Sports Champions – Review

From the Vault — originally published October 31, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.

When Sony first announced the Playstation Move it was quite obvious it would be getting it’s very own version of Nintendo’s Wii Sports, and Sport’s Champions is that game.

Whether it comes bundled with the Move over in the US or just a stand alone title here in Europe, it has become quite apparent that this is Sony’s flagship title for it’s brand new Motion Controller, the game that in these early stages is going to help sell more Units then any other game that implements the Move technology.

So, let’s start off by saying this. The Move controls for the most part work, and work really well.
Sports Champions is easy to pick up and play with family and friends, but with the additional accuracy of Move it takes a good amount of skill to master each sport included in the game. It’s true 1:1 accuracy, with the Move detecting each light flick of the wrist or full body motion. After getting over the initial learning curve Sports Champions becomes a joy to play.

So what about the actual Sports? Well, there are 6 of them, Disc Golf, Archery, Gladiator Duel, Bocce , Beach Volleyball and Table Tennis. Some make better use of the Move technology than others but each one still very fun. It’s highly likely that most gamers will stick to only a few of the sports, learn how to play them and not bother with the rest, but they are still there at your disposal on the disc for whenever you want to play something different. I however mostly enjoyed Archery, because it made me feel like Robin Hood and Table Tennis just because the Move Controls are superb. The least favourite of all the games was probably the Gladiator Duel, it seemed to me like your actions are not always detected on screen properly if at all. So it’s more flailing your arms around wildly in order to hit your opponent instead of fluid motions like that of which can be seen in the other Sports.

Each Sport begins with a tutorial and goes through everything you need in order to be successful. These range from the variety of shots you can make in Table Tennis to the different kinds of combos you can use in Gladiator Duel. They are quick an easy to follow and will get you playing to a good level in no time.

Each Sport includes 3 modes, Champions Cup, which is the single player career, 3 difficulty levels come in the form of the Bronze, Silver and Gold Cups. After winning each Cup you are able to take a snapshot of yourself in a winning pose which can then be uploaded to Facebook. It’s a nice touch but unfortunately the quality of the picture is not great because of the poor PS Eye camera. Free Play, which is just for fun and allows you to compete against friends, and the Challenge Cup which has to be unlocked, but consists of different challenges within each Sport where you need to get the best high scores.
There are a wide array of characters to choose from, with additional characters, costumes and equipment that can be unlocked the more you advance through the game.

You do have to calibrate the controllers every time you begin a sport and switch to another. Some people may find this really annoying but I honestly didn’t have a problem with it because it only takes around 10 seconds to go through those motions.

The game includes leaderboards where you can see where you rank within the world or just people in your friends list.

Unfortunately the game includes no online play. I guess it’s because they want to appeal more to the casual gamer who will have friends and family over to play, or maybe they were worried about lag, either way it is sorely missed and something that really takes away from the games overall replayability.

Graphically the game does a good job, it’s HD for a start, and I would choose looking at this game over Wii Sports any day. It’s not really pushing the hardware though so don’t come to this game expecting a graphics powerhouse just because it’s on Playstation 3. Environment are ok, if a little bland and dull, which is actually another problem with the game. There is no atmosphere. Music within the game is pretty much non-existant, although it does support Custom Soundtracks. It again feels like the developers want you to create your own atmosphere by having people play the game with you.

There is also the matter of controller costs. Although the game supports play with just one Move controller, if you want the best experience possible then you really need to invest in two, and that’s only for single player use. You could end up forking out for 6, maybe even 8 controllers if you have at least 4 people in the room who all want to play at the same time with the same experience. It’s not essential for you to invest in additional controllers, but if you choose to then it can become very expensive.

Overall I think Sports Champions is a good game, if it only feels like half a package. There are only 6 sports included and I can only imagine that others like Bowling and normal Tennis have only not been included in order to separate this game from Wii Sports. The Sports that are included are fun and there is a lot to unlock and mess around with. Unfortunately the omission of Online play and an in-game atmosphere means you are only going to get the best possible experience if you have buddies with you playing and more than one Move controller. Also the constant calibrating controllers every time you switch Sports is really going to frustrate some people. It’s a shame because even though it’s probably the best retail launch title for Move it still only feels like a tech demo, a stepping stone to not only the genre’s potential but also the technology as a whole. For those of you living outside the US who can only get the game as a stand alone title, I cannot honestly recommend this game as a must buy, as I believe that too many features have been missed which make it drop too many points. It’s a definite rental, and only after playing the game yourself will you be able to decide whether the game warrants a full purchase.