If you’re manufacturing a new motion-orientated control method, you absolutely have to release a sports compendium on day of launch or it simply won’t sell. Not even a single copy. Of course this is a load of rubbish, but you’d be forgiven for believing it thanks to both Move and Kinect following the example laid down by Wii Sports. Sports Champions serves as an introduction to Move newcomers, teaching them the ways of the control method in inoffensive fashion.

Best game hair ever?

Rather than deliver the usual roster of activities such as golf and bowling, the game features slightly off the curve sports such as frisbee golf, gladiatorial combat, archery and the decidedly less-exciting table tennis. Unfortunately, only two sports were available to us and because we simply couldn’t handle the white-knuckle thrills of table tennis, we opted for Frisbee Golf instead.

The aim here is to hurl a Frisbee into a large bucket in as few throws as possible. Just like actual golf, each course has a par target and plenty of environmental hazards such as lakes and thick foliage. The first thing we noticed was how lush the visuals were, as our chunky avatar lined up his first shot in front of a rippling lake and dense expanses of forest. Although it’s a sports compendium, Sony’s Santa Monica studio hasn’t cut any corners in the aesthetic department.

While it looks nice the motion control felt a tad flaky for our liking. For starters, the avatar didn’t match our swing in real time and although the game recognised the force of our shots, on rare occasions we felt it didn’t always replicate the angle. Sometimes we’d launch a straight shot, only to see our plastic disc curving inexplicably into a lake. These rare foul-ups aside, we felt that this was a fun introduction to Sports Champions.

This is awesome.

However, table tennis suffered the same problems as the Wii Sports iteration. While the on screen paddle could be turned and twisted to any degree in real-time, the direction of our shots felt a tad scripted, with each return shot following similar paths back to our opponent. Speaking of which, we found it incredibly difficult to score a point as our challenger fired back the ball with robotic accuracy. In contrast to the fluid, almost organic feel of Frisbee Golf, we came away from table tennis feeling a tad deflated.

Although we’ve only sampled two of the minigames Sports Champions has to offer, we can envision sword fighting and archery being a good laugh, particularly because the former looks and sounds ludicrous, tapping into the fun social aspects of motion control. Battering our mates with a giant claymore sounds like it would be a riot, and given the accuracy of Move when detecting your real time actions, we reckon this could be a fluid showcase of what the controller can do.

The staying power of these individual sports remains to be seen. If Sony really wants players to invest in Move, the games need to be expansive, rather than the burst-play novelties of their Wii forebears. For now though, our interest has been piqued and we look forward to experiencing the full range of activities Sports Champions has to offer nearer release.