Racket Sports

Sports like tennis, squash and badminton seem like a perfect fit for Sony's new PlayStation Move hardware.

Holding a motion controller isn't all that different from holding a rocket, and the act of moving said controller couldn't be simpler.

Sports Champions makes great use of the Move motion controller in its table tennis game, but unfortunately, Racquet Sports does not.



Instead of giving you complete control by having the movements of the players on the screen match yours exactly, this collection of five very similar sports relies on gestures that trigger predefined animations after a short but noticeable delay.

Racquet Sports isn't unplayable by any means, but it's not much fun either, and it completely misses the point when it comes to Move.

Characteristics:

- All five featured sports (badminton, beach tennis, table tennis, squash and tennis) are played in much the same way.
- There are different rules, of course, but aside from a few different actions that are assigned to the Move button, the controls barely change from one sport to another.
- Both basic and advanced control options are available for each sport, but while the latter is more challenging and adds some powerful shots to your repertoire, neither works well.



- Racquet Sports has no problem differentiating between forehands and backhands, but it's harder to get when it comes to hitting power, and hitting shots isn't nearly as easy or intuitive as it should be.
- As a result, overly long predictable hit rallies are common, and since players run alone (how you hold the controller has some impact on their speed when using the advanced controls, but that's about it), they're almost never out position.
- It is not even possible to hit the ball out during a tennis or badminton match, unless you hold down the trigger button to attempt a risky shot in advanced mode.