Obviously, Star Wars will almost immediately come to mind when thinking about suitable game types for motion-gaming. The Wii held some solid potential, considering you use a lightsaber-esque controller, but it was Microsoft’s Kinect that got people even more excited about a Star Wars game. The ability to “wield” a lightsaber and use the Force? Geektastic! Throw in a huge “but…” there, though. As appropriate as it may seem, there is plenty of opportunity for the game to step all over itself and turn into a mess of a situation. After getting some time with the game at Comic Con, there may still be a long way to go.

The Kinect: Star Wars demo gets you started with some Jedi training. The controls are fairly simple. Lifting large objects, such as a ship, will require two hands; droids or Force pushes only require one. You extend your right-arm to equip your lightsaber and wave to wield. Jumping will either throw you forward or make you flip over an enemy, while simply pushing your leg out while make you glide forward (think of it as using a snowboarding technique). Generally, the controls will react fairly well, but this game will need a lot of polish before it’s ready for the holiday season.As you may expect, the biggest lag comes while using your lightsaber. If you swing too fast to deflect fire or to chop down a droid, the Kinect will likely recognize half movements and create choppy lightsaber movements. We found the game to do this more than it would continue to swing the saber even when you stop moving your arm. It won’t completely destroy your pace, but it does require a reset of your movements or at least calm down. Considering lightsaber battles are incredibly, incredibly important to a Jedi’s fighting methods (blasters are clumsy, am I right?), this is something that will absolutely need to be retooled before the game releases. Also, it would be nice if the game doesn’t always require you to keep your arm extended to recognize your lightsaber. For longer gaming sessions, it’s surely bound to turn into a dead-arm situation. Your arm isn’t exactly meant to be in an awkward position like that for too long.

Beyond that, the Kinect: Star Wars demo played out decently well. The demo took me through an unspecified location (but I believe it was Coruscant) with a fellow Jedi, fighting through various types of prequel droids. When I employed subtle movements, the Kinect responded with ease. I wanted to test what it could handle by using fast motions, though. That is where I found some of the hiccups. Leaning forward to move worked well, but another movement reset is required for your character to continue moving forward. It’s reading your knee more than your body, so don’t expect to be able to constantly lean forward to move. If anything, that is what’s going to slow you down while playing this game. However you can keep the position for as long as you need to if you are travelling longer distances. Turning side to side preset some small problems. At times, it felt like I had control over where I wanted to face but I would soon be forced to face another direction. It didn’t happen enough to get a true sense of whether it’s the Kinect not being smart enough to turn side-to-side or the game just being that linear. When the final product comes along it should be something easier to determine.

This could easily still have been the E3 Demo, but regardless, Kinect: Star Wars is going to have to undergo a decent amount of work if Kinect owners are going to be receiving a solid title later this year. Mechanically, even graphically (it’s somewhat of a Clone Wars style, but not exactly), there are a lot of things little things that could be addressed. If the game can nail down fluid motions, this could be a fun game on our hands. If it doesn’t, well, then it’s going to be a prequel-like mess.

Kinect: Star Wars is due out for a Holiday 2011 release for the Xbox 360.