At a glance...

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

PlayStation Move Impressions Part 2 preview

We didn't get to cover all we'd seen of the PlayStation Move games in our previous article, so now we present Part 2 of our impressions. So here's a look at some titles.

Start the Party

We saw the early version of Start the Party in Boston earlier this year, as you can see in our YouTube channel. The game has moved on quite a bit since then, offering a much wider range of mini-games all wrapped up and ready for launch. The activities are available to play in different ways, with the most fun involving a Wario Ware-style run through of different mini-games in quick succession. You have to achieve certain goals to continue to make progress as the time ticks away, with the aim of surviving for as long as possible. As in Nintendo's game you need to think fast and work out what's going on with little on-screen help. Of course, if you've played these games in another mode then it proves to be a lot easier, but on the first time round it's almost a pleasant surprise – if there wasn't the urgency. Definitely aimed at the family audience, Start the Party is a refreshingly different selection of mini-games, but at the end of the day, it is another mini-games collection, which seem to be all the rage in the land of motion controlled gaming.

Heroes on the Move

Six characters start, only one remains. It's the ultimate battle of the PlayStation heroes. Watch Ratchet fight Jak, Sly Cooper take on Daxter, and Clank battle with the other Sly Cooper person. That's not what Heroes on the Move is all about. It is, in fact, a game where all six heroes are teaming up together for the first time, although how this works in the main story we don't yet know as the version of the game on display Gamescom focussed on a challenge mode. This involved Clank taking on a bunch of enemies with the goal of scoring as many points through criteria such as the time taken to complete a section. Aiming was, unsurprisingly, done using the PlayStation Move controller, but quite refreshingly you could control your character in the conventional manner, using the analogue stick on the Navigation controller (or a DualShock 3 if you don't have one of these). This meant you had full control over where you went, with the game playing rather like Ratchet and Clank. While it's not really a game aimed at the hardcore, if the campaign is done well, the use of the controls should help it win quite a few fans outside of the casual audience most other Move games are aimed at.

Racquet Sports

It wasn't just Sony showing off their PlayStation Move titles as Ubisoft also had a couple of games on display. The first of these was Racquet Sports, a sports game with a focus that seems to make sense considering the natural use of the Move controller as a handle for a variety of racquets. We got to try the tennis mode and see how it compared to Wii Sports Tennis. In the two-player version we tried it acted like Nintendo's offering where the character is controlled automatically. However, the movement of the racquet is much more precise thanks to the full 3D movement offered by the Move controller. How you swing and from what side appears to make a difference to how your shots appear on-screen. It isn't really doing anything that the Wii with the Motion Plus add-on can't already do, but it's good to see this more precise level of motion control available with PlayStation Move titles from the start.

R.U.S.E.

While the release of Ubisoft's real-time strategy (RTS) game R.U.S.E. has mostly focussed on the PC version, which will feature touch-screen and 3D support, it is also coming to both the 360 and PS3. The latter edition includes PlayStation Move support which was demonstrated at Gamescom. Although I still have a preference for a mouse and keyboard, it seemed to be one of the best implementations of an RTS interface on a console. Again the Move controller is used as a pointer, this time to select units and direct them, but motion is also used to help zoom out of the map and perform other actions. R.U.S.E. is certainly not a game for the casual audience, although it's appeal may be wider than some RTS titles, and it seems to be another key showcase title for Move when it finally launches next month.

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