Ever since I was a young boy
I've played the silver ball
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all
But I ain't seen nothing like him
In any amusement hall
That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball

Right about now, I imagine you're wondering what The Who's "Pinball Wizard" has to do with a downloadable title about crashing cars -- but with the Kinect functionality, it's those last two lines that really linger. Burnout Crash! in motion with Kinect is like some foreign ballet that my brain just doesn't have the faculties to understand.

It's also apt because the team at Criterion working on this had two clear influences: pinball and game shows. Richard Franke, game director, explains that Criterion took the "depth, strategy and features" of pinball and combined them with the "lights and sounds that generate excitement" from game shows. If you close your eyes and just listen to the game in progress, it sounds like you're at the local arcade, pinball machines blaring.