Move-only PSN titles
Tumble
It is hard to imagine how the same studio could release something as lacklustre as Start The Party! and as genial and brilliantly executed as Tumble on the same day, but that is exactly what Supermassive Games have done, and any slips made with the other title are quickly forgiven, because Tumble is just sublime.
As Sports Champions is the must-have Bluray Move launch title, so is Tumble the must-have PSN Move launch title. At first a simple block building game which may leave you sceptical as to its longevity, this 70+ level puzzler soon ramps things up with “Use ‘Em All” challenges, Destruction challenges, Limbo challenges, light puzzles and more. New gameplay elements are introduced all the way through the game right to the very last level, keeping you hooked and wanting to see what comes next. The campaign is long and aside from the occasional difficulty spike everything progresses smoothly. So far this is the only Move game I have played for several days solid.
The presentation is also excellent, and although it does feel a bit like a tech demo, there’s no doubt this is a full-featured game. Sadly, as with Sports Champions, while there is offline multi-player, online is neglected completely. This is probably the only thing I could mark this game down on.
Tumble has been compared to Boom Blox for the Wii by certain other web sites, but you will very quickly discover that Tumble is just not possible on the Wii, because the 3D tracking is absolutely essential to every puzzle, and very precise. One issue is that the camera is poorly managed, requiring you to hold down the Move button and hover over some pop-up on-screen arrows, when it would have been much more intuitive if you could just waggle the controller to put the camera where you want.
If you buy one PSN title for your Move, this is the one to get.
Move-compatible PSN titles
Flight Control HD
Released on the same day as Tumble, Flight Control HD can be played with the Move or with a regular controller. Simply draw lines from the aircraft to the landing strips with your Move or analog stick, and try to land as many aircraft as you can without crashing them into each other. It couldn’t be simpler.
Lots of raving has been done about this game, but it does have some problems. Firstly, if you don’t have any friends’ scores to compete with, it has no replay value whatsoever and will quickly become boring after a few minutes. If you do have some friends with the game, however, then you will find it addictive.
The second problem is that while games like this work nicely on the bus, there is not much incentive to really play them out of context at home.
I don’t personally think this is a must have title, and I’ll also add that I got higher scores using the regular controller, because ironically you can draw more precisely with it if you don’t have an ultra-steady hand. I have wound up using the regular controller to play as it is the only way I can beat the leaderboard scores. However, it’s certainly not a bad game, and cheap as chips. It’s just not particularly special either.
NOTE: Move support does not work unless you assign the Move to controller port 7 before starting the game.
Hustle Kings (free patch for existing owners)
If you haven’t played Hustle Kings and you like pool, you should. The optional and well worth the money Snooker pack will give you hands down the best snooker simulation available on PS3 for the fraction of the price of a disk-based game, with tons of online play modes and a lengthy career to boot.
How does the Move implementation fare? Badly. Hustle Kings is a game that requires great precision and time to set up your shots. The Move only makes your cueing action less precise, with therefore renders it useless. In addition, the lack of buttons makes some camera movements that are possible with the regular controller impossible with the Move.
I can definitely recommend this is a great little PSN title, but you won’t be playing it with the Move for long.
Planet Minigolf (free patch for existing owners)
Planet Minigolf had a rather mixed reception when it was released a few months ago, being criticised mainly for its tricky control mechanism. The game is technically speaking a great minigolf implementation, with 70 holes plus DLC available, and online play.
The Move implementation is good and solves all control problems. There is no need to look at the screen either: you can simply be sitting and swing a small distance from side to side parallel to the TV to take your shot. This is a massive improvement over the fiddly analog stick methods.
The problem with Planet Minigolf is it just isn’t all that fun to start with unless you are playing multi-player, and at the time of writing online play is broken – no lobbies are available and friend invites don’t work. If you’re a minigolf fan it’s a decent investment, but beware that your interest may wane fairly quickly if you don’t have anyone to play with.
High Velocity Bowling (free PSN download for existing owners)
High Velocity Bowling has always had a quirky reputation for its unusual use of the Sixaxis controller, where you bowl with it much as in Wii Bowling. For some people this worked great, others hated it. I’m happy to say the Move implementation for High Velocity Bowling completely transforms the game. Power, aim and spin all work as expected with natural wrist movements, and with easy-to-find games online, friend invites and a proper ranking system, the game is tons of fun with the Move and comes highly recommended at its budget price.
PAIN (free patch for existing owners)
I always hated PAIN so I’ve just taken comments from other players, and the feedback is mostly positive. As you would expect, the Move is now used to aim, pull back and release your catapult, and I’m told the implementation is good, but I repeat, I have not been able to verify this myself (because I couldn’t be bothered).
A Note on Flower
There have been rumours around the interwebs that Flower was to be patched with Move support. As far as we know, this will not be the case.
Charmed_Fanatic
The future’s bright, the future’s MOVE
Mickey2010
Sure is im not sure why but that Deadliest Catch:Sea Of Chaos really sticks out for me and i havent even seen any vids or screens yer.
Bladesteel
Make a (reasonably priced, and good) online multiplayer DLC for Sports Champions, and they’d make a lot of money.
tonycawley
Dead right. Some games would be awesome with online multiplayer, Bocce and archery being the main ones, but i think table tennis might struggle a little because any lag whatsoever would ruin it since it’s so very fast. Would definitely love it just for the archery and Bocce though. Actually disc golf would work really well too.
Bladesteel
Good point. Obviously I’d prefer it to work for all the games, given a good enough connection between the players. But all of the turn based games should be possible to make work even over crappy lines.
DJ-Katy
I’ve heard the lag argument with Move online games a few times lately and I don’t really see the problem. The data transfer is no more intense than that of an FPS. All of the games including Table Tennis should work just fine over a broadband connection.
Bladesteel
Yes but awful networking (crap code or crap network) would be more visible in that kind of senario. While the turn based games should be playable over speeds as low as dialup (with a wait before you’re sent the recorded data fromm your opponents move)
As I understand FPS games are loaded with fancy optimisations and tricks like prediction to make lag less noticeable, and those might not work as well for an accurate table tennis game. At the very least I’d expect the turn based stuff to be less work, and thus cheaper and more likely to be created.
DJ-Katy
I’m somewhat inclined to disagree although it’s certainly not clear cut.
Disc Golf, Bocce are turn-based, there is no issue there.
Beach Volleyball is basically a rhythm game like GH so I see no issue there either.
Archery is real-time but the players don’t interact with each other so some score lag will not matter. If two people hit a disappearing target simultaneously an online rule can be applied to arbitrate like it is in other games with that issue.
Table Tennis and Gladiator Duel are real-time player interactions and would surely run peer-to-peer rather than through a server. The connection between the two players will be crucial. Table Tennis can use prediction; the data transmitted would have to be a UDP stream of bat orientation and position. It works for Virtua Tennis 2009 so I don’t see why it wouldn’t here. Let’s say they use two transports, one for the ball trajectory and one for the bat position. The trajectory could be prioritised, then if there is some bat position lag it might look weird but it won’t affect gameplay.
I don’t think Gladiator Duel can use prediction and that would probably be the trickiest.
tonycawley
But i regularly experience lag in fps games, cod’s the worst for it. Sometimes it’s game breakingly bad. That’d kill table tennis, regardless of how many clever tricks they implemented to minimise it. By broadband is a uk average 5 meg.
tonycawley
My, not by!
tonycawley
Shot, not pint. Lol.
DJ-Katy
Yeah, but that’s your connection’s fault or those of your opponents, not the game.
tonycawley
I disagree very strongly with that final comment katy. Yes my connection may not be great, but it’s a lot better than a lot of people’s. Game developers are fully aware there is a massive difference in download speeds around the world, and their job is to make it so that there is as little impact on gameplay as possible. If they’re building a game’s network connection based on the assumption everyone has perfect internet connection then that is a very bad design decision.
DJ-Katy
All I can really say Tony is that multi-player networking code is very complex and can be tweaked infinitely with tons of variables, it is just not possible with the current state of the net to make it work well for everyone, so they/we just have to do the best we can when writing that code. It is better to have the option than not.
Developers do not expect everyone to have a perfect connection but that is a bit like a TV viewer blaming the show production company when the snow comes down and makes the signal on the satellite dish too low to receive the transmission properly.
The problem in both cases is with the service provider: the satellite transmission should have greater power to overcome those situations, and the ISP should be providing a more stable network. No matter how well a team and I sit down and code a predictive algorithm for an FPS, if your ISP gives you occasional 500ms lag spikes there is nothing we can do about that no matter how well we plan it for you.
ISPs are largely at fault for poor multiplayer experiences and it is those who should be pressured to produce proper networks.
tonycawley
Oh katy, we bicker like a married couple sometimes, i love our disagreements though, we’re both very opinionated people so we’re going to have these. We’re going to have to agree to disagree with this one. I think your tv programme analogy is terrible, doesn’t apply at all. Take tiger woods for example. My mrs dad has it, and i have it. We can’t connect to each other for a game, no matter what we try. He invites me. I accept. It tells me the game is no longer available, when clearly it is. There is no good reason for this to happen, ea regularly do it with their games, fifa is always as bad. That is the fault of the programmers, no matter what you say. Telling a 72 year old man to open ports on his router is just not acceptable, he has no idea what i’m talking about and you can’t expect people to have that level of knowledge about something so complicated. Other games don’t require you to open ports or put your console in a dmz so why do ea always do it? Bad programming, that’s why.
DJ-Katy
For that example, I agree. The lobby uses a centralised server for matchmaking. My analogy and comments were regarding after the game session has been set up. Once players have selected each other from the server-run lobby, peer-to-peer connections are established for the actual gameplay usually if it’s a 2-player game. In that phase of gameplay, the ISP connection is what’s important.
Badly coded lobbies are a completely separate matter; if matchmaking does not work properly, it is the game’s fault.
Bladesteel
I’d say in the 500ms lag spike the FPS have a big advantage. It has to happen at an inconvenient time for the player to get really pissed off. Lag won’t ruin the game if you’re crouching behind a barrel. But for a game of table tennis a delay of half a second at any time (except while waiting to serve) will ruin it.
Also while the network should take the blame, it all really comes down to perception. And less technical users will place the blame on the game a lot of the time (as in casual gamers, the kind lots of move games are targeting) . A business decision about including/excluding multiplayer should take that into consideration.
tonycawley
Great write up katy. I don’t agree with everything you’ve written but then that’ll never be the case. This is a very useful resource for anyone that wants information. Really well done, good work.
Gamoc
Excellent, excellent series of articles this, particularly this part. I love you, DJ-Katy.
freezebug2
Tough, Katy is a racer so love off lol.
Rocket_345
This has just pointed out how many games ive forgot about. My MOVE want list has just suddenly increased as there were games that i forgot were recieving the MOVE treatment such as InFamous 2 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011.
tonycawley
Don’t bother with the tiger woods move support, it’s truly rubbish. So much functionality is lost with it, its a game breaker i’m afraid.
JaffaMan24
Completely agree. I tried the Tiger Woods demo and thought move implementation was shocking and the only time i’ve noticed any lag so far. The graphics looked 5 years old too. Thoroughly dissappointed.
TSBonyman
Great coverage Katy, i didn’t realise there were so many Move compatible games already on the horizon. and this is only part 2?!
I would like to mention a couple of small points.
In Resi 5 if you hold L1 to aim you can turn with the left stick or nav while aiming with the Move.
Heavy Rain doesn’t require a Nav, DS3 works just as well.
Thanks for the tip re picking up Eyepet pre-owned as i’ve been mulling it over.
I really like Tumble but yes the camera is a little clunky, especially after the natural motion of placing a block – if only it operated like the torch in echochrome ii.
I’m hoping that LBP2 allows you to create your own Move mini games.
Looking forward to part 3!
jayjay119
To be honest I feel Resi 5’s review was a bit unfair, the problems of the camera not panning, not being able to fire whilst moving etc are all there in the main version. If this version is anything like Resi 4 for Wii I’m going to love it. And come on, holding down three buttons can get tedious? That’s just laziness!
DJ-Katy
It is just like Resi 4 for Wii – if you liked that, you will definitely enjoy RE5 with the Move :) Hope that helps.
yogdog
Loved resi 4 on the wii, I think I might pick up move, ruse and resi 5 gold when I can.
Thanks katy :)
JigsawPieces
Great write-up, thanks :)
Can’t agree with you about Heavy Rain, though. I’ve just played through the whole game for the first time, using Move, having only tried the demo before. After playing through the first few levels, the visual language of the Move cues became quite natural, the gestures generally fitted what the character was doing on screen, and they felt much less arbitrary to me than those on the DS3 (which admittedly, I only tried in the demo). I thoroughly enjoyed it.
skibadee
great read. totally agree about hustle kings such a good game with the DS3 though.
jayboy31
Nice round-up although i’ve not had any problems with the MOVE controller having to be set on the right port. Tumble is ACE but then again so is Flight Control. I have Sports Champions but don’t play it that much, a combination of not being arsed to get up & put the disk in & not being arsed to get up & play the game. Tumble hogs the MOVE at the mo. I’m tempted by Hustle Kings now