Hands-On: PlayStation Move + Games

At a recent Sony event in New York City, me and co-writer Matt got the chance to check out a few upcoming games for PlayStation 3‘s PlayStation Move motion controller. There were a lot of games to demo, although, we admittedly only had ten to fifteen minutes toying with each. So, rather than flood you with countless posts all short in length, we’re going to give you all our PlayStation Move impressions in this one, big preview.

PlayStation Move by Sal Romano

Before I could get into the games, the hardware itself is where I began. Move creator, Anton Mikhailov, was in the southeast sector of Sony’s preview event showing off some enticing demos displaying the technology inside the Move controller. What surprised me was just how much fun these demos were – and the fact that I would probably buy it had they released it as a game or PlayStation Network.

They were simple demos, but they accurately displayed Move’s most boasted feature: precision. The first demo shown to me had a wooden doll and a sword in a room lighten by a single light on the ceiling. With one of the Move controllers, I could move around the doll, and with the other controller, the sword. I let the doll stay still and kept focused on the sword. Moving around the sword, I could make it go closer to the wall of the room or farther depending on how close or far I was from the screen. Moving in close, I was even able to bring the sword behind the doll. Then, of course, I chopped that doll to bits. As I told Anton, that was just plain cool.

Another demo I saw – which I’ll label the Street Fighter homage demo – had the two Move controllers as energy generators. Holding the controllers in a Haduoken stance, energy filled the area in between. Releasing the triggers on the Move controller sent the energy flying forward. “Haduoken!” I yelled. This one was simply awesome because the camera had you on screen pulling off moves from Street Fighter. “Tiger!” What’s next? Can I go Super Saiyan, too?

I saw a few other small demos. There was one where the Move controller acted as a camera sitting in a helicopter. Another had Anton building LEGOs. The demo following had him painting, with the trigger on the back of the controller acting as a thrust to how strong he may want the paint. Then, finally, there was the chameleon demo. The two Move controllers acted as hands, each free to grab whatever branch they desired as they climbed a tree. The chameleon demo was interesting because it showed the dimensions of what Move can accomplish – which was clearly enforced by the always shifting camera angle.

The Move tech demos were fun. Like I said, I only wish I could own them for myself. Unfortunately, they’ll probably never get released to the public. Maybe some game will come out and let you make your own Haduokens, though.

The Fight: Lights Out by Sal Romano

The Fight, a game once on my highly anticipated list has now dropped off its face. I honestly had high expectations for this game but, after playing it for myself, wasn’t satisfied with the experience.

If anybody’s seen the PlayStation Move ad with Kevin Butler – the one where he comes from the future that is November 2010 – the blows that the guy who’s playing The Fight is making are all following his fists and his motion. They’re all on point, to put it simply. Playing it in real life is a different story. It’s pretty damn laggy.

As I was fighting, nearly every punch I threw felt delayed. Most of them weren’t the types of punches I was trying to throw either. I tried an uppercut – it came out as a regular punch. In the game, punching softly gives the enemy a soft punch and punching hard gives him a hard punch. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any midway-point in there. Each punch I threw was either soft or hard, even when my punch could have been described as in-between.

Unfortunately, this was my least favorite Move title at the event. I only hope that the fact that the game is still in development means that come launch time, it’ll be as top-notch as I’d originally thought it would be.

Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition by Matthew Frassetti

Resident Evil 5 is the same old Resident Evil, but this time with Move motion control functionality. The first thing I noticed about the Move controls were how precise and fluid they were. We’re still looking at wrist motion, but it’s so much more dynamic – unlike the Wii‘s Resident Evil 4. In other aspects, the game does plays similarly to Resident Evil 4 though, so you won’t need to relearn any core controls if you’ve played the Wii game. Shaking the Move controller slashes your combat knife and shaking your Move controller with the gun out is used to reload. In my opinion, the game plays fluidly well. Perfect example of what Move is capable of.

Like playing the game with a standard controller, cooperative play can also be used with Move. Co-op uses a split-screen with two Move controllers. Unfortunately for original Resident Evil 5 owners, the game will only have Move support if you bought the Gold Edition of the game. It will be patched in a week prior to the release of Move, and all copies of the game after that will be sold with Move patched in on the disc already.

Sports Champions by Sal Romano

Sports Champions. A fellow attendee asked me what it was during the event and I quickly described it as PlayStation Move’s Wii Sports. To be fair, it’s not Wii Sports. Sorry for misleading you, good sir. The games inside the package are different and there really are only a couple of similarities.

Unfortunately, due to a good amount of people behind me waiting to test out the game, I only got to check out one of Sports Champions offerings: table tennis. I think this was the best Move game I played at the show, accurately showing off the controller’s precision (minus the tech demos, which are not games, unfortunately). One tiny movement of the Move controller had the paddle doing the same. It was honestly difficult to master, but I eventually triumphed. To me, it felt as if I was really playing table tennis. I was moving to the ball and hitting it in locations that I wanted it to go. It impressed me. It felt real.

Take in mind that when Sports Champions does come out, it’ll have a lot more than table tennis. Try gladiator duel, volleyball, bocce, disc golf, and archery, too.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011 by Matthew Frassetti

There’s honestly not much to say about Tiger Woods. I only got to play one hole, however it left a lot to be desired. The motion controller was dynamic and great, and everything from picking up the club to performing a full swing felt good. However, the controller felt clunky with the game. Again, the PlayStation Eye was very precise in detecting motion, but there was no real depth of strength. Sometimes, when you don’t want to swing too strong and only bring up the controller a tiny bit, the game wouldn’t pick up a “full” swing, thus messing up your shot. Putting was an even greater problem, where it wouldn’t detect how lightly or hard I was tapping the ball.

I was excited when I saw the Move controls in Tiger Woods at Sony’s Press Conference, but I have to say I’m not as excited now. The game overall, is clunky, but act as an example of early Move capabilities.

Time Crisis: Razing Storm by Matthew Frassetti

A full-fledged hands on of my Time Crisis: Razing Storm preview can be read through this link. Unlike the rest of the games on this list, me and Sal spent more than an exceptional amount of time playing Time Crisis to grant it a full-on preview.