March 10, 2010 - During this afternoon's reveal of PlayStation Move, there were a bunch of demos. One after another, an oh-so-cute game that ranged from smushing flying insects to playing table tennis was showcased. Then, Motion Fighter came up in the rotation and the gathering was treated to watching a shirtless dude bash a biker's face in.

That was refreshing.

If you missed all the coverage here on IGN, the PlayStation motion controller we heard about at last year's E3 is real and is now known as PlayStation Move. A wand with the traditional PlayStation buttons on it and a light up ball on top of it, Move tracks the way you're moving the wand with the PlayStation Eye and converts it into onscreen action. Motion Fighter takes your movements and turns them into devastating punches and the occasional headbutt.

Sony was quick to point out that Motion Fighter is far from complete – it's a pre-alpha build and only about 20 percent completed – but what I saw today didn't impress me. Although the folks demoing the game were saying that you needed to throw real punches and not just pump your fists wildly, that wasn't what I found when I picked up the wands today.

For its debut, Motion Fighter only let folks play as the shirtless dude (dragon tattoo on his back FTW) versus that biker I mentioned earlier. With the exception of the bright red blood and a few accents, everything in the game is black and white. When I got the two wands in my hand – you'll need two of the main wands to play and not a wand and the "sub-controller" – I immediately pressed Circle to calibrate the Move to my hands, and we were off.

Motion Fighter isn't really a one-for-one experience. Sports Champions debuted today as well and that title features a fighting game where you move your right hand and your onscreen hand moves the sword. Here, in Motion Fighter, there's a slight delay when you throw your punch. On top of that, you're shown 12 possible moves to do when the demo kicks up. There is easy stuff like jabs and uppercuts that are pretty self-explanatory, but if you hold the action button on the front of the right wand and the T button on the back of the right wand while making a right hook across your body, you'll put your opponent in a headlock and then use the left wand to punch the dude in the head.

When I first started playing, I dropped my hands to my side to see if the shirtless man would, and he didn't. When I put the biker in the headlock and started punching with my left wand, maybe every third punch was registering as an elbow strike on the screen. It definitely wasn't one-for-one, and it was a bit maddening.

For the most part, your character is on autopilot and is rotating to match the opponent, but if you want to take control, you can hold a button or two on the wand and lean to have your guy follow suit on the screen – basically what I'm saying is that you're pretty much always moving in a circular radius except for when you slam the sticks forward together and execute a straight on headbutt.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/107/1076599p1.html

Of course a 20% complete pre-alpha build is expected to be a faithful representation of the final product and be devoid of bugs and glitches...yeah right.

It is a shame they don't have a complete full game to showcase. Maybe they will at E3.

It is a bad move on thier part. A lot of people will not look at te 20%complete they will just think it is horrible motion controls once the word gets out.

You're right about that, but I'd expect gaming journalists to be a bit more on to it with what to expect from a 20% pre-alpha. The legitimate criticism they should raise is the lack of anything to show off that's a lot more developed than 20% pre-alpha a mere 5-6 months from launch. Rather than writing about a pre-alpha as if that's a basis for judging the technical potential of the Move.

why horrible? its 1-1 motion tracking.

 i think what hurts the presetation was the voice acting and lack of funky music

Did you even read what he posted about it? Have you seen any of the videos in which it is showing the person and the game at the same time?It is laggy as hell and that is what the article is partly about. So no it is not 1:1 at the moment for the game in question. But it is only 20%done. This is why it was a bad idea to show this one.

Hold on. So the graphics arn't tip top and the timing isn't perfect, but "the technology itself", at a developers conference FOR DEVELOPERS doesn't actually show proof of concept.

And you're expecting ign to be nice, respectful and polite about it?

Im sorry but i wouldn't expect the same responses that the Wii had 4 years ago, because now they expect more accuracy.

Well, I don't really think that it was a bad idea because for the most part the purpose of the entire conference was just to showcase what will be arriving to consoles. So, basically, it just means there hyping products up before their release. Motion Fighters did seem pretty laggy and what-not, but that is expected from a game that is in its pre-alpha stage. Lets see what happens when they display Motion Fighters to everyone during the beta stage, then we can analyze and critique its performance. 

But if they show it now when it is far from done people are going to analyze it which was my entire point. They had other games to showcase it there why bring in one that is horrible at the moment? Bad Idea. What we will see on the net papers w/e will take this incomplete at the moment horribe game out of context. I am not going to think a week form now ooooooh it was not done that is why it was so bad. I will probably think yea I saw that game it was horrible. Or for people who do not visist sites all the time etc etc. They will say OOO I read a in a paper about that game or I read on yahoo about that game it  has horrbile controls. Of course 6 months from now who knows if anyone will even recall this. But still get my point?

They obviously thought it was good enough to show.