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Deadmund does it right: PlayStation Move and 1:1 swordplay, hands-on (video)
Medieval Moves: Deadmund's Quest may be built on the mini-game mechanics of last year's Sports Champions, but its whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We hit up Sony at E3 2011 to see if Deadmund could out-fence the Jedi in a duel of 1:1 swordplay and on-rails battle. What we found was surprisingly responsive. Deadmund himself runs on a pre-set path, plodding his way through a skeleton-filled barracks automatically. Deadmund's on-screen sword matched our wand-equipped wrist's every move, accurately slicing skeletor wannabes any way we saw fit. Reaching behind our back with the Move controller let us pull a virtual arrow from a quiver, or we could choose to dispatch baddies by flinging throwing stars. If the on-screen slashfest lagged behind our physical slicing in any significant way, we didn't notice -- we were too busy loving the Move's speedy response time. Faster swings produced "stronger" in-game sword attacks, or farther flying shurikens. Last year at E3, we accused the PlayStation Move of just skirting outside of gimmick-land, but it's hard to argue with 1:1 motion control this responsive. Will Deadmund move Sony's motion lollypop to the front of the gesture control race? Probably not on his own, but it's still great to see this tech at its best. Check out our hands-on playthrough video after the break to see the action for yourself.
PlayStation Move review
The PlayStation Move. It's funny to think just 15 months have passed since Sony first unveiled its motion controller, and now we're mere weeks away from hitting the retail market. To be sure, it's not like the company didn't have waggle on the mind already -- patents dating as far back as 2005 reveal as much, and of course the incredible success of Nintendo's Wii proved there's a market for more physically exerting gameplay. And it's not just PlayStation; Microsoft's got its controller-free Kinect motion camera system coming this November. So, in the year where all major game consoles now ask you to get off the couch and earn arm muscle, how does Move fare? Read on for more!
160GB PS3 Slim, 320GB Move bundle coming to US and Europe this fall
The leaks weren't wrong, they just weren't the whole story. A 160GB PlayStation 3 Slim is indeed coming to the US -- Europe, too -- but additionally, there's a heftier 320GB Sports Champions Move bundle. The former standalone console is available now stateside for $299, and according to the GamesCom press conference, Europeans will have to wait until October for 299 Euros. As for the biggie, which includes the game and one-player Move package, that's due out September 19th in US (or September 15th across the pond) for $399 and 349 Euros, respectively -- just in time for holiday shopping sprees.
PlayStation Move controller lag detected, analyzed
When Sony unveiled its PlayStation Move (nee Arc) controller at the GDC last week, it came along with some impressive promises: it would only cost developers 2MB of system memory (out of 256MB on offer) and it would respond to user inputs within a single frame of animation. Our own experiences with the thing felt a bit more laggy, and now Eurogamer is echoing those impressions and putting a bit of science behind them courtesy of a 60fps Kodak Zi6 camcorder. By filming the controllers and their on-screen representation, the site's tireless statisticians calculated an actual lag (including that of the display) of 113ms -- closer to 10 6.78 frames if a game is running at 60fps. Naturally much of this is thanks to the rendering of the result and not just the Move, but according to a 2008 GamaSutra test we found (linked as "More Coverage" below), the controller lag from the standard PS3 controller varies widely from game to game, with GTA IV measured at 166ms -- almost 50 percent higher than seen by the Move. So, while we can't draw too many conclusions about this single-game test from GDC, we can give a little advice: get back to beating up some underworldian goons as Kratos and don't worry about it.
