At the start of this current generation of gaming machines, the accepted wisdom was that Sony’s Playstation 3 was going to crush its rivals and rule the console world for another six years. Then without warning Nintendo came along with its odd and underpowered Wii and proceeded to give Sony one of the rudest wake-up calls in gaming history as it thrilled audiences with its unique motion controllers.
This week Sony got back in the game with the launch of its own motion controls, the Playstation Move. The big question now is whether Sony has what it takes to reclaim its crown or whether the Move will end up as just another Wii wannabe. JOE waves its arms about to find out the answer.
By Leo Stiles
The Move controllers are a little odd to say the least and have a look that is somewhere between Fisher Price and a sex toy with their concave shape and large while ball on top. Firing up the controller is easy enough and that odd white ball immediately endears itself to you with a flashy display of colour before finally settling on pink. The controller has a good weighty feel and a decent layout of buttons that are nice and spongey with only the bizarre placement of the start and select buttons on the side of the controller marring an otherwise brilliantly designed piece of hardware.
To the casual observer, the Playstation Move is remarkably like the Wii but make no mistake, the Move is light years ahead of Nintendo’s dominating console. For starters the glowing white ball is there for more than just show and allows the Playstation Eye camera that sits under or on top of your TV to track the controllers every move and match it to the game with one to one precision. Two accelerometers then track the controller’s orientation and speed of movement giving players full 3D movement within a game world.
Even in menus, the Move displays incredible precision with even tremors in your hand replicated on the screen. Every movement is matched on screen with no lag or glitches and you feel the same confidence you get from traditional controllers, something that will be essential for first-person shooters. When playing games, how good the controls are depends on the quality of the game, but most exhibit subtleties of movement and orientation that just aren’t possible using a Wii remote.
One small annoyance is the need for the controller to be regularly recalibrated, and while this process only takes a few seconds, its regularity can be a bit of a teeth grinder at times, especially if it comes after a lengthy loading screen.
Initially Move seems like a reasonably cheap option with the starter pack costing €60. This pack includes one motion controller, the Playstation Eye camera and a starter discs containing a few demos. So far, not a bad deal. But if you want to take full advantage of some game features you will need a second controller (€40) and possibly the Navigator Controller (€30) that is sure to be needed for some of the upcoming ‘hardcore’ games such as Killzone 3.
Also, more players means more controllers and this can send the cost skyrocketing. And that’s all before you’ve bought a single game. A basic set up for the average PS3 owner who wants to play with friends and play all the latest games will average out at €130 with games adding €40-60 each to the final cost.
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Next:The Games.
Playstaion Move: The Games
Sports Champions
The best launch game is still a disappointment and it’s almost criminal that Sony has managed to get this one wrong. Wii Sports is the obvious target here, a game which still manages to charm and entertain years after your first play with its very Nintendo take on boxing, tennis and bowling.
In an effort to differentiate itself from its main competition, Sports Champions has eschewed traditional sports in favour of something a little more eclectic. The line-up consists of six different events; archery, table tennis, bocce (a variant of bowls), volleyball, gladiator duels and a mad hybrid of Frisbee throwing and golf. Of these six events only three of them really hit the mark.
Archery works very well and benefits from the pinpoint accuracy offered by the motion controller. Typical matches involve scoring points against an opponent within a strict time limit against targets both moving and stationary. It’s all a bit simple but has that addictive one-more-go quality that makes it the highlight of the package.
Table Tennis also works quite well, especially as the Move controller allows you to orient the paddle in just about any manner you choose; enabling lobs and allowing you to add any degrees of spin to the ball. This precision is a two-way street and the sensitivity of the controls deliver a sharp learning curve that might put some players off.
The final event worth mentioning isn’t even a sport but is the game that shows the true potential of the Move technology. Gladiator gives you a sword and shield to fight it out against some Maximus types. Using two motion controllers gives you full and independent movement for both the sword and the shield, making the fights dynamic and (most importantly) fun.
The rest of the games are uninspired and rather dull. Overall, the game is devoid of personality without the inclusion of player-designed avatars. The choice of sports is also a disappointment as Sony might not want to seem like they are copying Wii Sports, but gamers want to play tennis, they want to play golf and they absolutely want to play bowling. What they don’t want to play is fiddly and boring Frisbee-golf.
Despite all this, Sports Champions still has enough fun to offer to make it the one game Playstation Move owners should buy on day one, just don’t be expecting too much.
The Shoot
Duck Hunt, sorry The Shoot, is perhaps the most disappointing game of the lot as there was a huge opportunity here to deliver a rollicking Time Crisis-style shooter with motion control bells on. The Shoot isn’t that game and it doesn’t have one bell to call its own.
The whole game is a basic shooting gallery with you firing at cardboard cut-out enemies across a variety of clichéd movie set locations. The pace of the game is excruciatingly slow with very little skill needed to breeze through the levels. To make matters worse, the director voice that commentates on your performance is enough to make you want to eat the controller. Multiplayer options are there, but why you would want to inflict this miserable excuse for a game on anyone else is beyond us. Ultimately, you point, you shoot and that’s all there is for your €40.
Start the party
This is just an Eye Toy mini-game compilation for the PS3 and, like The Shoot, is a crushing waste of the Move’s potential. The technology used to play this game might be sophisticated but the core gameplay mechanics have absolutely nothing to recommend them and consists entirely of waving the Move controller around like a madman while the Playstation Eye camera projects a low resolution image of you onto the TV screen. This is only suitable for the most casual gamer or the least discerning five-year-old.
Tiger Woods PGA Golf 11
EA’s golf title is already a winner but the addition of motion controls gives the game a whole new lease of life. Playing with the Move makes the game a real pleasure to play with your posture, swing and club angle all realistically simulated. Using the Move takes away all the combinations of button presses and timing intricacies you otherwise have to contend with, instead giving you the chance to really play the game of golf from your living room.
Next: The Verdict
Playstation Move:The Verdict
Initial game line-ups for any new piece of gaming technology are always hit and miss affairs and this one is no exception. Unfortunately the first wave of Move games miss far more than they hit and we have to say that Sports Champions is the only game at launch that might be worth the cost of investing in the technology if you want to give Playstation Move a whirl but we wouldn’t be able to give it our full endorsement.
It’s not all bad on the games front with some heavy hitters taking full advantage of the Move technology. Chief among these are Killzone 3, Little Big Planet 2, Socom, Resident Evil 5, Time Crisis and the motion control brawler, The Fight. These games should test the hardware to its limits and give us the true measure of the technology and a definitive verdict on whether developers can really step up and create proper that plays better with motion controls.
The cost issue is a big one because you do have to invest a fair bit of money to get the most out of the games, and not having a proper game to bundle in the starter pack is a big mistake in our book.
Our advice is to wait until those big guns arrive and then take the plunge, but for now the games just don’t justify the extra expense.
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