you adjust and learn exactly what is expected of you, at no point do they feel at all competent.

The tutorial section does an effective job of emoting just what is required of the player to perform in races, but that does not make the game any easier. The largest issue is that acceleration is controlled by the player leaning forward, and it doesn’t always work as well as you want it to. There were moments where the game did not detect my leaning forward at all, no matter how many ways I tried it. If I leaned forward in a super exaggerated way, it would occasionally acknowledge that and cause my character to accelerate, but it was difficult to actually stay in that position for longer than a minute.

The racers, as they contemplate their glitchy fate

The control issues are not exclusive to just the acceleration, though. At random points throughout races my character would halt for no reason, and the game would prompt me to face sideways when I already was. In order to move side-to-side in the game you have to lean forward and backward, but this doesn’t work as well as one may expect it to. I found myself not moving at all on occasion, or having to lean a ridiculous amount in order for the game to acknowledge it. There were times where the controls worked decently, but this was a rare experience. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if the game didn’t require accuracy, but you have to get first in each race in order to unlock new items and progress in the game. This makes the glitches and random control spazzes unforgivable and all the more frustrating.

The multiplayer portion of the game suffers from control issues even worse than the single player portion, but it deserves credit for attempting to allow simultaneous play with two people. It breaks down exactly like the single player portion, only you can play with a friend. There was definitely the potential to change things up and enable some extra features for what should ultimately be the draw for a game of this nature, but it just isn’t there. There was no issue with the Kinect actually seeing myself and the person I played with at the same time, but there were frequent issues with actually detecting what we were doing. At one point I crashed into a wall and could not get back on track no matter what I did, and at other points it essentially ignored the movements we were making.