I recently came across the Kick Ass Kung-Fu video game, which is a fighting game in which your real movements are used in the game. Watching the sample clip made me want to ask if it was a joke, though the technology is actually very cool. At least, it seems less vaporwareish than, say, Extreme Wing Chun VR — where the hell did that game go? But I digress.

In terms of an actual interface, I can’t imagine KAKF being useful for training, nor for a satisfying gameplay experience. The idea seems sound at first glance: translate your movements in the real world into virtual movements in the video game. Use real fighting techniques you know to defeat your virtual opponents. This also makes for entertaining-to-watch gameplay, DDR style.

In practice, however, is where the limitations come through. The main problem I see is feedback: if you kick and strike someone, you’re going to feel it. Kicking the air and kicking a person are vastly different experiences. The same is true of getting hit — when you get hit, you might stumble back. It’s not as if you just take “damage” but don’t move. Dealing with that energy is a big part of learning good defense.

The converse is true: if you strike someone, it’s going to feel vastly different than kicking in the air. There’s a resistance at play there that would just be missing, leading to strange technique. If you only practice kicking or punching in the air, you’re going to be quite surprised if you ever actually get in a fight.

Plus, there’s a certain subtlety in fighting style that appears to be missing: blocking and counterstriking are a vital part of any martial art. How do you put up a good defense, if you can’t block anything? In theory, they could develop reasonable block detection, but without the aforementioned feedback, it’s going to be difficult to develop the subtleties of what a person can and can’t do. If the computer traps my arms, am I prevented from making certain movements? If they step to the side of me, are certain steps of mine more difficult than others? How does the computer knock me off balance?

The technology itself seems frustrating. If you look at the demo video clip they have, there is a noticeable lag between executed technique and display in the game. Perhaps this is good enough for a game. It just seems like it would be aggravating in a game to have moves delayed — almost like piloting the Mars rover. Send a kick, wait for it to happen. This is probably just because the technology is still being developed, and the lag may be fixed before release. If it isn’t, it’s going to be extremely annoying to play.

Interestingly enough, the better you actually are at martial arts, the better you’d do at this game. But, if you’re at that level, maybe you’d find real life sparring much more satisfying than punching and kicking to the air against a virtual opponent.

If, on the other hand, you’re a gamer, but not a martial artist, then you’ll find this game very tiring, without actually helping you develop real, effective technique. (In that vein, it’s similar to DDR, I guess: people great at DDR don’t necessarily make great dancers.) I can see gamers just throwing out their legs random times and otherwise just flailing about, in an effort to get as many strikes out there as possible.

A real movement video game fighter is the holy grail of fighters. This is not that game. As a game it seems lackluster, and as a martial arts trainer it seems terrible. Who’s the target audience here? Lonely armchair ninjas? I really and truly hope they prove me wrong. I wouldn’t mind watching someone bust out some Capoeira-style moves at the mall arcade.