Sunday, October 31, 2010

Sports Champions Review

Sports Champions is one of the few PlayStation Move launched titles. The game consists of six sports, which are Disc Golf, Gladiator Duel, Archery, Bocce, Table Tennis and Beach Volleyball. Each sport utilises the PlayStation Move controller uniquely. Gladiator Duel, Archery and Beach Volleyball have the option to use a second Move motion controller for more involving gameplay.

Every sport in this game have quite an involving gameplay that could make a standalone PSN game but fall short of a retail game. Though Gladiator Duel and Table Tennis come close. Controls felt very close to the real thing, much more so than the competing motion controller games like Wii Sports for example. The game is trying for the simulation angle rather than easy pickup arcade style. To balance this out the game offers three different cups or tourney, bronze, silver and gold, with more unlockable once the three are completed. At the easier Bronze cup, there are plenty of assists and hints to ease the player into the game. The hand holding gradually ease off as player progresses.

The game is set up much like fighting games. Player chooses one ‘athlete’ and will need to go through each sport defeating each ‘athlete’ in the line up. Like some fighting game there is even some fun bonus round placed somewhere in the middle of progression. Awesome set up but sadly, this game doesn’t have online versus play. Two players versus play requires a lot of room and with sports like Gladiator Duel, playing it feels constricted with another player nearby.

The athletes are designed in caricature style for that iconic look but they look generic in the end. There just isn’t enough character in each athlete design. Stages also look rather bland and uninspired. But everything if functional and better compare to competitors. The amount of time was spent perfecting the control which what really matters really.

Sports Champions is an excellent showcase of PlayStation Move and it is a must have launched title.