Kinect-based Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor is a concept that has a lot going for it, with a combination of controller and Kinect controls opening up a lot of gameplay options to immerse the player into feeling like they're actually piloting a giant "Vertical Tank" (VT) robot. The only thing that could break that immersion, which we saw occur several times when we checked out the pre-alpha build at Gamescom, should be obvious: Kinect not recognizing certain gestures. It's all good and fine for a Kinect hiccup when petting your Kinectimals, but this is war!

A small blessing of Steel Battalion is that it's played sitting down (for the most part). Stretching out your arms while maintain good posture calibrates your pilot for the system. Movement, aiming and firing are handled by the controller, while the player's gestures are used to look out windows, check outside the tank by lifting the hatch (that's the standing part), look around the cockpit and for pulling down or interacting with several of the VT's controls.