I hope that everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as I did. I must have been a very good girl this year, because Santa (AKA my husband) had an Xbox 360 Kinect under the tree  for me on Christmas Day this year.

This is officially my favourite Christmas present ever (well, since I got my Xbox 360 anyway)! And it was a huge hit with the whole family (from the toddlers to the octogenerians) on Christmas Day — after all that Christmas pudding, getting everyone off the couch and on their feet was a minor miracle!

The beauty of the Kinect is that you don’t need any controllers to play the games — you are the controller. When you move your body parts, your avatar moves its corresponding parts via the Kinect sensor.

Apart from the obvious ‘cool’ factor, this means you don’t need multiple controllers for multiple players like you do for the Nintendo Wii, and it means no-one is going to accidentally whack your TV with a stray flying nunchuck! Because you need to stand around six feet away from the Kinect to play its games, this also offers a degree of protection for your TV.

You can play by yourself, against the computer or against other players. If you sign up to Xbox Live, you can also play against other players over the Net.

There are only a handful of games available at the moment for the Kinect, but judging by the way KInect and ots games flew off shelves in the lead up to Christmas, you can expect that to change fairly swiftly — I’ve played Kinect Sports, Dance Central and Kinect Adventures (this one came bundled with the Kinect) and had a ball with all of them.

Next purchase on the list is a fitness program to counter my holiday season overindulgence — although I found muscles I didn’t even know I had from the games I’ve already got.

The only problem is that unless I learn to play with both hands, I’m going to end up with one very buffed right arm and a left arm with ‘bingo wings’!

Anyway, it’s nice to be back on deck, but my Kinect beckons, and who am I to disappoint it? All in the name of research, of course!

I got a good deal on my Kinect from Game.com.au. It has the Kinect for $178 (RRP $199) with free shipping (and it arrived super quick). Like many retailers both online and off, Game.com.au is currently out of stock of the Kinect, but should have new stock in shortly.

Anyway, it’s nice to be back on deck, but my Kinect beckons, and who am I to disappoint it? All in the name of research, of course!

It offers hundreds of games online for kids from toddlers to eight year olds, which you can browse by age or publisher (publishers include Mattel and Hasbro.  All games are rated for fun and educational value.

Zoodles is free to use, but parents who want to exercise more control over their kids’ use of the site can sign uo for the Premium service, which lets them block ads, promote subjects, set time limits, and much more. You’ll find pricing info here.

If you download a free Zoodles app, you’ll receive a free Premium membership trial — when the trial period expires, you’re automatically downgraded to a free Basic membership, and you can continue using the downloaded app for free.

In Parent Play-Along mode, parents can play side by side with children who can’t use a mouse on their own.

When you register your child on Zoodle, the site populates their Playground with appropriate content (games and storybooks) for their age

Zoodles allows parents to invite close friends and family members into their child’s Zoodles Family area. Parents and invitees are then able to read to that child (by recording themselves reading a story), see and share their drawings, and send them personal video messages. There’s also a Parent Play-Along mode, where parents can play side by side with children who can’t use a mouse on their own.

Zoodles works on Windows PCs (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7), Macs, and mobile devices such as Android smartphones, iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. You need to install a small app on your device to use the site’s content.

Zoodles

Well, here’s your chance to vent your frustration in a new game on Fizzy.com. Poll Position is a simple and fun little game that lets you choose to play as either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott in a car racing game a la Mario Brothers, collecting votes for the upcoming election.

Currently, Tony is out-polling Julia, so if the thought of another summer of disturbing video bytes on the telly of Tony Abbott in his ‘budgie smugglers’ fills you with dread, get on the Fizzy.com site and hop in the driver’s seat with Julia — please!!!!

Poll Position

It’s kind of like Skype with a gaming and educational bent — using video and audio, you interact with the grandkids (or your kids if you are a dad or mum who needs to spend time away from home) while playing learning games.

Both parties don’t need to have a Webcam — it’s obviously preferable, but not essential — but will need a microphone (although you can talk over the phone while you play at a pinch if you don’t have a microphone).

You will also need to set up a free account to use the service. Kids don’t need a separate account; you just need one set up in your name and they enter your email address to connect with you.

The site has maths, reading games and more for all ages, from toddlers to primary-aged kids, and the idea if for those games to stimulate dialogue between adult and child as they play them together.

There’s also an iPhone and iPod touch app so you can stay in touch with the grandkids through play when you’re on the go.

Grandparent Games

This week, I got a chance to play the PC/Mac versions of two of the games — ‘Death in Scarlet’ and ‘Twice in a Blue Moon’ — based on Patterson’s characters.

The games use a ‘hidden objects’ platform. However, they add several more layers to the usual games of this type. Players need to examine crime scenes to collect clues in the usual ‘hidden objects’ manner, but you also need to interrogate suspects, and use other facts gleaned from solving challenging puzzles to solve the murder cases. You play different members of the Women’s Murder Club in different aspects of the case.

Twice in a Blue Moon also includes a free game, Mahjonng Investigations: Under Suspicion — a kind of mashup of traditional mahjonng with Women’s Murder Club.

Women’s Murder Club games sell for $19.95 and are exclusive to EB Games.

The game commences with the discovery of Emman Ravenhearst’s diary, which gives her personal account of events as they transpired more than a century ago. Unfortunately, just as you get into the story, you find that have been torn out, so to find out how her story ends, you need to search the mansion for those missing pages.

As you find all the objects in a particular level, which is no mean feat as they are very well hidden, you have to solve a puzzle and these are quite challenging.

For reasons I can’t quite put me finger on, I didn’t enjoy this one as enjoyable as the Mystery Stories game I reviewed recently.  I think it’s possibly because it was set in a wide variety of locations, so there was a bit more variety in the search pictures.

There’s also a little less flexibility with getting hints, although there are no time penalties for excess random clicking, so there is a little more room for trying your luck in that manner if you get stuck finding a particular object.

One good feature of these hidden object games is that the lists of objects to be found change each time you play, so they have an impressive shelf life for the money.

There are very few limits on age eligibility when playing these games (this one is recommended for seven year olds to adult). Because they are largely observational, they’re suitable for the whole family, but some objects on the search lists may need a bit of explanation — I had no idea of what a spigot was in one of the Ravenhearst puzzles  and had to Google it (it’s a tap, if you’re wondering).

And a word of caution: don’t play these games on a small screen, or you’ll go blind and insane!

Mystery Case Files — Ravenhearst

RRP: $19.95

Mystery Stories comprises two games, making it a good value proposition. Each of the games is, as the name suggests, a mystery that you need to solve by finding objects hidden in a picture. Sounds easy? Well, not so much.

Each game consists of many dozens of levels, so don’t think you’ll knock them over in one session — unless you’re not planning on sleeping for a week!

Objects are strategically placed so that they blend into the scenery and you’ll need to be really observant to locate many of them. Even the more obvious ones tend to be tricky to find, as you’re so busy looking for them in the finer details that you don’t see them — literally a case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

Each location in a level is timed, so if you can’t find all the objects listed or perform set tasks within that time, you have to start again.

One of the games' locations.

In each location, you’ll also find icons placed within the picture that let’s you get a clue, but they are seriously rationed, so you can’t rely on them to get you through unless there are just one or two objects that you can’t find. And don’t count on clicking around randomly within a location, hoping that you’ll stumble across an object, as it will run your time down quicker.

Mystery Games is suitable for the whole family and sells for $19.95.

Another bonus with these games is that they go on forever and are easy on the budget, unlike many of the blockbuster PC game titles.

I just love playing these games, particularly when I’m working on something complex that requires a lot of concentration, as they provide a nice, undemanding break, while giving your brain a bit of a workout. Almost as valuable as a Nana nap for revitalising you!

In honour of my fondness for casual games, I’m going to be featuring one or two of them each week (depending, of course, on whether I can stop playing long enough to write a review and post it to the site!). But be warned: they can be addictive.

Stay tuned!

These Rubik’s Cube tragics train like athletes to get to this elite level of competition, but you too can master the darstardly puzzle — OK, not in the same time as these guys, but hey, you have a life.

If you have a Rubik’s Cube that you bought in the ’80s (when you weren’t anyone unless you had one!) and it’s been thrown in a box in the garage in frustration, go dig it out.

Now, all you need to do is head to Eric Dietz’s Rubik’s Cube Solver site to get all your coloured squares literally in a row. You’ll be presented with a 2D representation of a Rubik’s Cube and you can configure it to reflect your own Cube by sampling the colours and clicking in the correct spot.

When that’s done, just click on the Solve button to be presented with the solution to your Cube. The instructions can be viewed as a list of written moves, which were a bit baffling for me, or you can click to see a diagrammed version, which is much easier to follow.

So, I’m off now to address one of my great failings in life — yes, that damned never-finished Cube!

Eric Dietz’s Rubik’s Cube Solver

For years, the Lipscombe Christmas has largely centred on eating lots of food and everyone dozing off for a few hours, only to awaken from the coma to begin again.

However, the last couple of years have seen a transition to a much more active Christmas following the acquisition of an Xbox 36o, a Nintendo Wii and a Nintendo DS — not to mention the addition of three toddlers to the family in the last couple of years, which means even a Nana nap is now out of the question.

Last Christmas, we only had the Xbox, and Guitar Hero III reigned supreme. As a result, I hope never to hear Pat Benatar’s ‘Hit me with your best shot’ ever again! But this year, while Guitar Hero got a fair workout, the Wii was definitely the crowd favourite.

OK, so what games were the most popular? The new Just Dance program for the Wii definiitely had the edge with pretty much everyone up on their feet, even the two year old, but perenneial favourite Wii Sports made a late surge  — we knew it was game on when my 80-year-old dad got the cardigan off for the 10-pin bowling championship.

Perhaps the worst gaming move was to bring out the Wii Fit after Christmas dinner. While everyone certainly in need of a bit of exercise, the BMI assessments were a bit confronting and a few wines played havoc with players’ balance!

For those who couldn’t wrest the controls off the rock gods and dance divas, the DS favourites were Scribblenauts and The Sims 2.

So, do games consoles get an airing at your place at family get-togethers? I’d love to know what ones get the rels off the couch at your house.

PS. Photos were taken, but in the interest of family harmony, I resisted the urge to post them here.