In the western world, Disney and family entertainment go hand-in-hand. It’s widely accepted that any products bearing the branding of one of the world’s foremost entertainment companies will be not only suitable for children of all ages, but will be of a relatively high quality. The videogames industry is a little different to many others in this regard, with considerable note to be taken of the fact that all the good intentions in the world can sometimes fail to save a product from being a contemptible mess, no matter whose name appears on the box.
It’s accepted right from the start that the target audience of Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is children between the ages of three and eighty-three, and that they can be anywhere between two foot and six foot tall – and often beyond. While this does throw awkward issues into the mix as far as the technology is 
concerned, Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is designed in such a fashion that only the most scrutinous players will notice it. For everyone else, Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is a doorway into the world of Disney•Pixar, nothing more and nothing less.
The videogame begins fairly simply, offering player the chance to jump into the adventure themselves or to simply pick from one of the pre-constructed avatars. Sadly, even at this early point in the videogame we can see the hallmarks of aging technology. Rarely will the software recognise the player correctly, causing the creation process to be unnecessarily frustrating.
The gameplay of Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is more accurate in its reaction to a player’s physical input, though still far from perfect. Featuring five of Disney•Pixar’s most popular IPs, the videogame provides plenty of scope for different activities which – generally speaking – can be boiled down to two different control methods: platform and driving. When walking through the fictional theme park players must swing their arms back for forth
to walk, approaching a child who will set them a quest themed on one of the five IPs; the design is clearly based on that of Kinect Disneyland Adventures. Once in the levels, players will have to run, jump, swing, climb, throw and more, just as they would in a normal platform videogame, only here the control is more than just a button press, it’s conducting the actions physically. With Kinect, the Xbox 360 is now arguably closer to that 1980’s vision of ‘virtual reality’ than we’ve ever been before.
The driving aspect of the videogame is, as might be expected by long time owners of the Kinect device, based on that of Kinect Joyride. It’s a simple case of grabbing an invisible steering wheel in front of you: turn left to turn left, turn right to turn right. Just as with the platform action, these are commands that gamers already know, everyday activities that have now become the basis of interactive entertainment.
Disappointingly, all of this clever design is hamstrung by the technology incorporated into the backend of the software. Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure demands more space and light than most Kinect titles, even those available at launch. Despite the advances 
made with the software delivered in the latter part of last year, it’s clear that this is a videogame built on old tech, unable to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with more recent productions in terms of its detection capability.
The visual design of Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure, however, is near-flawless, brimming with bright colours and fantastic animation. A nice touch comes in the form of the fades in-and-out of gameplay segments, where children begin the set-up by acting as their favourite character before imagination takes over, and they become that character until your objective has been completed. It’s nearly as inviting a design as Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster’s storybook presentation. The sound quality is also respectable, with the actors behind the famous animated characters impersonated very well.
Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is a confused, disappointing Kinect title, offering forward thinking design curtailed by aging tech. Its platform action – playable as a two-player split-screen drop-in/drop-out videogame throughout – is presented so well that it almost makes up for the poor player recognition, but a workaround is not better than a fix. Kinect Rush: A Disney•Pixar Adventure is a placebo videogame; it’s almost ideal for the whole family, but that ‘almost’ is succinct for a lot of fiddling with lighting and space, and forgiveness on behalf of the audience.
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