Sports Champions Review

When it comes to showing off the technical ability of the Move controller, Sports Champions is here to do that.

Sports Champions uses the Move as a sword and shield, ping-pong paddle, bow and arrow, and well as a few others. Using two Move controllers allows for you to be really engrossed in the experience. The games themselves are self-explanatory but the questions is, do they work?

For the most part, yes. Table tennis has never felt so real. I had to get used to the fact that when pointing the move controller directly at the screen, I would sometimes hit the ping ping ball off the end of my virtual paddle. There was a bit of a learning curve on just about every game, but they all used the move controller well.

The experience of having to two move controllers in the archery mode was something I never thought I would experience in a game. Having your arms grow tired from trying to hold the bow up and keep it steady, while pulling each new arrow from the quiver was amazing. I couldn’t stop smiling, until my arms were starting to burn from playing to much.

What they didn't do well, is suck you into the  environment. The visuals were good, but the environments were very bland. They also made the playable characters stereotypes. Sony didn’t go the route Microsoft  chose, which was trying to create a HD Mii. This I can understand because they don’t want to be just another Wii copy, but they could have done much more.

Sports Champions missed a great opportunity by forcing players to choose their characters rather than creating their own. The most exciting part about the initial experiences of motion gaming is you being able to do these sports as yourself in your home. No one want to help super buff sports cowboy become an awesome bocci ball player. It just takes you completely out of the experience.

In the end, it’s a good pack-in game, but not worth buying a Move for. I would say the game would be a good purchase at $15. The Move bundle itself, is a good buy at $70.

I don’t want to make this into a Move review, but the Move is a nice peripheral that can add re-playability to some titles you may already own, like Heavy Rain. It is basically the wii-remote, only much more accurate and responsive. I believe it is the closest 1 to 1 experience available on the market today.