Playstation 3 Move Boxing Games
If you've ever wanted to get your body into shape, UFC Personal Trainer on PlayStation 3 is here to start your fitness journey in fine form. Leading mixed martial arts (MMA) training experts Mark DellaGrotte, Greg Jackson and Javier Mendez all lend their experience to create routines and programmes that are utilised by some of the best Ultimate Fighting Championship combatants around.
As we were the first to report , the Wiimote™ not only uses accelerometers for reading fast swinging motions, but also uses infrared LEDs in the sensor bar that the Wiimote™ sees to point decently precisely on the screen. But the Wiimote™ was handicapped at launch for precise movements, hence the recent addition of the MotionPlus™ add-on which uses gyros to more precisely read twisting motions.
Fight Night Champion is a multiplayer boxing game for play on PlayStation 3 that blends traditional one-on-one pugilistic action of previous games in the Fight Night franchise with new, more gritty story-driven gameplay rooted in the all-new Champion Mode. Game features include: unprecedented precision and accuracy of punches; local and online multiplayer support for four and ten players respectively; and a cast of more than 50 boxers from multiple eras and weight classes.
In my tests of Kinect™ at E3 I found the motion of my hand to have a significant delay to the action on the screen. This was especially noticeable in the Ubisoft's Wii™ Fit knockoff, Your Shape™. You can see this lag clearly even in the Microsoft® Press conference demo when the girl moves quickly. I also found that if you moved fast enough it could lose you completely. But to be fair, unlike most titles this game is meant to read very slight movements and positions that won't be necessary in most games.
If Microsoft® is smart, a controller addition to Kinect™ is already in the works. Otherwise Kinect™ will do nothing to entice core gamers, and they are the ones who told the casual gamers about it with the Wii™. But Microsoft® may simply not care at all about the core gamers with Kinect™, instead going after Nintendo's® casual gamers solely. Let's hope not. If the $150 price tag for Kinect turns out to be true, it may sit on the shelves.
The wireless and untethered PlayStation Move navigation controller is a must-have for core gamers. This supplementary controller adds directional buttons, an analog stick, and two shoulder buttons into the PlayStation Move's control scheme. Used in most of the PlayStation Move games that require navigating an in-game character, it replicates the control features of the left side of the DUALSHOCK3 wireless controller into your PlayStation Move experience. The navigation controller's analog stick (or directional buttons) allows for convenient XMB menu navigation, and the X button, O button and PS button make it simple to enter or exit any options of the XMB menu.
Ready for your workout? UFC Personal Trainer places you in a virtual gym that features everything you need to help develop a toned and sculpted body. To get started, you need a PlayStation Move motion controller - you can attach it to your leg using the included Leg Strap - and a PlayStation Eye camera, so the game can track your movement and display feedback. Enter personal data such as your height and weight, listen to a few valuable health tips to help you prepare and then get ready for your workout.
E3 is back in a big way, and this year was the battle of the motion controllers and 3D tech. While Nintendo® was the first to prove that motion technology was viable to gaming with the release of the Wii™, Microsoft® and Sony® are attempting to raise the bar with their own versions of motion control...but have they succeeded?
Another disadvantage of Move™ is that unlike the Wii's nunchuck, the Navigator doesn't have accelerometers for motion control in it. This will require you to use two wands for boxing games for example, and no tossing grenades or melee attacks by whipping it around. On a positive note it is wireless, but that too adds a small handicap as it requires an extra Bluetooth® spot, of which the PS3 only has 7 available. That means no 4-player games using a wand and Navigator, no 4-player split-screen FPS games.
There's still a lot to be learned about the capabilities of both Move™ and Kinect™, but the good news is that we won't have to wait long as both peripherals are due for release in just a few months. Will the future of gaming change forever with the release of motion-controlled gaming on all three major consoles, or is it a passing fad that will fade obscurely into gaming history?
Kinect™ is the funny name given to Microsoft's® technology formerly known as Project Natal™. Microsoft'®s biggest bragging point turns out to also be it's biggest handicap, no controller needed. Sony® was only too happy to poke fun of the lack of buttons (and Mii limbs) at their E3 press conference featuring Kevin Butler as you can see in this video:
The good news about Kinect™ is that the hardware itself is quite impressive, and quite capable. Joystiq got a good behind the scenes look at just how much it could see in a room full of people. The part that's not quite 100% yet is the software that interprets what the hardware is seeing, which requires a lot of processing power. In fact, right now there has even been a lot of c ontroversy as to whether you will be able to sit while using Kinect . But not to worry, because software can be updated.
The advantage of Move™ is the motion capture capability, unlike the Wii™ it really can see where the controller is in 3D space. The Motion Fighter demo used the mo-cap tech exclusively, covering the camera brought the movement to a complete stop. But this Move Motion Capture tech demo shows just how capable the tech really is, following the exact movements precisely. While trying it for myself at E3, like Kinect™ I found the movement to be somewhat laggy, and if you moved fast enough you could seem to outrun it.
I got a chance to try the bowling part of the Wii Sports knockoff being developed by Rare® in Microsoft's® E3 booth, and I asked the two Rare® employees working on it about spinning the ball only to find out that it required you to throw your hand far to the left or right to perform. In fact they admitted openly that Kinect® couldn't see the twist of a wrist for the spin. That's a huge problem in itself, but no buttons is even more limiting. How can you play a complex game with no buttons, and who would want to?
Another interesting point about Move™; the color of the ping-pong ball is only used for the player to identify which is their controller or for changing colors for flair in games when making potions or casting spells, the color of the ball does not tell the hardware anything. We also know that the wand has a magnetometer in it which is used to keep it's center position, which is another reason that it doesn't need a sensor bar.