Enough to forget the Wii? A week with the PlayStation Move


The PlayStation Move is Sony's answer to the motion control trend. It uses a digital camera called the PlayStation Eye to track the movement of a new controller stuffed with gyroscopes and sensors and magic—all of it topped with a glowing plastic ball.

It's been over a week since my Move review hardware arrived, and I've played games with a variety of people just to gauge their reactions. When holding one of the Move controllers for the first time, everyone seems to have one instinctive response: they give that ball on the top a good, hard squeeze, like it's a clown nose.

The ball doesn't light up until you have the PlayStation Eye turned on and a game begins. Then it glows brightly, and the changing color of the ball often provides in-game information. The glowing ball also adds an extra helping of surrealism to some titles; playing archery, it was almost distracting to have that glowing pink orb so close to my face. During dark sections, I could see the glowing ball reflected on the screen of my television.

The ball sometimes cycles slowly between different colors. At other times it pulses. You can feel the motor inside the force feedback mechanism move in time to the light, as though you're holding the heart of some mechanical, bio-luminescent beast. If you have kids, you are screwed during play time; anyone from the ages of ten on down will gravitate towards that glowing ball, and they won't want to let go. My baby wants to gum on it constantly, while my older kids wave it around like they're at a pre-pubescent rave.

The PlayStation Move is here, ladies and gentleman, and it's pretty damn great.

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