Title: Sports Champions 2
Developed By: SCE: San Diego Studio and Zindagi Games
Published By: Sony Computer Entertainment
Based On: Sports Champions Series
Console: Playstation 3 / Requires Playstation Move
Genre: Sports
Review Conditions: Playstation 3, Physical Media
Special Thanks: Sony Computer Entertainment Australia for providing me with a copy of this title to review
With Christmas just around the corner, companies have been releasing more family-friendly “motion controlled” games for the three major gaming consoles (Playstation 3, XBox360 and Wii [U]) which takes advantage of the consoles motion control functionality. These games generally target certain genres such as ‘mini-game compilations’ and ‘rhythm’, and as past has shown us can be of varying quality.
As I did last year, I will be writing up a number of reviews under the “Get Moving this Christmas” header, smaller and more direct reviews to help provide an opinion on how these titles fare. The first installment I wrote up yesterday was for Dance Central 3 on the XBox360 – the second installment will be for the Playstation 3 title Sports Champions 2.
Released as a launch title for the Playstation Move, Sports Champions was a small but well handled game that (as the title suggests) allowed gamers to try their hands at a number of sports. These games included the general sports you would expect from a game of this type – Table Tennis, Beach Volleyball and Archery to some of the more ‘different’ sports – Gladiator Duel, Disc Golf and Bocce. While the game targeted the casual market and was a short playthrough, it was pretty enjoyable and highlighted what the device was capable of.
Fast-forwarding to 2012 and just in time for Christmas, SCE: San Diego Studio and Zindagi Games have launched a sequel ‘Sports Champions 2’. While it may be shadowed by other more innovative Move titles released this year such as ‘Sorcery’ and ‘Wonderbook: Book of Spells’, it is a fitting sequel to the first that comes with a new set of new sports and more casual gaming fun. The game is comprised of six sports total – Archery, Boxing, Golf, Tennis, Bowling and Skiing, of which five are newcomers to the series while one is returning. The games will obviously come down to personal preference, but overall they felt to be of at least equal quality to the original and offered some customizability past your first play.
The controls for the sports themselves are for the most part self-explanatory, you replicate the movements for bowling, boxing, golf and tennis that you would expect to find in any game, while archery uses similar aim mechanics and skiiing has a slightly more complex movement system (Which doesn’t really provide the sensation of actually performing the sport like the others). The game does provide an ample tutorial that they will nag you about the first few times you play each sport – and you are usually given control of several sport settings from locality to how long a course runs for. While the game does provide the best experience for having two Playstation Move controllers, having just one still works well for most of the sports (Boxing is a bit iffy).
Aside from the normal free play mode, they also throw in a single-player “Cup Mode” which provides an ample challenge – and perhaps of more interest to party gamers, the ‘Party Play’ mode where up to four players can play together with anywhere from 1-4 controllers. Unfortunately this mode is better off being played with a 1:1 player/controller ratio, otherwise a number of games are locked to you – but otherwise this is quite a lot of fun to play a random assortment of or selected set of sports. There is no online support that I saw for this title.
Overall the visual quality of Sports Champions 2 is reasonable. The game provides you with the tools to develop your own custom athlete which can be carried over and customized for any of the six games included in the game – and overall were well implemented and designed though did not stand out as other Sports compilations have in the past. Sporting venues on the other hand fared well for all six sports, and most gave you some options to alter the environments so you are not playing the same game over and over in the same area.
The soundtrack of this title was nothing special and given everything else is not something I noticed while playing. Cheering crowds and so forth provided appropriate realism.
Overall, Sports Champions 2 is one of the better game compilations for the Playstation Move and was rather fun to play trough. While it will not appeal to most audiences, for those who like these sorts of games to exercise to, play with friends or just have that competitive knack within you to better your own scores – this may be a title to add to your Christmas shopping list.
Final Score
Storyline/Character Development: N/A
Design: B
Music/Voice Acting: C
Gameplay: B
Replayability: B
Personal Opinion: B-
Overall Score: B-
