PlayStation Move Heroes

Posted 2 years ago By kingquagmire - David Collins

What’s better than a new game featuring one of your favorite iconic heroes of the previous console generation? How about a game that features six of them! And, how about we have said game support the new fangled motion controller technology that all the kids are talking about these days! Sounds like a slam dunk, right? Well, believe it or not, such a concept does exist. Although, a slam dunk? Not so much...

Nihilistic Software’s PlayStation Move Heroes takes Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, along with Sly Cooper and Bentley from their respective franchises and plunges them into a single “adventure”. Although, I use the term “adventure” rather loosely here. I’ll get into that in just a bit though. First, the story boils down to a couple of aliens kidnapping the heroes from their universes and challenging them to survive their “games”, which is a means of entertainment for their species. Whoever wins will be sent back home. Naturally, there’s more going on than what can be seen at first glance, but in all honesty, you won’t care. After the initial cut scene, the contrived nonsense of a story will stop mattering entirely.

Things don’t get much better once the gameplay actually begins. You know those challenge modes that come as a bonus option in a lot of action games, like those found in the God of War franchise or the VR Missions in the Metal Gear franchise? Move Heroes is exactly that: a glorified challenge mode. The game is split up into four worlds, one based upon each hero’s realm and one created for this game specifically. Each world has a bunch of challenges which are divided up into roughly five types. The disk challenge has the player control a frisbee in an effort to hit cages and unlock captured fans. The melee challenge requires the player to find baby fans and bring them back to their mother while the projectile one follows the territories formula we are all familiar with. The whip event is essentially horde mode and the last, bowling, well...I don’t really need to explain that one, do I? And that’s it. five challenges that change slightly based on the environment and level of difficulty.

Earning medals is the primary objective as they are needed to open up new worlds and progress through the game. As a bonus, there are other goodies to be had like unlockable costumes and such, though only the most die-hard of you will go back after them since the repetitive nature of each challenge wears thin Before you get out of the first world.

We haven’t had many games that were made with the Move controller in mind from the very beginning, so I’m assuming that’s the selling point here. One or two players can tackle with thing provided you have enough Wands and Nav controllers. Unfortunately, the gameplay kills any novelty the motion controls may have ushered in. Don’t misread me, the controls work really well, for the most part. It’s a bit of a pain with the projectile challenges since there’s no separate camera control. But one can only swing their Wand so many times before they begin to ask themselves “Am I having fun yet”?

At least the game looked the part. The visuals aren’t awe-inspiring, but they are adequate. The representations of each universe matched their source material and the character designs were spot on. Jak was probably my least favorite of the bunch, but that’s mostly because he was based on the Dark Jak, so he’s a bit a jerk. The sound design follows right in line with the visuals. Adequate, but it won’t make glitter and unicorns shoot out of your ears. And again, just like the visuals, the voice work matched up with what we’ve come to expect from the fab-six. Though don’t expect any nostalgia-inducing joy due to the lackluster scriptwork and dead chemistry between the six of them.

Conclusion

There was a tremendous amount of potential for PlayStation Move Heroes. Really, this could have been the first great Move title. But that potential seemed to have been beat down right from the start, beginning with the design choices. A Challenge Mode is still a Challenge Mode, no matter how you package it or how many bows and ribbons you put on it. A weak story and repetitious gameplay overpowers any giddiness you might have at actually having something new to waggle your Wand at. If you absolutely need something new for your Move set-up, rent it. Otherwise, pass until you catch a glimpse of it in the bargain bin.