Game review | Child of Eden

In gaming parlance, a “rail shooter” is a first-person trip along a predetermined path, during which the player disposes of undesirables—degrees of bloodshed vary—and collects or earns goodies. In this genre, Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s Rez (now a decade old!) remains influential and still stands as a classic.

Child of Eden, out now for Xbox 360 with a PS3 version scheduled for September, finds Mizuguchi applying his expertise to the capabilities of the Xbox. Specifically, we’re talking about the kind of controller-free, full-body play possible with the 360’s Kinect peripheral, on sale since November.

The game’s premise is thin: Eradicate a virus from Eden, the abstract shapescape of the Internet 200 years from now that’s home to a virtual resurrection of Lumi, the first human born in outer space. CoE significantly improves upon the response time, smoothness and sensitivity of earlier Kinect games, and there are bonuses for blasting virus-poisoned, floating data packets in time with the thumping soundtrack (also composed by Mizuguchi).

Without Kinect, CoE is little more than a kaleidoscope on steroids. Plug in the motion-capture element, and it becomes surprisingly addictive.

Child of Eden ($50) is out now.