Playstation Move Reviews

Ok... while we wait for some reviews of the Playstation Move (and we invite you to send in your reviews), we'll post this video for you to get a chance to see the Playstation Move in action.





The following review is courtesy of Boomnews.info

Sony itself credits Nintendo for its accomplishments with the Wii. But as with all technology, someone creates something good, and then competitors evolve it, make it better.

And that's exactly what Sony has done with the PlayStation Move wand and accompanying Navigation controller.

The glaring feature, quite literally, of this controller's exterior is that glowing orb.

This sphere is how the PlayStation Eye (the PS3's camera that's been on sale for some time now) sees the remote, and serves as one of multiple ways the PS3 detects its exact position.

While flimsy looking, the orb on the PlayStation Move controller itself is actually just an empty rubber casing, there's nothing inside it, you can squish it completely flat with your fingers so dropping it isn't a worry at all (and it could even provide screen-saving cushioning for the inevitable few who'll accidentally fling it at their TV sets).

The glow actually comes from an RGB LED bulb housed in the controller's plastic casing.

What's really clever is that this bulb can glow any one of over 100 colours, all by the command of your PS3 which stops it from blending into the background.

So, for example, if your wallpaper was a vivid red, your PS3 would detect this and tell the controllers to glow a different colour so they can be easily tracked by the camera. It's also used as an identification tool when multiple controllers are in use, no two will glow the same colour.

Nintendo's minimalist approach to buttons caused problems for more hardcore Wii games that struggled to give players access to multiple commands.

Sony's Move suffers no such issues, with the four iconic PlayStation buttons sat around a new, larger 'Move' button which typically serves as the main 'action' button. These all reside comfortably under your thumb, with the PS Button (which brings up the PS3's system menu) just below those and sunken in to avoid being pressed accidentally.

On the underside is the T-trigger, a nicely curved analogue trigger in just the right place for your index finger.

Tucked into the left and right side of the controller are flat Start and Select buttons which, although seeming sufficiently hidden, we did hit accidentally with the inner ball of our index knuckle as our grip was too high on the controller. When more accustomed to it we held it slightly further down from the top and all was fine.

On the underside of the controller sits an expansion port and mini USB port, which is primarily used to charge the device's internal Lithium Ion battery on the Sony's sleek charge station while the PS3 is off, but we imagine could also be used to plug the Move into other devices Sony may choose to invent in future (including the gun attachment which was shown at E3).

The Move will work alone for many of PS3's simpler games, but for more complex experiences you'll find yourself clutching the Navigation controller in the other hand.

This basically mimics the functionality you get from the left side of a normal DualShock 3 PS3 controller, and is much like Nintendo's Nunchuk expansion, but, again, with more buttons.

That said, it has an analogue stick, full D-pad, Circle and X buttons that sit under your thumb, along with another PS Button. And on the flipside you'll find another two triggers, one a regular clicky button and the other a full analogue trigger like the one on the main Move controller.

The Nav controller also has motion-sensing functionality although, without the glowing orb, it's not quite as advanced; more similar to that of the Wii Remote.

Sony's decision to completely ditch wires from the split-controller configuration originally designed by Nintendo (who connects its Wii Remote and Nunchuk with a short cable) really liberates your hands to let you move in a way that's comfortable for you. When punching out, you can really punch. When swinging a sword, you can really swing. You can lean right in without having to compensate for your other hand.

But like we said earlier, it's the pin-point accuracy and, equally as important, instantaneous response time of the main Move controller that really sets it apart from its comparatively clumsy competitors.

The PS Eye tracks the Move's glowing orb to within millimeters of its position. Not just on a 2D plane but in three-dimensions; the bigger the orb appears to the camera the closer it knows the controller is to the TV.

This accuracy is enhanced, bolstered and secured in stone by two further sensors housed inside the controller; three-axis accelerometer and angular rate sensors that can detect the controller’s rotation and movement in any direction. These are the sort of sensors the Wii Remote relies on entirely.

But even that's not enough for Sony. It makes extra sure with an internal magnetometer – a digital compass, basically – which uses the Earth's gravitational pull to keep all those accelerometer readings in check.

While the Wii Remote has to be placed on a flat surface to be calibrated in accordance with gravity, the Move is calibrating itself constantly as you play.

Clever, that, and it also means the PS3 can accurately detect what the controller's doing even when the camera can’t see that glowing orb (when it’s behind your back or other arm, for example).

We've all become tolerant of the constant slip ups the Wii Remote makes in games, even since the introduction of the better-but-still-imperfect MotionPlus attachment; those times when your tennis racket swings early because you were merely pulling your arm back in preparation for a shot, or when your sword swings horizontally instead of vertically like you wanted, or when the calibration slowly notches out of whack and that Wii Sports Duel sword just isn't copying your movements at all.

Even Microsoft's Kinect hiccupped during our E3 playtests, as our car in racing game Joyride turned left instead of our intended right, and its repeated failure to detect our subtle (and then over exaggerated, just to be sure) attempts to put right-spin on our bowling ball. It was infuriating.

One of the games we played was the dedicated PS Move game The Fight: Lights Out, a fist-fighting sim that actually has you hold a Move controller in each hand (not a Nav controller).

The controls are simple – your fighter's fists do what your fists do. You just punch in any combination you please and witness your on-screen counterpart mimic you instantly.

We tried our best to confuse it. We span the controllers 360 degrees. No problem. We hid them behind our backs. The PS3 was un-phased. We punched as rapidly as we could, combining jabs with hooks and uppercuts in quick succession (with over six years of martial arts experience, we might add).

The PS3 tracked it all. We even crossed our arms over so the controllers were on the wrong side of our bodies. Our fighter just did the same – and looked as idiotic as us.

Move bugs?

And while the surprisingly honest Sony rep accompanying us did admit that a small bug in the game did occasionally cause the console to incorrectly swap arms, we couldn’t replicate or detect that error or any other. We left reassuringly convinced of its rock-solid motion detection abilities.

And how well does it cater to the hardcore? Well, if first-person shooters Killzone 3 and Socom 4 (which have the Move handle your aim while the Nav controller's analogue stick does movement) are anything to go by, this controller’s potential is limited only by the abilities and imaginations of the developers making games for it.