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Sports Champions PS3 Move

Format:
PS3 Move

Genre:
Sporting

Style:
Thirdperson
Singleplayer
Competitive
Splitscreen

Further reading:
Wii-Sports
Wii-Sports Resort

Buy/Support:
Support Jon, click to buy via us...

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Other GamePeople columnists have reviewed this from their perspective - huh?:
Family Gamer (PS3)
Sports Gamer (PS3)
Tech Gamer (PS3)
Reporting Gamer (PS3)

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Sports Champions PS3 Move delivers the de facto motion controlled sports game for Sony's new controller. Included are five activities that might well tempt you away from Wii bowling - disc golf, gladiator duel, volleyball, archery, table tennis and boule.

I recently tried both table tennis and disc golf, which gave me insight into both the technology and whether the full game is going to be worth playing. I wanted to know whether Sony's Move could give a realistic representation of being a disc golfer.

Whilst Sports Champions represents the individual events in a similar cut down manner to Wii-Sports they look much more impressive with well drawn characters and backdrops.

The Wii may have proved that graphics aren't everything, but the power of the PS3 has clearly been used to differentiate Sony's approach. I might be shallow, but playing against figures that look like sports men and women give each activity a little more legitimacy and makes me feel less like I'm playing a game for kids.

Table Tennis is one of the real successes of Wii-Sports Resort and a good discipline for comparison. As you move your Move controller the bat precisely mimics those movements on screen - which gave me great confidence in how well it would replicate playing each type of shot.

In reality though it felt much less convincing than it looked, with a very forgiving ball/bat collision zone making each shot feel a little mushy.

To be fair, once I'd played a dozen or so games, I began to appreciate the ability to apply spin the and sensitivity it terms of shot power, but it still didn't really feel like the real thing.

Move does have a depth perception advantage over the Wii, which is utilised via stepping towards the television for balls close to the net - but I wasn't convinced of its usefulness due to that forgiving collision zone. Still a fun experience.

Disc golf tasks you with throwing a Frisbee like disc down a fairway and into a receptacle in the lowest number of throws. Whilst I haven't ever done this in real life, I have thrown a Frisbee a few times and this action is replicated tremendously well with the Move controller.

Not only does it capture how hard and in what direction you throw, it also detects the vertical angle of the throw enabling you to get backspin on the throw.

Disc golf supports up to four players locally with one move controller and if the full game has multiple holes with different layouts of trees and water it could make for a very fun party game.

As far as making me feel like a disc golfer this does a superb job and might even convince me to have a go at the real thing. Not needing to find a course gives the nod to the electronic version I feel.

I'm looking forward to inspecting at the scorecard of the full game.

Written by Jon Seddon

You can support Jon by buying Sports Champions



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Jon Seddon writes the Dressup Gamer column.

"Dress-up is the door to a world of make believe and theatre. I review games that let me escape my world and take on a myriad of roles. I love games that emphasise my character and the choices I can make - whether I am merely outfitting them for the fight or choosing which of my crew to save."

Here are the games I've been playing recently:

• Assassain's Creed Revelations
• Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7
• Skyrim
• Skyrim
• Home