PlayStation Move Review

I like to Move it, Move it.

When I was a Nintendo fanboy, as all children (knowingly or not) are, I always thought of Sony as that older brother who steals Nintendo's stuff. The relationship runs deep, with Sony spurned by Nintendo's choosing of Panasonic for the Super Famicom disc reader attachment. When Sony launched the Playstation, they had to update the control pad to account for the Nintendo 64's superior control of 3D space with the analog stick. After the Wii's motion control reveal, Sony shoddily implemented Sixaxis motion support for the launch of the PS3.

[image1]It's easy to deride Sony for being late to every party Nintendo has thrown. To this day, I have yet to own a Sony gaming device, though I have coveted several of them. While playing with the Playstation Move, a seemingly me-too device practically required of Sony by its competition, my perspective was revolutionized, so to speak.

The Super Famicom disc reader never made it Stateside, or even to a place of relevance in Japan. Sony's DualShock controller added a second analog stick, thus making first-person shooters, an industry unto itself, worth playing. Sony's tardiness belies how well they do these things.

Case-in-point: the Playstation Move is what the Wii remote should have been from the beginning. As a piece of hardware, used to play a handful of games, the Move held up against my subconscious, dormant Nintendo fanboy with ease. The Move outperforms in pointing, motion-tracking, and input response.

The Move uses a glowing rubber ball to interact with the Playstation Eye. Accelerometers in the controller also track the orientation and aid in motion tracking. A large comfortable trigger, or T-button, and a large face button, called the Move button, make any in-game button commands intuitive and easy. Move also retains the X-circle-triangle-square, albeit in a "clicky" form.

[image2]Whether you like the Move's sextoy-esque look, there is no denying that the technology works exceedingly well. In Sport Champions (read: Move Sports), firing a bow and arrow, throwing a disc, or swinging a broadsword yield remarkably realistic results. Movements on screen are often times one-to-one. If you swing your ping pong paddle to slice, you'll achieve that exact effect on your shot.

The same can be said of traditional sports. In John Daly's Prostroke Golf, if a mistake is made, you'll be sure it wasn't the hardware's fault. In turn, when you accomplish something, like landing on the green, you feel the success because you know it was because of your perfect swing. Now you can play golf without those vomit-plaid pants.

Perhaps even more exciting is the way the combination of Move and Playstation Eye allows for augmented reality, as seen in EyePet or Start the Party. When you're tasked with swatting flies, the Move transforms into a flyswatter in your hands on screen. If you want your EyePet to literally jump through hoops, the Move will turn into a hoop on screen ready for the manipulation to begin.

The Move is an excellent piece of hardware. There are a ton of exciting applications for this technology because the precise, multi-component nature of Sony's Move controller opens a lot of doors for the console. It will be exciting to see what the software does with those opportunities.