A quick Move impression

After having played around with Sony's new motion controller, Move, I felt that I had to write something down about it.

As I said, Move is Sony's new and first motion controller for game consoles, but it's also a controller that is most likely going to remind people of another one – the Nintendo Wii. After having messed around with some of the launch games for the Move, I can say for certain that Move definitely is not the Wii. And I mean this in as well a good as a bad way. First of all the software line up for Move is unquestionably too small. With only six games available on launch, and many of these not being all that great or even fun to play, Move is going to be a hard sell even for die hard Sony fanboys (and –girls).

But before we get into the games and the software, let's start by taking a look at the Move controller itself.

The wand, the **** the icecream cone…

whatever you want to call it – Move is a strange looking controller. The controller is made up of two parts. At the top is the very iconic ball, which tracks most of your movements in games. Next is the handle with your standard dualshock buttons and two new ones: a Move specific button that sits perfectly in the middle and a trigger button on the back. The overall design of Sony's Move controller, is good, it has an industrial design that goes well with other Playstation 3 peripherals. The cone feels very good in your hand and not at all like the uot;brick" design of the Wii motion controller. There is also a navigation controller, which is basicly just a nunchuck like on the Wii. Right now, this piece is not needed to play most of the launch games, but expect it to become a standard peripheral in upcoming games like, Resident Evil 5 gold edition, R.U.S.E and Heavy Rain Move edition.

But what is tracking the Move controller? That's where the Ps eye comes in. You need the Ps eye to use with the Move, and there is not really that much more to say about it. It does a great job of keeping up with your movement and there is a fancy little microphone for use in games like "start the party". Overall the hardware is really impressive, it works great, looks good and does a fantastic job of tracking your movements.

Now onto the software…

When Move was introduced at this year's E3, Sony wasn't shy to show off great looking games like Killzone 3, Tiger woods 11, Sorcery and others. It looked like Sony was on track with its launch games. But in the end we are left with just two good games, a bunch of mediocre and one that could take home the title of worst game of the year. Sports Champion(SC), which is Sony's answer to Nintendo's extremely popular game Wii Sports, is one of the launch games that I think shows what crazy things is actually possible with the Move.

Sports Champion

The game is a mix of six different sports, although some of them may not be what you would expect in a game like this. First, there's Disc Colf where you throw frisbees in the hope that they will end up in a net. It's more fun than it sounds. Gladiator Duel is a very basic fighting game in which two players or one vs the cpu take it out on each other with swords and shields. Again it's fairly basic and with only a couple of moves it leaves something to be desired. Archery is probably the best game in SC. Mainly because it utilizes not just one Icecream controller but two so as to accurately depict the act of shooting with a bow. It's tons of fun, and a really great showcase for what Move is capable of. Table tennis and volleyball are more demanding to play, in that they allow for more movement in not just the hand but also of the body. I actually ended up sweating a bit after having played around an hour of table tennis.

Sports Champion, is an very good tech demo. It does feel a bit cold and calculated – but in the end I had a lot of fun playing around with this solid mini game collection.

Eyepet, Kung Fu Rider and Tumble…

Another game I took a look at was Eyepet. Originally released back in late 2009 in Europe, the game was received to mixed reviews, but that did not stop Sony re-releasing the game with a big fat Move-sticker on it. What we have here is a pet simulation game that like Nintendo's Nintendogs acts as a sort of tamaguchi. Its great fun for kids, and I really mean I was bored with the game after five minutes, but my seven year old nephew was completely obsessed with it for around 2 hours or so. Like SC Eyepet as tech does show of some the future capabilities of Move, but feels shallow and repetitive.

Kung Fu Rider….Yeah that's the name of the game. KFR let you play as two characters - a male detective and a female detective. The game is very simple. You need to get from A to B. How you do that is not on foot or by car but by furniture and on other weird contraptions with wheels on them. All that sounds like crazy and fun – right? No, Kung Fu Rider is the game I mentioned earlier as possibly being one of the worst games I have ever played in a long time. To put it simple: don't buy this game. The controls don't work, the sound cuts out, graphical glitches constantly show up as do two of the most irritating characters ever created.

The last game I played is not a full retail game, but a PSN game that you buy online at the playstation network store. Tumble is a game that mixes Jenga and boom blocks and is actually the game I had the most fun with. As tech it's very impressive, but as a game it's also fairly impressive. I won't say too much about the game right now, since I have only been playing it for about 30 minutes or so. But I am very pleased with it and highly recommend it.

So in the end…

I am left kinda confused and somewhat frustrated with Sony's Move. The hardware is great and works really well, but currently software seems almost nonexisting and what is more baffling is Sony's lack of support for Move. Why aren't we seeing tons of commercials for the Move, why aren't we getting more and better software for it? Should you go out and buy Move right now? It really depends, its highly overpriced, there is not a must-have title and Sony's support is nowhere to be found. But, I will say that as a tech piece, and as proof of concept Move is very impressive.

Personally I think it's a very strange launch for Sony. Is this something that the playstation audience has been wanting and waiting for? If you're a Playstation user, what are your opinions about Move as hardware and as software? Do you feel that Sony's has listened to you while making Move. Is this an interaction product design to give the users a new and better experience? Leave your interesting and creative responses in the comment section.

Note: There are still several things missing in this blog( Wii vs Move fx) i will be posting this at some point in the near future. But need to play around some more with The move. Also thinking about doing a review of Tumble.

It's been a long time since I have done one of these…what are they called, blogs? Anyways, the reason for my sudden leave of absence (and this is a good on) is because I have been studying Humanistic informatics, at the University of Copenhagen. So it should come as no surprise, that I have been incredibly busy. But, it's all for the greater good. This semester we are learning about how companies market and brand themselves, and also learning about the technological culture and how it has come to where it is.

But I don't want to bore you with that. But what I do want to "bore" you about is Bioshock 2! Now I was fan of the first Bioshock. It had a really unique art and visual feel and the story was something we had not seen before. Just the main idea that story should take place in an underwater Utopia, quickly becoming the next big dystopia, was something that a lot of people, including myself, were not entirely convinced about. But before I could say" kangaroo nut sack Nazi balls" I was completely and utterly convinced that this amazing city could in fact exist, and the world of Rapture, created by the incredibly talented developers at 2k, was one of the most original game environments ever created in video-history.

This was a game that could be appreciated on so many levels, for some it was incredibly deep shooter, others saw a fascinating story with some of the most complex characters they had ever encountered in a game, this would include myself. Bioshock was a game created as "a thinking mans shooter", a game that really let the player think about the various actions that he or she were doing. So when it was announced that there would be a sequel, I was both excited and had a strange feeling of "oh no please don't F this up". It was at that point I realised how much Bioshock had meant to me, it really was a fantastic game.

So I had my doubts on the new Bioshock. How could they possibly live up to the mesmerizing first game? Would the world of Rapture still feel fresh and new, even though this great utopia was basically collapsing on itself. Most importantly however, the story. Would it be just as interesting as the first one, or maybe more so? Short answer yes long answer no. And the reason for this is simply because the original Bioshock had such an original setting. This was a place of mystery and wonder, now the mystery is still there. I still found the world of Rapture to be a really amazing place to visit and explore, but the wonder and some the excitement of the world had fated away a bit. Mainly because we had already seen the world, we had explored it before, but I will still give credit to the developers for ones again bringing this fantastically dysfunctional dystopia back to life.

I have already expressed my fascination with the original games storyline, now what about the story of the sequel? Since the game has just been released I don't want to go into to much detail, that would ruin the game for anyone reading this. However, said short and spoiler free, the story has some minor holes in it. Or maybe that's not really the right word to use. Again going back to the original, I really did feel that the characters and the story felt a bit more and better explained, but then again maybe this was a deliberate choice from the developer's side? Maybe for the sequel they chose not to fully flesh out the characters; maybe they just wanted to give hints and clues (voice-recordings of the various characters political and ideological views are greatly expressed here) so the players may feel that mystery they felt in the first game? I don't know, but I do now that after having finished the game I really really would like not just another sequel, maybe a prequel? I would love to see how this world was build, and why it was build the way it its.

Jeez, this is becoming longer then I thought. Better stop a get back to reading…or maybe play Bioshock 2 ones more? J

Woow, i haven't posted a blog for some time now have i? Well guess its a good time to do one now then! So, as many of you know Criterion games released their newest Burnout Paradise update, and its pretty damn awesome! For starters you get 2 new bikes, actually you get 4 but you need to unlock those by completing various challenges. The bikes are a hole lot of fun to drive around in. I was very sceptical about how the bikes would handle, but to my surprise they are very user friendly (especially if you know the city of paradise).

Then there's of-course the new weather system. You can change it so it matches your own time zone, witch is a very cool feature. Changing the weather to night time really changes the game. First of all, its allot harder second of all traffic also changes so there is allot fewer cars on the road. The system works very fine and is definitely of great welcome!

All in all its a pretty impressive free update for a game. This is the kind of update you would only expect having to pay for, but i guess Criterion loves their fans enough to give out these awesome free updates! So please do your self a favor, if you have the game, download the update, if you don't have it yet, dude what are you waiting for go buy it NOW!

I have also been playing another EA game this week, Spore. I wasn't really looking forward to the game, but after reading some of the reviews i got abit more interested in it. So i decided to give it a try.

To be honest, I'm not really liking it, sure the creature creator is great but the gameplay is kinda all over the place. It never really gets going if you know what i mean, just as you get excited about the new age your in you get advanced to the next. Of course you can control this yourself but when you get the option to go to a new age, you kinda wanna do that.

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Kevins awesome review of Spore!

Another problem i am having with the game, is that it seems to be abit to easy. Sure Maxis greated the game for the casual market, but it would have been cool if they had made a mode for the "hardcore gaming"(God i hate those two words) groud. Still feel like i need to play abit more, maybe making a new race of weird aliens would do the trick.

Ahh that was nice, hopefully i will be blogging abit more in the future! Later!

So i woke up this morning, took a shower eat some breakfast. Suddenly the doorbell rang, the postman had 2 huge boxes for me! I knew what the first one was, a PS3 dual shock controller, but the second? The only thing i managed to see was "San Francisco". So that was a little weird, cause i have some friends over there but why would they send me a package? Anyway i opened up the dual shock 3 controller just to see if it worked, and it does weee!

Then i looked over at the rather large box that was placed on my table, took a closer look at the sender of the package....GameSpot! WHAT THE ??? I ran in to the other room to get a scissor so i could open it. Once open there was the coolest stuff in it. The Grid box with a awesome little car in it, a blue thermo can for all the coffee i drink an orange notebook with the GameSpot logo on, a Metal gear 4 Regain something something. DUDE! this is seriously the coolest stuff i have ever won! i have never one anything from GS before but man....this is super awesome!

I was actually really surprised the package made it all the way over here, since my name was spelled wrong....but who CARES! i got some awesome stuff from the greatest Game site in the world!

Thanks so much GameSpot!

ps. pictures coming soon :)

So i just found out that for some reason 666 people have looked at my profile...which is completely AWESOME....i think? But the only problem is when people read this blog it will no longer say 666 people :(...Which is probably for the best.

Anyway...I been fairly busy the last couple of days so that's the reason why i haven't been doing any blogs recently. But now i have a 14 days vacation so maybe i will Write something if people are interested in that? So i hope everyone out there in the GS world are having a great time and are playing plenty of games!

Ok, i decided that i should do a little game of the year thingy. It's not going to be anything special like some of the other GOTY editorials by other GameSpot users. I just wanted to write down what i thought were the 3 best games of 2007. So here we go, Enjoy!

1. Super Mario Galaxy

Why did it win? Super Mario Galaxy has a fantastic blend of traditional and new stuff including a great variety that most "next gen" games can't even get close to. This is a game that truly shows what the Wii is all about, being able to play a game no matter what age or how "hardcore" you are.

2. Bioshock

Why did it win? This was a game that i was really sceptical about, i liked system shock 2 but bioshock looked abit weak the first times i saw it. But Man was i wrong, the game is absolutely beautiful, its colorfull eventhough it's mostly in the dark. Overall, its just a fantastic game with some great graphics and a heavenly yet disturbing art design.

3. Halo 3

Why did it win? Ok, we all know that Halo 3 was and is a huge game, not talking about the lenght of the game but the hype and hysteria that sourrounded the game. The Halo 3 trilogy has now come to an end. Playing through the game, i really had this strange feeling that not alot of games manage to pull of. Epic. This game just felt epic from start to finish, all the great things you remember from the original and second game is in here, but everything just felt extremely fine tuned.

So there you have it, my picks for the 3 best games of 2007. Again its just my opinion :) If you have any other opinions about what games are your personal games of the year don't hesitate to PM me or write in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!

Hey hey! Happy new year everyone! So the final day of 2007 is here and what a great year it has been for gaming. And its actually been a pretty awesome year for me aswell but i'm not going to bore you with my life :P Anyway i should get back to playing some more Super Mario Galaxy, and watch the last bits of Planet terror! Man that movie is fantastic...soooo much blood and violence :twisted: Seriously folks, i really hope you all have a great new year and an AWESOME 2008!

Ps. i didn't have a picture of some kind of fireworks display, so here is some of the dvds and games i got for christmas :)

Jeff. You have been an amazing person at GameSpot. You will TRULY be missed.

Ok so i got my 360 back about a week ago and i have been playing it pretty much nonstop since. One thing that kind of chocked me was the 360 itself that i got back. Its not the same! Its a completely new console only 1 month old, so that fantastic.A big problem with my original 360 was the amount of noise it made. This 360 however is very quite, only the dvd drive makes some noise but its not to the point were it becomes annoying.

I also bought Halo 3 (legendary edition), and the game is really fun. The story is 100 times better then Halo 2 and the ending is great. I found the game to be alot more like Halo 1, instead of Halo 2. Sure the gameplay is basicly a better/cleaned up version of Halo 2, but the feel of the weapons and vehicles for me is more like something from Halo 1. Anyway, Halo 3 singleplay= Awesome. Multiplayer however is insane! I never really got into the Halo 2 MP, i mainly played the SP. But the Halo 3 Mp is incredibly solid and it has really got me hooked. So yeah Halo 3 is a fantastic game, but the only sad thing is this may be the last Halo (fps), at-least from bungie.

Thats really about it, nothing special has happened in my life lately, only school...school...erm? More school, yeeahh...Ok time for some more of that fiiiine Halo 3 MP!

Hope this wasn't to boring or anything.

Catch ya next time!

WOO! i finally reached lvl 40! I have now defeated the evil and mighty Abobo. For those of you that remember Abobo, he was one ofthe first (if i remember correctly) bosses in Double Dragon. Abobo has to one of the funniest looking booses in gaming history, i mean the guy looks like...god i don't even know WHAT he looks like. But he is defiantly a weird looking boss. What do you think he or maybe i should say IT looks like?

Catch ya next time!