Christmas Family Endless Fun Game System

Playground is an innovative and simple motion tracking gaming device made for kids and families. I was introduced to Playground by a parent in my daycare. Initially I was looking for a video game that I can play with my son that doesn’t involve violence and adult themes. However, Nex offers much more than just PG family fun. It also gets you moving and grooving to its vast library of music. Our son is not only finding new ways to interact with TV, he is getting exercise.The unboxing of Nex was simple and pleasant. It came with everything in the box so you don’t need to buy more cables or batteries. The remote control is even rechargeable. The actual gaming unit is surprisingly small. The box is roughly a 10 inch cube but the actual device is only a 3 inch cube.Setup is also very intuitive. Like many other devices today, it doesn’t come with any instruction manuals. You just plug in the power and HDMI. A button press on the accompanying joystick will get you to the WiFi setup menu. If you have the Play Pass, you will instantly have access to all the games available. (A Play Pass was provided to us for free) Everything just works right out of the box without figuring things out.At the time of this review, the Starter pack has 4 games. 22 titles total when purchased with a Play Pass. The main menu also says that 7 games coming soon this summer.Whack a Mole deluxe is challenging and a good arm workout. Hand tracking is a little slow for fast precise movements. The concept is simple but the developers put surprising amount of depth in the game to keep kids and adults engaged. Later levels features moles with multiple hard hats and fire that can burn your hands.Goal Keeper is a basic but challenging game. As the name entails, you are a goalie that protects the goal from soccer balls. The game starts with a teenage boy kicking one ball at a time at you. But gradually it becomes a battle between you and a monster robot with multiple cannons for arms that shoots multiple balls at the same time.Starri is your rhythmic motion game. Expectation was low on the song list but surprisingly it had a huge song library. Artist includeds Dua Lipa, Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga, One Republic, etc. I didn’t go through the entire song list but it had your chart topping pop music, electronic music and even bunch of Chinese pop songs. It’s much more than expected.The fitness program is surprisingly well done. It’s much more than just some basic arm motions repackaged in a fitness form. You can start a profile, pick from one of 50 exercise programs and setup a monthly plan. Other than upper body, you will follow an instructor on doing squats, lunges, sit ups, jumping exercises. You can even workout with dumbbells. Overall, this is a much better program than what came with the Xbox Kinect.I was most excited about playing the tennis game. As you can imagine, your hand is the racquet and you swing it to hit the ball. However, the hand tracking is not very good in this game. Backhand doesn’t register half of the time and forehand registers late. I think some update to tracking is needed in this game.Nex Playground is a reimagining of the original Xbox Kinect. It’s simple to use and fun for the whole family. I would highly recommend this device for a family with children.

Playground is an innovative and simple motion tracking gaming device made for kids and families. I was introduced to Playground by a parent in my daycare. Initially I was looking for a video game that I can play with my son that doesn’t involve violence and adult themes. However, Nex offers much more than just PG family fun. It also gets you moving and grooving to its vast library of music. Our son is not only finding new ways to interact with TV, he is getting exercise.The unboxing of Nex was simple and pleasant. It came with everything in the box so you don’t need to buy more cables or batteries. The remote control is even rechargeable. The actual gaming unit is surprisingly small. The box is roughly a 10 inch cube but the actual device is only a 3 inch cube.Setup is also very intuitive. Like many other devices today, it doesn’t come with any instruction manuals. You just plug in the power and HDMI. A button press on the accompanying joystick will get you to the WiFi setup menu. If you have the Play Pass, you will instantly have access to all the games available. (A Play Pass was provided to us for free) Everything just works right out of the box without figuring things out.At the time of this review, the Starter pack has 4 games. 22 titles total when purchased with a Play Pass. The main menu also says that 7 games coming soon this summer.Whack a Mole deluxe is challenging and a good arm workout. Hand tracking is a little slow for fast precise movements. The concept is simple but the developers put surprising amount of depth in the game to keep kids and adults engaged. Later levels features moles with multiple hard hats and fire that can burn your hands.Goal Keeper is a basic but challenging game. As the name entails, you are a goalie that protects the goal from soccer balls. The game starts with a teenage boy kicking one ball at a time at you. But gradually it becomes a battle between you and a monster robot with multiple cannons for arms that shoots multiple balls at the same time.Starri is your rhythmic motion game. Expectation was low on the song list but surprisingly it had a huge song library. Artist includeds Dua Lipa, Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga, One Republic, etc. I didn’t go through the entire song list but it had your chart topping pop music, electronic music and even bunch of Chinese pop songs. It’s much more than expected.The fitness program is surprisingly well done. It’s much more than just some basic arm motions repackaged in a fitness form. You can start a profile, pick from one of 50 exercise programs and setup a monthly plan. Other than upper body, you will follow an instructor on doing squats, lunges, sit ups, jumping exercises. You can even workout with dumbbells. Overall, this is a much better program than what came with the Xbox Kinect.I was most excited about playing the tennis game. As you can imagine, your hand is the racquet and you swing it to hit the ball. However, the hand tracking is not very good in this game. Backhand doesn’t register half of the time and forehand registers late. I think some update to tracking is needed in this game.Nex Playground is a reimagining of the original Xbox Kinect. It’s simple to use and fun for the whole family. I would highly recommend this device for a family with children.

We set up our Nex Playground for my son's birthday this weekend and aolutely love it. We're a family with kids from 7 to 15 years old, and we all had so much fun. I had been looking for a game system I could say yes too, after struggling over games that keep kids sitting and isolated, staring at a small screen. This game system is different! It's very easy to hook up and gets rid of the annoying separate controller. We always lose/break/fight over controllers, so having a system without one is amazing. There is one master control remote but apparently you can use a regular remote if it gets lost, which is a huge relief. Otherwise the controller for all games is you and your body! The game comes with a small selection of games, which is great to start, but with the subscription (an annual fee) you get a really good, varied assortment of games. Some people may not like that model, but as a Nintendo-playing family, I love it and think it's a great deal. For the price of one or two games on a Nintendo system, you get access to a library of ever-expanding games on the Nex. I like having jumped in slightly late as there are a lot of games to choose from. Our favorite games currently are Starri (dance rhythm game), fruit ninja, bowling, and an airplane flight game. When we turned it on, even the kids' grandma wanted to try playing! I love watching my kids play actively together and have fun moving their bodies in a game. Its great to see them playing cooperatively and talking to each other. Selecting options with body and hand motions feels active even while using a screen. I felt sore (in a good way!) after playing enthusiastically the previous day. The best endorsement came from my 15 year old, who said she had been skeptical when I first mentioned getting the system, but "it was a really good idea, Mom." I agree!The company itself also feels very fresh and enthused about its product, like the best kind of start-up. The insider community on Facebook is a terrific way to get insight into thr company's plans for the future and current activity. They are very transparent about what they're doing and developing, and appear to always be working on improving and tweaking existing games. This is another feature where they surpass the competition, as competitor's games are not as easily improved or expanded upon once published.This is a long review, but can be summed up easily- my family loves the Nex! It's the best purchase I've made for our family in a long time.

We received it early and it’s a huge hit. Kids 6-49 are having fun with the provided games. Personally, I’m exhausted and don’t need to go to the gym this week. Off to buy the Play Pass…

Kids have been having lots of fun, finding the various games hilarious and also beating the grown ups more often than not. Great way to get them active indoors, and much safer with less jumping on and off the furniture. For grown ups, this has been an unexpected cardio workout (in a good way, lol)! Looking forward to lots more active fun. This will also be so handy on rainy or smoky indoor days!For setting up, the device was much smaller than expected and set up itself was very easy. We also liked that are no extra controllers to buy (or to misplace around the house)!