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Self-Defense Training Camp Review
Kick it in the junk, run away
November 22, 2011
by Mitch Dyer
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I had high hopes for Self-Defense Training Camp, if only because Ubisoft understands fitness games. I still think YourShape: Fitness Evolved is one of the best things you can play on Kinect, so I was optimistic about learning to beat up back-alley muggers. I was extra stoked when the first piece of advice my in-game instructor had to offer was "kick your attacker in the genitals."

This was the one and only moment I spent in the dojo not regretting the life choices that led me here.


Even at a conceptual level, Self-Defense Training Camp is broken. It's a Kinect-only game, which means you aren't ever touching or interacting with a person. In a gym, you're already training in mock-confrontations. You slow down and your partner gives way to your moves -- it's an approximation and estimation of how to handle an attacker in a bad situation. When you remove the only sense of realism from the situation (the "attacker") you lose the one and only thing that can help you. What's the point?

This leaves Self-Defense Training Camp with basic gestures to follow in each defensive sequence. The idea here is that you'd play through each series of what-if attack scenarios and walk away able to protect yourself in the same situation. If anything, I felt less capable after my few hours in the dojo. Movements are uncomplicated, animated poorly, and generously forgiving (even when done incorrectly or lazily). I feel like the pile of praise the instructor threw at me has to be some sort of artistic, elaborate joke, too.

I lift my arms up six inches.
He shouts, "INCREDIBLE!"

I push my arms out.
"INCREDIBLE!"

I kick pretend testicles.
"INCREDIBLE!"

TEN MINUTES OF PUNCHING THE AIR? COME ON.

I didn't learn anything valuable here because these exercises aren't applicable to anything. Motions are basic, and rarely aligned with the horrible character animations. Rotating my forearm caused my faux-ponent to turn around, step back, twist his arm up, or bend it to the side without explaining why. If I learned anything here, it's that the same movement I make when I hand someone spare change will expose an attacker's balls. I'm confused too.

The supplementary training sessions are similarly useless. Yoga isn't the zen experience it thinks it is. It's more like doing the Thriller in slow motion than performing a soothing exercise. Punch/kick/block activities aren't of any use, either -- it's the kind of shadow boxing I used to do as a kid, only now it's sluggish and pointless. Cardio sessions, which should have annihilated my out-of-shape ass, involved the kinds of repetitive lifts and twists reserved for aerobics for the elderly. If I'm not breaking a sweat, let's be honest, neither is anybody else. I ask again: What's the point?

Closing Comments

Honestly, any money you'd use on self-defense training should go someone who will actually teach you something. Go to a place where you'll benefit from spending your time. It isn't like Self-Defense Training is an atrocity, or the kind of game that makes you angry. It just has no reason to exist.

1.0 OUT OF 10

Zitrusfrucht wrote: Hm, ich denke das lliegt einfach an meinem unregelmäßigen Tagesablauf und all meinen Problemchen - außerdem kann ich schlecht abschalten, es ist immer irgendwas bei mir. Dazu kommt noch mein Schnarchen.

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