At a glance...

Previewer	Platform	Publisher	Developer	Players	Release Date
Matt Bailey	PlayStation 3	Sony	Sony	1-4	15th September

PlayStation Move Impressions Part 1 preview

With the release less than a month away, it's hardly surprising to see the PlayStation Move out in force at Sony's booths at Gamescom. Whereas Microsoft are only just taking Xbox Kinect on tour, Sony have been showing Move for a while. In fact, we got a hands-on with Move back in March, as you can see on our YouTube channel.

Here at Gamescom is a wide variety of Move experiences, and in a similar manner to Richard's Kinect impressions (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), I'm going to look at each game and then the technology overall.

Sports Championship: Move

Starting where we left off in Boston, we once again got a chance to play Sony's sports compilation. As before it was the gladiatorial game on offer, using the Move controller to swing your sword. In the single player mode we'd tried previously, a second Move controller was used to control the shield. However, as it was the two player mode on display at Gamescom, each player had just one Move controller (although two was an option), with the shield assigned to the new trigger button. The action was fairly similar to before, with swipes of the controller used to attack your opponent. Things have been tightened up, particularly with regard to the interface, and it looks ready for imminent release. The multiplayer made the game more exciting to play, and even though you would appear to spend most of your time just waving your arms around, there does seem to be a depth to the combat. Discovering this helped me to a 2-1 victory against Richard after a poor first round.

TV Superstars: Move

A game focussed towards the casual audience, it's not a game that's traditionally on my radar, but TV Superstars appears well put together, and could win over family players when it arrives in October. There are a range of themed TV shows which you get to take part in, and we took to the action in a cookery show. The Move controller was used to replicate the actions of various objects on screen, such as pouring flour, whisking, and flipping a pancake. The game demonstrated the accuracy of the Move controller, but it's certainly not a game that's going to appeal to Sony's core audience.

Heavy Rain: Move Edition

Heavy Rain, on the other hand, is a game that's more likely to appeal to that audience. The 'interactive drama' title has been out for a few months now, but Sony are offering a free patch to add full Move functionality to coincide with the release of the motion controller. This has taken a considerable effort from developers Quantic Dream, resulting in a lack of new DLC for the game, but the outcome is a title where Move makes a lot of sense, and could help widen its appeal beyond families. Avoiding spoilers, the section I played involved a private detective and a woman, in a segment seen in the original Heavy Rain demo. You end up in a fight with a third party which previously involved lots of quick-time button presses and swipes of the analogue stick, but now a range of motions are used to take on your attacker. The game becomes more immersive as a result, and those crazy button combinations can now be abandoned. It's expected for Heavy Rain to be relaunched with this functionality intact, but it's a clever move by Sony to patch in the support for free, encouraging their existing user base to pick up Move next month.

SOCOM Special Forces

Another title ready for Sony's 'core' audience is SOCOM Special Forces. The series began with an innovation with the use of voice commands, so it feels a natural fit for the series to be one of the titles introducing the PlayStation Move. The control mechanism works similar to shooters on the Wii; use the Move controller to aim your gun as you point at the screen, and use the Navigation controller (equivalent to a Nunchuck on the Wii) to move about. It seemed to work quite well, but the game itself feels a bit too much like a generic third-person shooter now that the teamplay mechanics are gone. You do have other soldiers working alongside you as a unit, but without the ability to order them about, SOCOM Special Forces doesn't really stand out from the crowd – apart from its Move capabilities.

Kung Fu Rider

This was a rather strange game. Kung Fu Rider features a player on a wheeled swivel chair going through a city, performing jumps, avoiding obstacles and collecting items. That may not make any sense, and well, it doesn't. It does, however, involve PlayStation Move with the controller used to increase your speed as you gradually head downhill, change direction and perform the jumps. It's a quirky title that, although fun at first, may not have much life in it. Added to this is the fact that the game is coming out as a higher priced boxed game than a cheap PSN title.

Tumble

Tumble, meanwhile, is a PSN title, expected to arrive alongside the PlayStation Move. It's a puzzle game that has been designed for Move rather than having motion controls tacked on afterwards. Despite the fact that it's essentially a block-stacking game, it proved to be one of the most enjoyable Move titles at Sony's stand. Technically it worked well; the pointer functionality allowed you to pick up blocks, move them around, and rotate them too. But Move allows manipulation of objects in 3D, so you can also move the blocks back and forward, giving you a free reign to place them as precariously as you like on the stack. The main aim is basically to get as high as you can on your turn without knocking down the tower. The two player mode we tried was particularly good fun as we made it increasingly difficult for each other to place the next set of blocks. It's a great demonstration of Move, and as a PSN release, it should come with a nice and reasonable price tag too.

Technical Impressions

The technology behind PlayStation Move isn't a revolution, but it has been implemented well by Sony. It feels much more precise than Xbox Kinect, with accurate one-to-one mapping and appears generally lag-free. A lot of the time the Wii Remote with Motion Plus can accomplish the same things, but Move does handle 3D space better. It may not be quite the leap that a controller-free Kinect is, and indeed Kinect probably holds more potential for the future, but PlayStation Move is a great motion control solution from Sony. And as far as the 'hardcore' gamers are concern, Sony certainly has them covered much better so far.

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