Racquet Sports

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List Price: $19.99
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I'm not to happy with how the Move controls feel on the particular title. Seem a bit too "Wii" like to me and there are accuracy issues compared to any of the other Move products I purchased day one, Just think Wii and if you're OK with that performance, you'll be OK with this one. The characters look a bit Wii like too and the game mechanics are pretty bare minimum like most Wii games, you just swing vaguely in the right direction and you hit the ball. Not very realistic, hoping they do an update to this some time soon because the other sports games were lacking Tennis and Badminton which both me and the wifey love :)

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Sports Champions set a high standard in showing the potential of the Playstation Move as a platform for amazingly realistic sports.

Unfortunately, Racquet Sports by Ubisoft falls short of this standard.

Racquet Sports was first released on the Wii in March. The premise sounded good--it allowed you to play Tennis, Ping Pong, Badminton, Squash, and Beach Tennis in different environments. The Wii version came with its own camera which sounded good in concept, but in reality was all but unusable. The camera didn't pick up your movements at all, and even when playing without the camera the responsiveness of the game wasn't even up to par with the original Wii Tennis.

I figured I'd give the Playstation Move version a shot. I figured with the improved camera and motion controls of the Move, maybe the developers would have more to work with. And since this was the first tennis games that would use the Move, Ubisoft had a great opportunity to set a new standard.

Unfortunately, this game had all the signs of one that was rushed out prematurely to hit the market.

On a positive note, the motion control detects the timing of your swings pretty well. This isn't saying much, of course, but if you're just looking for a game where you just smash the ball forward and back using timing only with no other skills or strategy, the game does the job there.

Also, the gameplay itself is fairly true to its respective racquet sports. You can learn the rules of squash, badminton, and beach tennis, and the on-screen response of the ball matches what you'd expect.

However, there are negatives with the game that made it a less-than-pleasant experience for me:

Herky-jerky on-screen motion. With Sports Champions ping pong, the one-to-one correspondence between your hand movements and the on-screen paddle is nothing short of amazing--when you rotate your wrists, your on-screen paddle rotates just as smoothly. With Racquet Sports, when you rotate your wrists the animation of the on-screen racquet is awkward and jerky. It's something I expect on the Wii given its lower processor and graphics capabilities, but there's no excuse for it on the PS3.

"Hipster" cartoony feel. With this game, you play with caricaturish cartoon characters that some designer tried too hard to make look "cool", complete with giant heads, black eye shadow, big toothy grins, spray-on tans, steroid-induced muscles, headbands, and short and tight-fitting outfits. They're the sort of characters that aren't endearing in the least--to the contrary you feel like punching them in the face. I know this is a matter of taste, but I much prefer the cute cartoony feeling of Wii Tennis or the photo-realistic look of Sports Champions ping-pong.

Inaccurate controls. Whether on Beginner or Advanced level, I found that regardless of how I positioned my racquet or how strong my swing was, the ball would go where it wanted to go each time. There was no apparent way to put spin on the ball nor use arm movements to simulate lobs, smashes, or anything else other than a straight hit. So while every rally seemed long and "exciting", there really wasn't any skill involved. It's definitely a far cry from the precision that the Move is capable of.

To sum up, I'd classify this the first "shovelware" game for the Playstation Move. It seems to have been rushed to market to try to cash in on the introduction of the Move. This game may be your only option if you're a squash or badminton fan and don't mind the mindless controls. But if you're a ping pong fan, this title pales in comparison to Sports Champions. And if you're looking for great tennis on the PS3, I'd wait for a game like Virtual Tennis 4 or EA Sports' Tennis, both due out in 2011.

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The first thing I noticed when I popped this in was the detail in the playable characters. They're cartoony, but there's a lot of detail in their hair and faces. The second thing I noticed was some extremely distracting aliasing issues, which is also a big problem with PS2 and Wii games. Given the power of the PS3, I don't understand why this game isn't rendering in 1080p natively and/or doing an anti-aliasing pass like most other games do.

The audio is also pretty lackluster. Given the game comes on a bluray disc, and the PS3's built-in HD audio capabilities (and all PS3's have a hard drive), this is another "WTF?" moment.

The games are quite fun, though, and have a great feel. It's probable that folks not playing on a decent home theater system won't notice the lackluster graphics and audio issues as much as I did. As such, I still recommend this game!

I hope that when Ubisoft brings the Raving Rabbids, CSI, No More Heroes, Prince of Persia Trilogy, and Broken Sword games to PS3, they take more care to deliver a knockout HD audio and graphics experience that the other developers have already proven the PS3 to be more-than-capable of.

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This game is absolutely abysmal and a complete embarrassment to the technical capabilities of the PSMove. A Wii game would play better than this.

When you see a brand new game utilizing brand new tech, the mere fact that it has been marked down to $19.99 is an instant red flag, and this game is a perfect example of that.

The motion tracking is so bad that it is almost impossible to accurately hit the ball/birdie/what-have-you. You also have no control over where your character moves other than attempting to point the Move controller in the same direction as the arrow under your character's feet.

Do not buy this game. It is awful, it is infuriating and it is not worth $1, much less $19-$50.

Do yourself a favor and spend your money on Sports Champions instead, likely the BEST motion-controlled game EVER to date.

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This game's mechanics are very much Wii Motion Plus like, so if you liked EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis, this is leaps and bounds above that. Oh yeah, and the exotic locations are just breathtaking, especially Santorini. Before I purchased this game, I read the professionals review which gave this game a 4 out of 10 rating, but focused mainly on the training mode which I admit is flawed. I'd love to add some video footage of the game to convince people that this game deserves a better rating (especially with Santorini and my girl Cindy), but unfortunately I don't own the rights to put up a video of this beautiful game play footage. For the current price of an Andrew Jackson and free Prime shipping it's a worthy purchase.

+++Tennis, works better than Grand Slam Tennis. press the trigger to add a trick shot.

+++ much better than the demo which rallies lasted forever.

+++ feel the vibration in your move controller with each hit.

+++ characters receive an A++ in my opinion, while the female characters looked like detailed sexy Miis instead of stick bodies. think of sexy Anime characters.

+++ win different outfits for your character

+++ beautiful and interesting locales

+++ controller recognizes the difference between a backhand and forehand if will slow you down if you try to dumb it down.

+++ I liked the Racquetball (Squash). first time ever that I can remember this sport being in a video game.

+++ got me moving around, instead of playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 on-line all day.

+++ played it for 3 hours straight and still am going to looking forward to playing this one for a while.

+++ TENNIS

--Ping Pong is BROKEN, because if the ball comes directly at your character, you can't swing.

--PING PONG (Table Tennis)

--Training

--hard to back-slice, put a spin on the ball

--doesn't have the true 1:1 accuracy of Sports Champions, but better accuracy than EA SPORTS Grand Slam Tennis or Virtua Tennis 2009 .

--Racquetball seemed broken at times.

--Raquetball could have been improved, and I hope it will because I can see that as being a lot of fun.