PlayStation Move Hands-On
Written by Connor Beaton, published 26th August 2010
Sony’s motion-sensing tech, the PlayStation Move, has been shrouded with controversy regarding its alleged similarities to the design of Nintendo’s earlier Wii Remote. After having tried out the PlayStation Move controller with launch titles Start the Party and Sports Champions, I can attest to this not being the case. Move is in an entirely different echelon to the Wii Remote; the pointer functionality was unfortunately less than stellar, with some lag between the controller and screen, but the actual motion detection was quick and surprisingly accurate.
We started off with Start the Party, a compilation of mini-games using the Move controller. The first game I played was Bug Bash, a timed arcade game in which a number of coloured bugs would fly into the screen and must be beaten off by waving the controller at them. Behind the action, you can see the input from the camera with the bug bashing tennis racquet superimposed over the video, allowing you to see where you are in relation to the camera and adjust your playing technique respectively. Playing was comfortable enough, but I noticed that you had to exaggerate your actions much more as you moved further away from the camera, meaning the game doesn’t lend itself well to living room gameplay from your couch.
After giving my colleague the opportunity to play Bug Bash as well, we took a look at some of the other mini-games in Start the Party. One of the mini-games saw players use the Move controller as a torch to find ghosts and shoot them by pulling the trigger on the underside of the controller. The trigger is surprisingly comfortable, easy to press gently and ergonomically designed. In fact, the entire controller is pleasantly comfortable and easy to hold in the hand without losing grip. Interestingly, the controller’s defining feature, the coloured orb at its tip, is not solid but actually soft and squeezable, which probably also helps its durability.
One of Start the Party’s other mini-games relied on the pointer functionality, which is where some of the controller’s weaknesses began to show through. Since the Move is camera-based, pointer functionality is only reliable when you fill the entire camera’s view, meaning standing further back results in a slow, inaccurate pointer. This particular mini-game saw players paint inside the outline of a shape with the controller, which takes on the role of the paintbrush. Unfortunately, doing this quickly and accurately is nearly impossible with the Move controller, so I really wouldn’t expect to see an equivalent of the Wii’s Drawn to Life or Okami on the platform.
The second game we played was Sports Champions, a series of sports-related mini-games all controlled using the Move. Due to time constraints, we only tried out one mini-game: the gladiator battle. My colleague and I played the game in two-player mode against each other, and we found another minor flaw. Presumably, the console wants to avoid overlap of the two controllers, and so you must stand a fair distance from the other player. Unfortunately for me, that was a set distance, and the pre-game calibration forced me to stand right next to the wall since we were in a room with limited space. Clearly, this is something you can only play in your living room, where you and other players have the space to move freely.
After beating my colleague senseless in the gladiator battle, I returned my controller and headed out for the day, considerably more impressed with Sony’s motion-sensing controller than I had previously been. While I watched Microsoft’s Kinect demonstration first-hand earlier in the day, I hadn’t yet had the chance to go hands-on with the controller-free gameplay, so I can’t comment on Move in comparison to Microsoft’s work, but I can say this: the Move controller is comfortable, accurate, fun and completely different from the Wii Remote. Only time will tell if Move becomes widespread and successful or an occasional gimmick.