LittleBigPlanet: Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves - PlayStation 3 Review

Little BigPlanet got a ton of play this weekend from my youngest.  She has always loved the series - pretty much fell in love with it since playing the first game, and she has enjoyed the series since.  It sort of amazes me how much time she puts into it, but she makes most of her online friends through the game, and spends hours upon hours creating and testing areas - often Pokemon themed.

I hope you all had a very nice weekend and got some gaming in.  I got obscene amounts of several titles in, and probably have upwards of forty hours in total clocked in on Dragon's Dogma now.  I am about halfway through the primary storyline, but have been keeping busy with all of the side quests.  I also have several online franchises in Madden that have progressed (more effectively than my Lions have progressed in real life).  I have some Magic: The Gathering to play tonight -and it should be interesting as a few of the guys I play with tonight attended the pre-release tournaments for the upcoming expansion, so I'll get to see some new cards in play this evening.

So, speaking of Little BigPlanet, I thought I would touch on one of the spinoffs from the primary series.

LittleBigPlanet is pretty big in my house.  My son likes it, but my youngest daughter?  Well, she loves it.  It is pretty easy to see the appeal.  I have never really gotten into the game myself, but with those design options I probably would have eaten this series up as a kid who learned BASIC for the sole purpose of creating Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories on my TI99/4a.  So back when we had a move, Sackboy's Prehistoric Moves came out and then shortly after it was a freebie for PlayStation Plus owners.  My daughter was very excited to give this game a go.

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Playstation Move - Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts? Sounds a bit foreboding huh? Well, there is a bit of a reason. With a dead PlayStation 3, I had to figure out how to replace it since it was the most heavily used system in our house. The PlayStation Move, having been free, was a great win - but the thing is, despite how good the tech is behind it, the titles to support it never seemed to interest me a lot. There were a couple of specific ones, and I got and reviewed those, but the scores were often somewhat middling.

The hardware's great, but even after E3 I didn't see many compelling titles for the Move. So, it was part of my trade-in toward the new PS3 Slim I got this summer. In truth, the Move and the PlayStation Eye were hardly ever used. A couple of times a month maybe. With the PS3 in the living room dead? Those devices were not getting used at all, so I decided to do without them. It was a fun experience, but not one that feels fully fleshed out and ready for prime time. There is a load of potential here, and maybe down the road I'll see some titles that make me regret the decision, but I doubt it at this point. The overall experience for me was probably about a 7 out of 10. Good diversion, but lacking in substance

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Playstation Move - EyePet - Playstation 3 Review

Took a small break for the Halloween special I wrote up the other night, so let's get back into my evaluation of the Playstation Move, shall we?

This was one of the titles I was most excited to acquire once we knew we were getting the PlayStation Move. I knew that my youngest in particular would be fascinated with the idea of a virtual pet to take care of, but I had a feeling it might go over well with the other kids as well. They adore our cats, they all like the variousg 'virtual pets' games like Nintendogs or even Pokemon. The idea is pretty simple - you hatch a monkey-like EyePet and name it - and then you go about playing with and caring for it over time. Each new real life day brings about some new activities and challenges, giving you an incentive to come back to the game regularly.

All of this is done while integrating the PlayStation move in a variety of ways, from hosing the little guy down for a shower, warming and rocking his egg to get him to come out and more. This also integrates the PlayStation Eye by showing you and your living room - a sort of virtual world for your EyePet to play in.

Graphics - 8:

The little EyePet is cute. Seriously, this game is saccharine sweet overload. He's all cute, and fluffy and playful. He's also a very expressive little guy, and he animates pretty well. The various toys and tools for interacting with him are pretty straightforward, but they do the job. The crazy professor like guy's overlaying video gets the job done, but I found him pretty freaking annoying to be honest with you.

Once again, the poor quality of the PlayStation Eye 'shines through' - delivering my living room in badly colored, hugely pixelated glory. Man that part looks rough. If the camera was better, the immersion would be so much better as well.

Sound & Music - 7:

For better or for worse, the scientist/guide that talks you through things generally describes things pretty well, but he sort of bugs me at the same time. The EyePet himself makes little chirp and coo sounds that are cute, if sometimes a bit repetitive. The rest of the music and sound effects are not bad, but they are fairly forgettable.

Gameplay - 8:

The Move controls once again show their precision as most of the mini-games and activities play out very nicely. They seem pretty accurate most of the times. There were a couple of activities where I was trying to get him to do things, and he would drag a bit, but for the most part the EyePet remained pretty engaging. The menus were a bit of a chore to get around in my opinion, and I sometimes did things without knowing what I was doing because the tutorial had not covered the activity yet. That did not happen real often, mostly because my youngest played the game a ton and was walking me through it.

Intangibles - 7:

The formula for unlocking things and discovering more activities is actually a good one. The actual process of playing with your pet is more engaging than I expected - this is definitely not the type of game I normally play. Still, I'd rather wrestle and pet one of my cats, truth be told. The other problem - once you have played for quite awhile, and done what there is to do, there really is not much reason to go back to it. My younger two in particular played really regularly for about two weeks, an hour or so a day. Problem is, they've hardly played again since.

One small annoyance for me was setting up the PlayStation Eye - it was not meant to be as high off of the ground as where I have it set up for my other games, so my positioning in relation to it was a bit odd.

Overall - 7.5:

If you are a fan of virtual pets or really just need cute pet overload and can't have the real thing, this experience is probably a bit more immersive than most. It's really, really not my cup of tea, but then I bought it for my kids, and all three played for varying lengths of time - though none of them 'completed' all of the objectives. I would probably say it is designed for a very specific audience and while an interesting sort of experiment, not something I would recommend paying full price for unless a kid really wants to try it.

More EyePet: Your Virtual Pet Videos

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Playstation Move - Beat Sketchers - Playstation Network Review

This is a pretty lightweight 'review' - this is not so much a game as an experience. I won't get into the technical breakdowns because quite frankly - most of them do not apply to this particular title. This is the only downloaded title we have acquired to date, and this one was at the request of my least game-playing kid, my oldest daughter.

The premise is sort of interesting - you use the move controller as a virtual pen/paintbrush/artistic 'wand' and draw on the screen. You can overlap/draw on images, and you can play it against different audio tracks. The number of tools are cool, and you can do quite a bit with it - including making movies to share or images to save. It works off of the Playstation Eye, which - as always - looks kind of like crap, though.

I'll be honest - it was more of a short diversion for me. There are some challenges set to music where you try to draw certain patterns out weighed against accuracy and time, and some easy trophies to get, but if I'm going to work with images or video, I'm going to use actual computer software where the results are something I would actually want someone to see. The kids seem to enjoy it from time-to-time, but it's a fifteen minute novelty, and as such would have had a lot more value at $5 than $10. I was not real impressed with the title, and even my oldest -the one who wanted it - has only played it a couple of dozen times so far. She seems to enjoy it, but your mileage will no doubt vary.

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Playstation Move - Tiger Woods 11- Playstation 3 Review

Of the sports titles that come out, Madden is my favorite and the NBA 2K series is runner up. I enjoy MLB: The Show, EA's NHL, EA's Boxing and Tiger Woods golf games - but I tend to pick them up every few years, and not each season. I was excited to pick up Tiger Woods 2011 though, because it was not only well-received, but Move compatible. Golf is just one of those titles that seems a natural for motion controls. The last version I had played was 2009, so that is my only real point of comparison.

Graphics - 7:

The player models generally do not impress me a lot. The scenery is nice, and some of the weather effects and grass effects look nice, but there is very little in the way of 'wow' factor here. On a technical level, there is no slowdown or tearing that take you out of the experience. A decent effort that does a fair job of immersing you in the game, but they won't do anything to blow you away either.

Sound & Music - 7:

The announcers do a decent job of detailing the action. Having recently been horrified from the much newer audio found in Madden 2012, I can appreciate how well the commentary flows in this game, which is a couple of years older. The sound effects are somewhat minimalistic during play, but they work well enough to keep you into the match.

Gameplay - 9:

Kudos go here. I enjoyed the Move interaction. I was very impressed with the level of tracking and control - though at times sometimes it was a bit too sensitive. What do I mean? Well, the swinging and putting controls feel fantastic. Seriously, it is so much more immersive than prior PS3 iterations, no doubt due largely to the Move controls. That said, sometimes little things like aiming was a bit too touchy for my liking.

For non-Move users? The game plays pretty well too. I'm not terribly good at it, but I did enjoy the basic timing mechanics that drive the game and it was easy to get around the menus. I also made use of the Playstation Eye to create a zombie-like Me as a golfer. It actually did a pretty good job of mapping my face, but adding lifeless eyes to it was 'creepy' according to my kids.

Intangibles - 8:

The Move controls are a welcome addition, but the game itself is pretty good too. They added a Ryder Cup mode that I didn't get much play out of, but I did spend a lot of time building up my created golfer and losing a lot of matches. I am not very good at playing the game, but I still enjoyed it, which is a sign of a good game I think. Like all of these annual sports games, I think a big part of the game's value is how much has changed since your last version. To me, the game, modes and controls were worth the update from version 9 of Tiger Woods. That might not be the case for someone coming from version 10.

Overall - 7.5:

I enjoy the game, and though I don't play it nearly as much as some of my other sports titles, but when I'm looking for a slower-paced, almost relaxing break, this is the title I most often turn to. Now, why am I reviewing this version when it's so old? I got it cheap, and its integration with the Move gave it some extra value for me. I know there are newer versions out there, but as someone who skips a couple of years between releases most of the time, this one should hold me over for awhile all the same - especially at the price of $12 I got it for.

More Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 Videos

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Playstation Move - Sports Champions - Playstation 3 Review

The first title we actually purchased for the Playstation Move was Sports Champions. It seems like these sports titles are the preferred introductory experience for these kinds of motion controls. It makes sense really - since sports are often inherently familiar to people and their movements are somewhat easily tracked and translated to video games. The Wii made use of this a couple of times over, first with the system itself and then the introduction of the Wii Plus.

Here are the sports you get:

- Table Tennis
- Volleyball
- Disc Golf
- Gladiator combat
- Archery
- Bocce Ball

Graphics - 7:

The attempt here is to come up with a more realistic sports entry than the Wii's charming if simplistic sports titles offer. This is both a good and a bad thing as this game looks nice overall, but sometimes animates just a bit stiffly and you see odd graphic pop-in and overlap. I know a lot of people prefer the Wii method, but I can at least appreciate the direction they went in here with Sports Champions and personally prefer the more realistic appearance

Sounds & Music - 6:

The music is nice enough, simple and completely forgettable. It doesn't take anything away from the experience, but it adds almost nothing as well. The sounds are very simple, with appreciate thuds, whacks and player noises where needed, but like the music, these sound effects are very simple and do nothing particularly well, if not particularly badly either.

Gameplay - 8:

The controls generally respond well, and that is the key with a game like this, right? Show off what you can do with familiar controls? I think archery was probably my favorite, tennis my least favorite. My son really liked the gladiator combat, and my daughters were all amused by different sports, if only for a short time.

There is a very nice option to do some of the games like archery and gladiator combat with two motion controllers. It is not required, which is great for families with only one Move controller, but I won two in the contest and was able to sample out both methods and did find that two controllers was better.

Intangibles - 7:

There are not a ton of sports to be had here, but there is a fair amount of depth in trying to master them. There are also quite a few different types of rounds and to unlock everything would take an incredible amount of time. With different sports, everyone's interests and mileage will vary. We also benefited from having two Move controllers, because we could take part in multiplayer, which made things a bit more fun.

Overall 7:

These types of sports games with motion controls often feel like dressed up tech demos, and honestly Sports Champions does very little to change my opinion on this. That said, it feels like a fairly polished and successful demonstration that entertains, if not for a terribly long time. The events are probably not all going to be for everyone, but for the most part they are well enough done that you should find at least a few different types of sports to keep you busy for awhile.

More Sports Champions %2D (PlayStation 3) Videos

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Playstation Move - Singstar Dance - Playstation 3 Review

So the very first game we got to experience with the Playstation Move was Singstar Dance as it was shipped with our prize package. The game came with 2 microphones and a converter box that allowed them to plug into the Playstation 3 itself.

The idea was to do the same as other Singstar games and allow you to sing along with popular songs, but to incoroporate the Playstation Move so you could dance with the song as well, attempting to add an additional layer to the gaming experience. Does it work?

Graphics - 7:

The actual music videos look pretty good, but I just could not get around the horrendous video from the Playstation Eye. The colors and pixels are very poor, and the Playstation Eye was one of my main points of concern in the hardware review. I realize that this allowed Sony to keep the price of the unit down but it just feels so low tech compared to the rest of the Playstation Move package, and in a game like this where the video gets displayed on-screen? It's much more distracting.

Sound & Music - 8:

The tracks sound really good. I mean, this is not a game where you have to worry about the surround sound helping you succeed like in a Call of Duty game, but everything sounds professional and crisp, and in a music title like this, that is very important. Also, the track selection is fairly good. It's not really my type of music, but my youngest daughter loves pop music, loves to sing and loves to dance, so I figured this game for a hit.

Gameplay - 4:

Unfortunately, this is where things start to come off of the rails a bit. The music component is fine, for those who like that sort of thing. It never really seemed to grab my daughter's attention though, despite the fact she liked several of the songs and listens to them away from the PS3 as well. She played it a couple of nights, and never touched it again. One thing that made the experience worse however, was the attempted Move integration. Honestly, it just feels broken. The 'dance' element is really rough, not terribly responsive and just takes away from the experience instead of actually enhancing it.

Intangibles - 5:

Here's the thing: this game is meant to really help break some boundaries and better entice players into enjoying not just the music, but the movements. However, the movement controls barely work, and are much more of a barrier than anything. The musical aspect is solid, if this is your type of game, but if it is not there is very little here to bring you in and the Move controls feel tacked on and gimmicky.

Overall - 6:

If this is your sort of thing, it might make for a fun party game. I'll be honest, it's really not my sort of thing. My wife showed no interest in it, and neither did any of my three kids. For the most part, that did not surprise me - but my youngest daughter's indifference did. She loves to sing and dance, as I mentioned before, but she just showed no real interest in this game. I had to suggest it to her for four nights running before she gave it a chance, and after she did, she never fired it up again. It's not a bad idea, but the execution was clearly lacking.

More Sports Champions %2D (PlayStation 3) Videos

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Playstation Move - Hardware review

So, last year around this time, I won a Playstation Move package that came with Singstar Dance, two Move controllers, a Playstation Eye and all of the necessary cables. I picked up one of the small hand held control sticks to compliment the Move controller as well.

I am going to breakdown my impressions of the hardware, some of the games, and then just my overall impressions of the game lineup and offerings to date.

So, let's start with the hardware, which overall is pretty good. The build is excellent - the durability is quite sound as my kids have managed to drop the controllers several times and I have yet to notice any sort of negative impact on the performance. The appearance of the controllers is a bit odd - my son compared it to a glowing snow cone. I was not a fan of the button layout. The Playstation Dualshock controller has buttons laid out in a diamond shaped pattern, and the Move controller uses a square shaped one. I would have much preferred they stuck with the diamond shape surrounding the "Move" button.

The setup is quite easy, though my PS3 has somewhat limited USB ports, and the eye did use one of those up.

The off-hand control stick I picked up was decent as well, also having been dropped on its head a few times but never failing to operate. Not many games seem to use that controller currently (think shooter games and movement controls mostly), however. Both this device and the Move controllers hook up to the USB to mini-USB and charge just like a Dualshock controller would, and sync up to the system in the same way. Overall, I like that design, but having had one controller of about two years' age no longer holding a charge, I would be concerned that .this could happen here prematurely.

On to the Playstation eye - this is in most senses the least impressive piece of tech in my opinion. It looks nice enough, but the image quality is very, very poor. It responds well to the Move controllers themselves - I found the accuracy of the unit to be incredibly good in most instances, but the camera itself is of such poor quality that in games like Eyepet it was almost jarringly bad.

I heard a lot of concerns about the lighting, but honestly I did not have too many of those. Most lighting conditions in our living room allowed the device to work just fine, even if there was a semi-open window where the camera was pointing. The sometimes limited range of the Playstation Eye itself was sometimes more of an annoyance. Without the ability to 'adjust' the sweet spot on the camera, it was sometimes a bad 'fit' to my living room. I know the idea is to get people up off of their couches at times, but some games were lengthy and being able to sit on the sofa would be nice, but the Eye could not track properly because I was a foot or two away from the sweet spot. Another game, Eyepet, had a very specific distance you needed to sit in order for it to operate properly.

Overall, the hardware is very well-made. The controllers are durable and light, they track very well, and except from some particulars with the Playstation Eye itself, I found it to be very accommodating to our living room. I would score the hardware components as an 8 out of 10.

 

~~~

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It's been quite awhile...

Since I posted. To be honest, I was strongly considering taking some time off from posting here. I may not match my earlier pace - time will tell, but I was trying to post quite regularly and then got very busy irl - and that mixed with the relatively small amount of traffic I get through here made it really easy for me to ignore my blog here. That said, two people emailed me in this past week just to check in and make sure all was well - which I really appreciated. And well, overall I do have a ton of new games to write up about.

I also had both good and frustrating news. I picked up some Wii games like Silent Hill and Metroid and then my Wii died a few days later. So now I'm waiting for my UPS package label so I can send it back - so hey, I can comment on how that process goes. So far? Not too well. We put in a request on 10/23 and finally yesterday emailed them and asked about the label I should have gotten. They agreed to send me a new one and said that I should get it in 4 business days, so if I count today as the first, hopefully I'll have it Wed - maybe Thurs at the latest.

So, that was the bad news. The good news? I won a Playstation Move set, complete with 2 Move controllers, 1 Playstation Eye and Singstar dance and some microphones to go with it. I still will probably want to spring for one of the $30 side-controllers for the move wands, but I'm hoping to get some detailed reviewing out in the somewhat near future. I want to get some time in on it with several games, that sort of thing.

I'm very curious about the Kinect. The release lineup has been getting better reviews and while the Move has always felt like a Wii HD, the Kinect has always felt to me like more impressive tech. Still, at $150 it's going to be a hard sell. Maybe I'll win one of those too. I'm curious if people have had a chance to use either yet and if so, what are your thoughts?

Hopefully I'll get a new review out tonight or tomorrow - I've had a handful of new games on hand: Dead Rising 2, Fable 3, NBA 2k11, MLB The Show 10 and EA MMA.

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Gaming News and Notes from 9-1-10

I commented on the increase to Xbox live costs the other day, but on the other side of that coin Nintendo is lowing the cost of their DS Lite and XL's - the latter of which is kind of surprising given how little time it's really been on the market. There's been a lot of speculation about when the Nintendo 3DS will be coming out - with most of it saying early next year. Still, this reported price drop does have people wondering if perhaps Nintendo is aiming for a last moment push before the holiday season. Considering how the units being shown at the last few conferences have been fully functional, it would appear the hardware is there. Probably the biggest concern is the launch lineup and if it is ready to be put out there yet.

Borderlands was a very popular and well-reviewed game - and sadly one I haven't gotten around to playing yet. Still, this Game of the Year edition with all of the extra content may be just the reason to pick it up for the first time.

Castle Crashers is making its way to the Playstation Network. It's late to the game in arriving - it's been out on the 360 for quite some time now. But, this was a well-reviewed game and a favorite of my kids'. I've had a couple of playthroughs on it as well with my kids and overall it was a pretty cool game. If you haven't had a chance to play this one on the 360 yet, it may well be worth a peek if you're a ps3 owner.

Last but not least, the Playstation Move is a peripheral I've been curious about, and though I'm unlikely to pick one up, at least out of the gates, I have been watching for news on it. Well, IGN gave me a lot of news on it today. They've posted quick blurbs saying that they were using the device for a while now, but today they had a chance to actually review it and their launch titles. What were the results?

The hardware fared good, scoring an 8.5 - though I suspect it would get mixed results in my house because the camera would be pointed right at the window as a backdrop for the players, which could affect sensitivity.

Sports Champion came in at a decent 7.5 - not breaking any new ground, but as Wii has proven a variety of sports mini games can prove entertaining.

Eyepet was one that I thought would really appeal to 1 or 2 of my kids, especially my youngest daughter. With the 8.0 score it ranks as the highest of the release scores from IGN and looks to ooze cuteness if that's your thing.

Kung Fu Rider did not hold up nearly as well, getting a 3.5. The visuals scored well, but the controls and gameplay apparently were quite poor.

Racquet Sports did not fair much better, with it's 4.5 score.

Back to the 3.5 range for Tumble.

Then they dropped some preview impressions on High Velocity Bowling and a Tiger Woods game.

Overall, the technology seems decent, but the launch titles seem to leave a bit to be desired. One of my primary concerns with Move and Kinect are that they feel like addons. The Wii has the motion controls enabled for almost every game, and while they're not always well implemented by the developers, the developers know that every Wii owner has already got the potential to utilize these controls. This encourages development using motion controls. However, if the Move and the Kinect do not make big sales right out of the game, will developers make games for these peripherals knowing that maybe only a small percentage of the PS3 or 360 market can even play the game? That makes the launch titles very important and it would seem that the Move's launch set is very questionable. The next several titles that are released for the Move could very well make or break its early success, so we'll have to wait and see.

PlayStation Move at IGN.com

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Sony Move and Microsoft Kinect - are you buying in?

With the Kinect finally being listed and Sony having announced the pricing and packages for the Move - the gauntlets have been thrown and while E3 certainly covered games (with tons of sequels listed) – the technology was also being discussed. While the 3DS was the talk of many blogs, it doesn’t quite fall into the same category as the above two additions which seem to signal that as good as the graphics and sound are coming out of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 – that there is a market for a different kind of gaming experience. The Wii has been a top seller and many of its best games have proven very hard to find (I still recall what a pain Mario Kart for the Wii was to get for our household). The question is – are these additions worth their price tags?

I think the games will be the deciding factor. It’s interesting, but the Wii has shown both sides of the coin. I read a report recently that said the Wii had the lowest average ‘score’ on most gaming sites when compared to the PS3 and 360. So many of these games are created and sold at such a low cost and attempt to cash in on gimmicky controls that this “shovelware” detracts from what the Wii does really well when it gets games ‘right’ – generally first party games like Mario Kart or Metroid. Because of this, Wii sales have been strong. But it is not just the controller that makes the Wii appealing for gamers. The kid-friendly themes help for those buying for the family, sure – but the price has been a big point of contention. I recall several people buying a 360 and a Wii because it was roughly the same price as a PS3. Now that the Playstation 3 has come down in price, it has been selling well. But as I commented to another blog – these Move and Eye peripherals negate most of the recent price drop. With the Kinect (formerly known as Project Natal) weighing in at $150 – the Wii system still becomes the more far cheaper system (not to mention that the games then to ring in at $10 to $20 less, and really good Wii games can be found for $10 at Gamestop).

Do I think the Kintect and Move look cool? Absolutely. Do I want to try them? I do and hope to. But I own each of the big three systems. Gaming is my primary hobby. I am not the majority though, who look at it as something to be done on the side once in a great while. People will make their investments accordingly. The responses I have been reading for both the Move and Kinect on most gaming sites amounts to: Looks good, but we’ll wait and see if a) the price drops or b) the catalog of games utilizing these new accessories justifies the investment. I’ve seen a few blogs saying the Wii’s days are numbered – and maybe so but I have my doubts that it will be in the immediate future. One of my favorite comments today compared Kinect to the Virtual boy, 8 track, Betamax and HD DVD – good ideas that failed to gain traction – often due to prohibitive pricing. I think the Kinect has some amazing potential, and I for one don’t want to see it go the way of the aforementioned technologies – but only time will tell. I think a price point of $100 would be far better received – maybe if they pack it with a game or two that will help soften the blow.

What are your thoughts? Interested in the technology? If so – interested enough to drop that kind of money on it?

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