I played many great Kinect games at E3, such as the sublime Gunstringer and the goofy Fruit Ninja Kinect. The peripheral has a lot to offer gamers, especially when it’s put in the hands of gifted developers who see the motion controls for what they are: a challenge to be met with novel mechanics. Then I played Kinect Star Wars, and I began to despair.

The demo went on for 20 minutes or so, and while there were hints of a good game, the software was simply not responsive enough to deliver a satisfying experience. The combination of Star Wars and Kinect may sound good on paper, but it’s something else entirely in execution.

To ignite your lightsaber, you hold your hand near your pocket, or use voice controls. To swing your weapon you move your arm, but the game delivers large amounts of lag and some weird onscreen motions if you move too quickly. You have no control over the camera and limited control of the movements: You can jump straight up and down in some sections, and if you lunge at the screen, your character scoots forward. The rest is on rails.

The lightsaber is controlled with your right hand, and your left hand takes care of Force powers. By holding your left hand up, you can pick up droids or other enemies and fling them around the screen. It’s fun the first few times you do it, but the game holds your hand to such a degree that there’s little sense that you’re in control of anything. The lag makes things frustrating, and the game has trouble tracking your movements. Sometimes when swinging my lightsaber, my character would move forward a few steps helpfully, bringing me closer to the action. The lack of meaningful control was frustrating.

My 9-year-old son is going to love this, but it could have been so much more. There may still be time to fine-tune the controls, but it’s hard to find anything to like in a game that’s only partially interactive. This is an experience that would seem fun if it were a distraction in line for Star Tours at Disney, but as a standalone game it feels like a failure.

At E3, I played many good Kinect games: Child of Eden, Once Upon a Monster, Dance Central 2, Gunstringer and things like voice controls in Mass Effect 3 bring value to the platform. Sadly, Star Wars is a letdown. This is what happens when developers try to fit an experience onto a peripheral instead of building a new idea for an innovative product. Disappointing.