Have We Moved On?

Back in April I wrote an article talking about Playstation Move. The main objective of the article was to try and convince people to give Move a little more of a chance. This was written almost half a year before Move was actually released. My stance at that time was that people were comparing it to the Wii a little too much, that while the controllers seemed similar, it would be down to the software to determine the success in the gamers eyes. Because lets face it - that's all that matters to us really. Who cares if Move sells 5 million units unless there are games we love to go along with those units?

So here we are, coming up to three months after the release of Playstation Move. So far I have onegame for Move. One game that I played a fair bit before setting it on my shelf with my other games. That game is Sports Champions. It works -- it's a great game technically but it has no charm to it and everything in the Sports Champions universe feels so generic. I'm sure if this game pulled a Nintendo and filled the game with bright worlds and game characters we all know and love (but kept the technology how it is) the game would've lasted a lot longer to a lot of people. But as I said, it was a great game and really showed what Move could do. Sadly, in my experience, I haven't found any other games that really utilise Move's clear potential. It's early days still, but I'm not so sure Move is going to get the support it so desperately needs. 

Obviously at launch, Sports Champion wasn't the only game available. At launch (or soon after) we had EyePet, Racquet Sports, Start the Party, The Shoot, Tumble and TV Superstars. I think there are two terms that sum up these games. "Tech demos" and "party games". Bad thing? Depends who you are. When I first got Move I wanted some tech demos to test what Move could do. I think Tumble and Start the Party really did have some great results - almost perfect augmented reality tracking on the latter. But overall these games were all a little lack luster.

A few games have been patched for Move support. MAG, Heavy Rain and Resident Evil 5 to name a few. I haven't tried Resident Evil 5 yet because I already have the limited edition and refuse to buy the Gold edition just so I can download the patch. MAG and Heavy Rain both seem to be hit or miss. I tried them both - with MAG I just wasn't feeling it and switched back to the Dualshock 3 pretty quickly. Heavy Rain? It didn't work. For me, it didn't work. I can't say it doesn't work in general as I haven't heard too many complaints, but for me a lot of the gestured refused to be registered. 

So what do we have to look forward to? What games are going to take advantage of the clear potential of Move? Maybe the more important question is which games are going to take advantage of the potential well? Infamous 2, Killzone 3 - and my game of choice - LittleBigPlanet 2 are all going to at least take advantage of Move. I really don't see these developers tacking on motion controls at the last minute, but instead really find a place for them in the game. Sorcery seems to be the only Move required game coming out with some promise which is a shame. I fear Move is going to have the same fate as the Playstation Eye when it was first released. It seems to be being forgotten about by developers. Maybe not forgotten but intentionally ignored. They could be aware of the fact Wii sales are finally going down, hinting that the crowed that loved the concept move motion gaming have simply moved on. Maybe that's not a bad thing though, I don't think there's a huge hardcore calling for Move games. It looks like all of those who shunned Move before it was even released may be getting exactly what they want. No motion controls on PS3.

Comments

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