Genre: Sports / Party
Developer: Rare, BigPark
Publisher: Microsoft Studios
Year: 2011
Platform: Xbox 360
Kinect Sports: Season Two is a motion-controlled sports game released for Xbox 360 in 2011. Developed by Rare in collaboration with BigPark, the game serves as a sequel to the original Kinect Sports and was designed exclusively for use with the Kinect sensor. It introduces six new sports, each controlled using full-body motion and voice commands.
The included sports are American football, golf, baseball, skiing, darts, and tennis. Each sport offers multiple difficulty settings and gameplay modes, including quick play, mini-games, and head-to-head matches. The game makes extensive use of voice recognition, allowing players to call plays in football or change clubs in golf using spoken commands. Gesture controls are used for actions such as swinging, throwing, and aiming.
Kinect Sports: Season Two supports both single-player and two-player local multiplayer. Online multiplayer is available through Xbox Live, along with leaderboard tracking and performance comparison via the “Challenge Play” mode, which lets players send recorded challenges to friends. Xbox 360 Avatars are used to represent players in-game.
The game received generally favorable reviews, with critics noting improvements over the first title in terms of interface and responsiveness. According to Metacritic, the game holds an average score in the mid-70s. Reviewers highlighted the accessibility of the sports and the effective use of Kinect’s capabilities, though some found the precision of motion tracking inconsistent across the different activities.
