First Day Playstation Move Impressions

Been playing Move demos and games for pretty much the whole day now, was going to write up a massive detailed account but all I want to do is get back to Sports Champions, so I'll keep it brief and to the point...

It works and it's fun.

OK maybe that was a little too brief. I'll just quickly detail my Sports Champions time as that's the game I've been playing most.

I booted up the game with 7-8 score reviews fresh in my mind, wondering if this will keep me occupied beyond today. Well I can safely say I have justified my purchase already, I'm hooked. The first sport I tried was to become my favourite, table tennis. I knew from the aforementioned reviews that I was going to be challenged a little more than Wii sports with this but I didn't expect to find the challenge so compelling. Once you get over the 'Wii wag' mentality there's a sense of skill and finesse that just hasn't been done before. You are genuinely rewarded and punished for your technique or lack thereof, which adds an almost Demon Souls-like motivation to succeed... without the masochistic intensity of course. It's the fact that the game takes actual skill to master that takes what, on the surface, looks like just another casual sports sim and turns it into a 'hardcore' motion control experience. Add to this trophy support and you really have something to motivate you.

Of course not all the sports are on par technically, I didn't enjoy volleyball. I think it's mainly because there is a lot more physical exertion and manoeuvrability needed to play actual volleyball and this doesn't translate too well to motion controls.

Some of the sports seem to not work as well at first but before long you realise that you actually have yourself to blame. This was mentioned in a couple of reviews but I didn't fully comprehend until I tried it for myself. Take disc golf for example, I experienced a lot of misfires at first, which put me off a little but soon realised that I was standing the wrong way. I had skipped past a screen telling me to stand with my throwing arm side toward the screen and, once I adjusted, my handicap improved immensely.

Well I'm going to go play some more now so I'll wrap it up by saying that I can see the potential of Move clearly both as a complete platform for motion games as well as an accurate and comfortable alternative to the Dual Shock.