Recently, I bought myself a PlayStation 3 Move set - this included a camera, a wand (complete with glowing ball) and a demo disk of games. I was curious - what would it feel like to use such a controller? What would Move compatible games feel like?

Let’s start off with a few decades of habit to break. For as long as I have played video games (which encompasses computers and consoles), the input method has been fixed: it’s either been a joystick, a joypad (like modern consoles) or a keyboard/mouse combo. I am almost hardwired to use a console in this way. So the Move hardware is very different. I’ve never picked up a Wii controller ever, so this is my first experience with such a controller.

So what is it? Well, as far as I can tell, the hardware is pretty much recycled stuff Sony use already. There is a camera - which you sit on your TV, and a wand. The wand appears to have a Six Axis type sensor inside - it transmits yaw, pitch and tilt data to the PS3 (apparently, it does more - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_Move ). The glowing ball on top is picked up by the camera, which gives you X,Y and Z coordinates. So the PS3 not only knows where in space the controller is, but also where it is pointing. That seems to be a reasonably good amount of data to determine what your controller should be doing in the game.

So far, so good. I got mine set up really quickly. The disk which comes with the kit had some demos which have to be installed. I’ve played a couple (some, like the TV quiz game, does not interest me at all), and they show what the Move kit could potentially do. One game I have been playing a lot (and I ended up buying the full copy from the PS Store) is Tumble. This is a game where you have to stack bricks of varying types to complete a goal - the Move controller is used to pick up and position the bricks. It’s pretty accurate - and I think this would be pretty hard to do with a standard controller (not impossible, but I think the gameplay would be compromised).

There is also a game where you have to control a light to cast shadows on a wall. Your character (which is a shadow) has to run along the shapes the shadows make to get to an exit. Again - fun, and pretty showy, but not as impressive as the Tumbler game. I also tried the table tennis game - this was the most curious of the lot as I had to stand up to play it. Tradition dictates that you stand in arcades, but at home I have always sat down to play games.

The table tennis game was interesting. The controller is the bat, and unless the game has “retard playing - hit the ball whatever” software running, I did pretty well. The controller allows you to put spin on the ball, so it’s doing more than just “hitting” it Pong style.

There are some downsides to this. Firstly, with the Move hardware, you are holding a stick with a glowing ball on the end. Worringly, the default colour here seems to be magenta (apparently, it changes depending on the lighting conditions in the room), and to add to my confusion, it vibrates. It can also be tiring to use I am not as relaxed as I would be with a joypad - the wand requires reaching, moving, and inevitably holding your arm out for longer periods of time than you would expect to. It will get to your shoulder first, so games need to take this into account and allow natural rest times. Otherwise you end up with the infamous “gorilla arm” problem that ergonomics experts seem to love talking about when it comes to touch interfaces, I also look a complete idiot, I am told, using one. I guess this is true.

I am interested to see how games on the PS3 use this hardware. There are a lot of shooter games, and I expect those to become Move capable (there is a gun adapter available, so that answers that one then). Hand to hand combat games would also benefit - requiring the player to go through the motions of beating up an adversary. I am wondering how long it will be before this draws the attention of the Daily Mail. Grand Theft Auto V (if a new title in that sequence emerges) will no doubt attract attention, as would any Modern Warfare titles. Instead of pouding your victim to death by thumbing the X button, you will actually go through the actions. I’ll let others debate the moral implications of this kind of thing.

Other games will no doubt emerge. I am looking forward to seeing how Little Big Planet 2 handles the Move hardware. I hope that game developers will think about the kind of games which the Move hardware could benefit from rather than trying to crowbar it into existing titles.