Gunstringer puts you in control of a bad-ass cowboy skeleton marionette out for revenge and lets you move, shoot and perform by moving your body. The game itself is part platformer, part shooter and also has co-op sections so your friends can get in on the shooty fun. Check out the teaser trailer to see for yourself…

Unlike many Kinect games this can also be played sat down so there’s no need to leap around like a frog, unless you think it’ll help. There’s no word on a release date yet, or a price, it’s not even clear if this will be a download title or if it’ll get the full physical release, all we know at the moment is that it looks a lot of fun and certainly takes the Kinect into new territory.

Dance Paradise is THQ’s effort in the dancing game genre. This will be the third dance based game that uses the Kinect and this one features real music videos, along the lines of SingStar on the PlayStation, rather than relying solely on generated graphics. The game features more than 40 popular tracks, multiplayer and dance tutorials for those of us with two left feet. You can also perform with your Xbox Live Avatar which is a pretty cool touch. Dance Paradise is available in late February.

Brunswick Pro Bowling is the Xbox 360 version of the popular bowling franchise that’s also available on the PS3 and the Wii. Expect gameplay to be similar to the bowling game available on Kinect Sports but with more options when it comes to characters, lanes and balls. Brunswick Pro Bowling is also available in late February.

Fantastic Pets is another Kinect game from THQ. Fantastic Pets will use Augmented Reality to make the pets seem to be in the room with you, unlike Kinectimals where they’re trapped inside your TV. It will also let you play with dragons and unicorns as well as your more normal cats and dogs. Definitely worth a look if you like Kinectimals, expect it in mid March.

Child of Eden is a motion and rhythm based game, made by the same people as Rez on the PS2, it’s essentially the spiritual successor to the cult game. Weapons are controlled with your hands and the action is explosive, the game itself is also very colourful. If you liked Rez, which you can also check out on Xbox Live Arcade, this is right up your street. Child of Eden comes out at the end of March.

YooStar 2 is the perfect game for budding actors. It’s unique among Kinect games as it doesn’t use motion controls, instead it captures your performance and puts you in popular scenes from the movies, essentially acting karaoke. Scenes can be uploaded where others can view and rate them. YooStar 2 will be released sometime in March but there’s no concrete date yet.

Michael Jackson: The Experience is another dance based title but this one puts you in Michael Jackson’s shoes. Expect to dance your way through his extensive back catalogue and learn the signature moves that made Michael Jackson one of the biggest entertainers ever, here’s hoping it teaches us how to do that awesome, gravity defying lean from Smooth Criminal. April 12th is its expected release date, sparkly glove probably not included.

Other sports titles expected this year include Sega’s Virtual Tennis 4, a swimming based title from Michael Phelps: Push the Limit will really get you moving, without getting you wet and Forza 4 will have Kinect features as a optional control system, letting you steer fast cars with an imaginary steering wheel.

There are several Kinect titles without a concrete date including Sega’s survival horror Rise of Nightmares and horror puzzler Haunt are both coming this year. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, which uses a hybrid of traditional gamepad and Kinect controls, is on its way and the awesome looking Kinect: Star Wars is also expected this year, no official date yet but we can’t wait to use some force powers and hurl around a lightsaber.

Lots and lots of new games coming very very soon then, which ones are you most excited for though? Drop us a comment and let us know.

Evan Suma, a researcher at the University of Southern California, and his team at the school’s Institute for Creative Technologies used a standard Kinect and an open source framework called OpenNI to create a new middleware program called the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit, or FAAST. This new program translates real world gestures into game commands.

In the video Evan Suma is demonstrating the FAAST system, his left hand moves the game camera, his right hand selects spells and attacks and he leans his body to move his character.

Suma has released the FAAST software as open source so everyone can now download it and try out its features. Download the source code HERE.

The game allows dancing, but also introduces competition, and there's nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition!

With Christmas coming this is a great game to pick up with your Kinect purchase, head on over to Amazon for a look at the game by clicking here

The game, which requires Kinect, allows your children to have a pet, without the mess! Translating actions in the real world, to actions on screen, Kinectimals is a great game for kids to have the joys of owning a pet. You can play dead, and the cub will copy you, jump and the cub will copy you and more!

If you're getting a Kinect for the little ones this Christmas, then Kinectimals is definately one of THE games for you to get

Click here to view the game at Amazon