The demo games include Sports Champions and Start the Party!. Sports Champions gave me the feeling that Move is aimed at mature gamers, rather than the Wii’s family demographic. This was somewhat confirmed by the lack of effort and quality put into Start the Party!. I think this shift in demographic to mature gamers is a smart move and will be played out in sales of forthcoming blockbusters like Grand Turismo.
Unleash your inner warrior
Sports Champions and Start The Party! showcase the Move’s precision and give you an insight into its augmented reality capabilities, putting you - courtesy of the Eye's lens - right into the picture. I particularity enjoyed seeing myself welding outsized swords and hammers. Go, Valkyrie, go!
Basically, Sports Champions is Wii Sports pimped up, but it's a good introduction to active gaming on the PS3. Some of the games are engaging, others less so, But you'll get several hours' worth of fun out the disc, which comes with the Move Starter Pack bundle.
My favorite was Gladiator Duel. Seen Spartacus: Blood and Sand? It’s just like that but without the tits. This game really comes alive when you’re dual-wielding: your left hand controls the shield, your right a weapon. Attacking and blocking involve making the correct body movements. I am usually on attack mode by default but if you don’t block you get hit. Hard. A nice piece of detail was the notches in my shield where my opponents’ weapons struck it.
Sports Champions is worth a go for Gladiator alone
I also enjoyed the special item unlocks such as outfits and weapons. Oh, and to revel in your glory on future occasions, if you win enough games you can have your augmented reality photo taken with your really big sword! Geek it up to the max!
COMMENTS
Our other office has a Kinnect dev kit...
And it's the laughing stock of the office (our office at least). The latest hardware rev turned up about 6 weeks back, and it's still a utter joke, it's really laggy even basic API testing, let alone trying to use it in a game, and it has serious (and unfixable) registration issues due to the resolution drop Microsoft had to give it to make it affordable (and for the Xbox to be able to perform the image processing near realtime). It promises way too much, there is no way on earth it can deliver anything more than a small update on what PS2 EyeToy was offering 8 years back.
Move all the way. We have 3x move titles in development, and it's all going very well indeed. The Sony APIs are stable and well documented and integrate seamlessly into their existing API classes and system services, it's quite trivial to add move support, as long as your game is the type that can benefit from it.
It sorta explains why MAG is getting a Move update within the month, as is Heavy Rain (which I am a big fan of), I think both titles will demonstrate very nicely how versatile Sony's new controller is.
If it's accurate then it's the one for me
I've been waiting for a review of this on a site I trust. Having played the Wii many times I have also been frustrated by its lack of accuracy, even with the "Motion Plus"(tm) controller the console lets itself down, not to mention the dated graphics and some very tired-looking game franchises.
Recently I also had the opportunity to have a go on the Microsoft Kinect system as it was being demo'd at my place of work. Although I should point out for fairness that it is not yet the finished retail product and subject to bug-fixing.
If Kinect can be described as anything then that thing would be very clever. It can recognise people so that it knows who is playing (I can't speak for how accurate it would be if you gained/lost a few pounds) and can recognise the position of your limbs without any controller. However, while it was quite good fun in games which encompassed general movement, anything that needed more than a slight degree of accuracy was somewhat disappointing. Certainly on the system we played on, it showed even when just using your hand to select a button on the screen that it jiggled and moved slightly rather than being steady like my hand (I don't believe I had the alcoholic shakes that day....). We also saw that in some cases, perhaps based on clothing (one guy was wearing all black) it didn't properly recognise limb positions.
Of course, some of this may be fixed or improved by launch, but I still don't see how it can compete on an accuracy basis without the benefit of a motion sensitive controller to back up the image-based tracking.
For me, this means that I will gravitate towards the Move as I think the lack of accuracy may limit the applications of Kinect. However, if I am proved wrong upon the full Kinect release then things could always change.
"i'm a hardcore gamer and I have yet to buy a PS3"
Then your not a hardcore gamer. Anyone that truely considers themselves a gamer will already have a PS3. How else do you get to play generation defining titles like Uncharted 1&2 and Killzone and the like? You don't you miss out...
Congratulations, your fanboyism means you are the one losing out....
Yes that's right
I tell you what, why don't you nip down to Kmart and buy yourself a blue light bulb and a cheap camera. You've probably already got bluetooth in your phone or something so you have that already. Just put them all together and there you go, Playstation Move on the cheap! No need to buy the real stuff at all!
Why does it look like you're holding a magenta cock on page 2?
Bizarre...
