Playback: PlayStation Move Special – Introduction

Ah. PlayStation Move.

Al: I remember it.  It was that thing we saw that stood up strongly against Kinect at that E3 because a) it wasn’t shit and b) actually looked like it might take what was good about the Wii and make it better.  Those tech demos, the promise of games that would transform my hobby forever, the chance for Sony to enter the casual market properly and get grannies bowling.

[drop]It came in a shiny blue box, akin to a heavier, fatter shiny blue 3DS.  It was a fancy press kit, sure, but it set the scene: this was Sony playing serious, doing something right and making sure that everyone was watching.  Carefully popping open the velcro revealed a Hellraiser-esque cube thing, and inside was a Move Controller Stick Wand.  It was glorious.  So black, so plastic, so in need of a charge.

Nestled inside the custom made box was a camera.  Yes, a PlayStation Eye, that thing that made dragons leap out of your hands and cost a small fortune when bundled with a bit of cloth and some cards.  The PlayStation Eye that wasn’t very high resolution, couldn’t detect depth and – much like Kinect – stood little chance of showing you what was on the sole of your shoe.

But it didn’t matter, because Move had a glowing ball (that I proceeded to dismantle immediately).  This glowing ball (and some other fancy technology) could detect the angle of your wrist, the speed of motion, the distance from your TV, the colour of your wallpaper and when you last brushed your teeth.  It was magical.  Nobody knew how it worked – it even scrolled around the XMB like some kind of otherworldly stretched out Dual Shock.

And the games?  Well, there were two (I think) shoved oddly into the media kit.  It doesn’t really matter what they were, both were unfinished, and both were a little bit unremarkable.  It’s easy to look back in hindsight and point fingers (if you’ll excuse the pun) but let’s face it, the Move launch line-up, Sports Champions aside (and who plays that now?) was a bit, well, dull.

And since the initial rush of new stuff, my interest in Move has sadly diminished.  I like it when games use Move cleverly – the Sharpshooter is neat enough – but I just feel like the momentum that should have been there hasn’t really carried forward.  Certainly, Sony haven’t captured the family market from where I’m sitting and that’s a real shame – the Move tech is smart, but the implementation hasn’t really progressed.

There’s still time, but just now, for me at least, my Move’s back in that fancy blue box.

[drop2]Al’s right. Almost immediately after the Move launched last year, with Kinect in tow, there has been little incentive to dust off your motion-sensing apparatus and attempt to balance your PlayStation Eye on top of your flatscreen telly. The tech itself is solid, and when in capable hands, possible of creating astounding gaming experiences though only a small cluster of studios have managed to “crack the formula.”

In this multi-part Playback special we focus on a number of games given the PlayStation Move treatment, from the simply fantastic to the dreadfully dire. Not fully representative of the selected games themselves, we focus entirely on how well they support Sony’s motion tech, whether it be full integration or on-the-side mini games. Be sure to keep an eye out for the first entrants in our list tomorrow.