Happy birthday, Kinect! It seems like it was just yesterday that you were first reminding us how uncoordinated we actually are. (And how violent the pets we own really are.)

Now we’ve had a year with the peripheral that Microsoft promised would be revolutionary, we at OXM took a moment to reflect on our time with Kinect these past twelve months — and what we’d see during Kinect’s second year. (Hint: no more games like Minute to Win It.)

How has Kinect most surprised you in its first year?

Ryan McCaffrey, Senior Editor: I’m most shocked at all of the amazing homebrew hacks people have come up with: assisting in surgery, helping the blind navigate the world, doing real-time scene capture — it’s all astounding. Oh, you probably wanted me to talk about games, didn’t you?

Kevin W. Smith, Features Editor: By starting to get integrated into “hardcore” games like Halo and Mass Effect, for good or bad.

Francesca Reyes, Editor in Chief: Adoption rate and how successfully it’s proven its original concept of motion/gesture control. And this is mostly due to the developers who've made some incredible games for Kinect over the past year. Rewind to early 2010 and I was worried that Kinect would be a gimmick — a way to capitalize on the Wii-style casual trend. But when it actually came out and you could play all the different games with it, the real deal was much more than a sum of its parts — it really worked! It actually had the potential to change the way you played games; I saw this most in the way people reacted to playing games on Kinect, like my friends and family. They were captivated and it sparked their imaginations in a way that I wasn't expecting. Hell, I hadn't expected to enjoy the games or the experience as much as I did. But it happened. And it's an immediate thing — right away, people get it once they play games with it.

Dave Rudden, Web Editor: After the crazy drought that occurred in early 2011, I can’t believe how strongly the Kinect rallied over the second half of the year. The Kinect’s best games have all come in short order during the summer and fall, and with the introduction of Xbox Live Arcade Kinect games, there seems to be something new and interesting for the platform always on-deck. Here’s hoping the stream stays steady after the holiday season.

Dave Cordon, Art Director: I was surprised by the emotional roller coaster of dread and excited anticipation I felt prior to Kinect's launch. I went from skeptical to enthusiastic to skeptical again as the rumors and details mounted. Would it work? Would it tank? Would it be gimmicky? Would anyone care? I was, however, completely impressed and thrilled by its first public demo. The future looked bright for Kinect. And over the year after its launch, I've entertained my family and friends' kids with Kinect Sports; and I've had more that one party full of adults get tipsy and sweaty playing Dance Central.

Alaina Yee, Managing Editor: How quickly I’d take to the idea of motion controls. I pretty much quit my lifelong love affair with Nintendo because I never bought into having to swing around my Wii remote (with the exception of the Rayman Raving Rabbids series). But when I first broke out DanceMasters, and plunged into all of its glorious DDR-flavored, J-pop craziness, I was hooked. I wasn’t ever a DDR fan, either, but something about not having to hold a controller or learn how to stomp on a dance pad made the concept of flailing in front of a TV suddenly… fun.

Corey Cohen, Executive Editor: Honestly, that I've enjoyed some of the games as much as I do. I've never considered myself a "motion gamer" in any sense, but I've really come to appreciate the Kinect games that make the best use of the device (stuff like The Gunstringer, Child of Eden, Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved).