E3 '11: Hands Off: Michael Phelps: Push The Limit

So I made a point of stopping by 505 Games' room at E3 this year because they had a playable demo of a game that I've been curious about since it was first announced. And don't like, you all were, too. That's right, it's the swimming simulator game Michael Phelps: Push The Limit for Xbox 360 Kinect!

You can swim all four strokes, like backstroke, breaststroke, regular and um... butterfly, I think? The demo was just the regular stroke. There's a career mode where you can try to be as good as Michael Phelps, and the Olympic champion will even coach you through voice over.

The initial dive was really weird, because as you see in the video, you have to stand up at the start, and the game shows the dive in slow motion. So there's a bit of a disconnect as you actually get underway. Then it speeds up and you have to time your strokes with the correct rhythm to get your speed up. During more advanced races, you will also have to gesture correctly to do the turn at the end of the pool to turn around. Oddly, the middle part of the race was a mini-game type thing where you had to gesture to hold you hand over the floating lightning bolts while avoiding the X's in order to keep the speed up. Again that felt like a disconnect, but I was told that's only in the longer races to keep your arms from falling off. Makes sense. The shorter sprint races will be just swimming, though. And the final stretch of the race was just furious swim as fast as you can. I biffed the ending pose, but still came in first, so I was pleased with myself.

After the demo, even with that little break in the middle, I have to admit my arms were tired. This could be a decent workout, although sadly you won't end up as ripped as Phelps himself... (And I hope you guys appreciate how I embarrass myself every year at E3 for your amusement... remember Dance Central?)