Took a break from Red Dead, found my PS Eye and thought it was time to earn some Sports Champions trophies for the hell of it.

Finally played all the sports rather than just a couple like I did in my PS Move impressions thread. The more I play the less and less I can tell a real difference between Move and WM+ especially when I was playing table tennis.

I ended up getting 20% of the games trophies within about an hour and half of playing the game, the only reason it was that long was because of getting a hole in one at disc golf took 30 minutes of repeat throws and being off by just inches.

Anyway I want to talk about each game and my feelings on it.

Archery:  

Never have I ever wanted two Moves more than I have in this game, I actually contemplated buying a second Move just for it.  Without a second Move it doesn't have the immersion of Wii Sports Resort archery, you pull the arrow out of your quiver and aim all with one hand, but in WSR you pull back the nunchuck and have the sound of the string stretching play out of the Wii remote it just feels natural.  

Anyway other than that bit, it's a game that works, I can't knock the controls it's just precise and works well.  One of the things I wouldn't have done though was the arc projection, it makes things a bit too easy, I got bullseye after bullseye and even got a trophy for "the splits" which is splitting one arrow with another Robin Hood style, not even intentionally.

Volleyball: (going to get this one out of the way since it's gonna be painful)

It's just not fun, it is the Wii Sports Resort cycling game of the Sports Champions package, only thing is that there's 6 games in this package and 12 in the other so a throw away game hurts this package more.  Anyway it's another game you can play with two Moves, not exactly sure having the second would even improve things that much, essentially you do underhand hits, hits from the chest, and spikes.  It tells you when to hit, there's little finesse to it like you find in every other game in the package, and I had a shutout game with no effort at all.

Gladiator Duel:

The third and last of the games you can play with two Moves, again playing this one with just one REALLY makes me wish I had two, it just seems like it'd be much improved with two.  With one the game plays just like sword fighting on Wii Sports Resort, you slice at angles, go for where there's an opening, and you can block with Trigger (or B in WSR), does that make it a bad thing?  Not at all sword fighting was my favorite WSR game and it makes Gladiator Duel my favorite SC game, the biggest difference between the two is in Gladiator Duel you have a life bar.  You can also move back which is something you can't do in Sword Fighting but it defaults your distance to within striking range.  

From what I hear The Fight doesn't default within striking distance, so it seems to me anyone even remotely interested in a fighting game on the Move check this out with its 5 other games than waste money on The Fight, just pick up two controllers and you're set.

What more is there to say, it works well, it's fun, I like how your shield can break down, and it gets you really involved.  I wish there were more modes like with Sword fighting on WSR but with two moves and some mechanics Gladiator Duel differentiates itself.

Disc Golf: 

It's Disc Golf, if you've played the WSR version (which is another mode of Frisbee) or Tiger Woods on Wii you know what to expect here.  It's fun, it reads your angles, the speed of your throw, and uses the trigger to tell when you released the disc. Wind has a factor, yadda yadda, it's how every disc golf game ever has played, I'm not yet tired of it just now I have another golf course to play on.  Only issue I came across was after trying to get a hole in one for 30 minutes it eventually became off center much like WM+ does after playing for so long, not a big deal as it fixed it self just like WSR does when you point at the sensor bar.

Since this one is short I'm going to diverge just a tad since we're talking motion games, I've brought up WSR a lot in this, but the whole thing about having a trigger to release your disc is something also done in bowling.  I played Kinect Sports the other day and I was thinking how the game releases the ball for you in bowling, some sort of tactile feedback like that is needed in games like Disc Golf and Bowling cause release has as much to do with the game as spin, angle, and alignment, I really appreciate that in these motion games. Going back on topic...

Table Tennis: 

This is the third motion controlled table tennis game I've played, first being in Wii Play, second WSR, and now Sports Champions.  It's immensely better than Wii Play's Table Tennis, but overall the same as WSR, you hold your controller at angles to add spin, you hit at different angles to affect direction, different speeds to affect power, and timing is everything.  It's fun, in depth, and accurate.

The only problem I had is I don't know how to make my ball NOT have spin lol not a bad thing when playing against people or AI but when you're in challenge mode and you gotta smack servbot with the ball then the ball just curves away from him after you hit it straight at him it's frustrating, I work around it by giving it up spin but sometimes that can made the game freak out just a bit lol

Bocce: 

Yes that's right, Bocce, someone actually thought of this sport when coming up with ideas, not baseball, not a normal game of golf, but BOCCE. I love that one trophy is "I have heard of bocce", I play this game all the time at my old school, with my family, and my friends, so yeah it's a game that relates to me but even I know how niche the game is at least in the states so it's a surprise to see it. 

It's something really unique to the package and it's pretty fun, throw out the pallino ball, then try to get your bocce ball close to it, simple enough eh?  But one of the biggest differences in the real game is the size and weight difference in the pallino ball and bocce ball and they represent that well in Sports Champions, throwing the bocce ball like the pallino will end will lose you the game, so throwing the pallino ball really hard means you have to throw the bocce ball even harder, and that's the whole strategy of the game throw the pallino where you think you could throw the bocce ball with accuracy but hopefully not where your opponent can throw it to.

Kinda funny but because of it's uniqueness if you already own other motion games bocce is actually the best and most unique game to draw in those customers, if you don't Sports Champions is a solid package for those guys, but that's really the biggest knock against the game there isn't much it does other packages don't already do and with more content and often times it does the exact same controls as well with the same drawbacks if there are any, but if you're a PS3 only owner got 100 bucks for the bundle to blow, go for it, jump in on the fun lots of Wii owners have been having for a while and get some easy trophies while you're at it lol

I've got it with 2 Moves and it does really improve Archery/Gladiator.  The Volleyball is indeed weak and the rest are indeed pretty good.  In fact, only Volleyball let's the side down IMHO, the other 5 are good.

One thing I don't like about SC are the avatars.  They just don't feel engaging for me and if anything err towards tyring to be non-cuddly (i.e. how the developer sees Mii's) and it just feels a bit off.

With both Wii and Move I do feel Move is a tad more accurate overall, but it's close.  The main difference for me is that Move wand is actually much nicer to hold than Wiimote, although I still prefer the nunchuck and wish the Navi stick with Move was more like it.

Going forward I'm wondering if the lack of true Miis/Avatars inbuilt to the PS3 inteface and titles will make a difference.  I certainly feel its a gap Sony should close.  Having a consistent in-game avatar (at least for most titles) that links to the console just feels better to me.  I really think Sony has missed that part of the equation, although this might be balanced out by the seeming push in non avatar related Move titles Sony is making.

If you really want to experience SC to the full you will need another controller IMHO.  Playing Gladiator and actually moving your shield with one hand and sword with the other just feels so right. Archery also feels better with a proper draw of your arrow while holding the bow.

I found table tennis on sports champions a lot more engaging then in wsr. On Gold level apart from the sideways motions you really have to step forward to get those pesky balls close to the net and jump back to get the smashes and extreme curve balls the ai throws at you. After gold you unlock champion level. I can't get past the 4th match in that series. My reflexes are just not fast enough anymore.

In wsr it always felt a bit random, it even hits the ball back over the net when I stab at the screen. On wsr it doesn't matter where I stand, it's just in the timing and angle of the wii-mote. I actually found the tennis in wii sports more fun to play then the table tennis in wsr.

Gladiator with 2 move controllers is great. It gets pretty hard and tiring on gold level, have not beaten that yet.

Volleybal sucks the same with 2 controllers. It's fun in co-op (just with one controller each is fine). But in single player you just stand there waiting for a ball to finally come your way. The ai partner does 80% of the work on gold level. Frustrating to loose if you don't even get a shot at the ball... The aiming gets pretty hard too, and I can't figure out how to bump correctly and not directly return a ball on gold level.

Archery with 2 move controllers can be a bit glitchy. Your aim can suddenly veer off course when you line up your shot and the front move controller eclipses the back one. Other then that it works pretty well. Btw the arc projection is only on bronze level. All events have a lot of hand holding and auto correcting on bronze, the training wheels don't start to come of until silver. Gold is where the move really starts to shine.

I prefer archery on wsr anyway. I like taking my time to make the perfect shot. A shame there's only 3 courses. In sports champions it's all about how quick you can draw and hit the target before your opponent does. I played it to gold level, you just have to get faster and faster.

I don't really like disc golf on either wsr and sports. I suck at frisbee in real life and it translates pretty well in game :) I can aim it a bit better in sports then in wsr, and it's nice you can do underhand throws or even bowl the disc for comedy effect. Got bored with it after silver anyway.

Bocce is very accurate and a nice strategic game. Defending your closest ball, knocking other balls out of the way, placing the palino in places you hope the ai can't reach. The obstacles on the gold level courses keep it interesting.

Definately worth a purchase.

Yup, I'd say that Gladiator Duel, Archery, Bocce and Table Tennis are the best of the lot, Disc Golf is a million miles better on Tiger Woods Wii and Volleyball is a pile of old pants. Christ on a bike, whoever came up with the idea of including that needs to seriously think about a career change. Abysmal.

6/33 stars in Disc Golf
29/33 stars in Gladiator Duel
33/33 in Archery
5/33 in Volleyball
31/33 in Bocce
33/33 in Table Tennis

All of the above are in the Bronze Cup for all events, my original plan was to get all 33 stars in all events but I'm struggling with Disc Golf and don't want to go anywhere near bloody Volleyball ever again.

Definitely worth buying and imo definitely worth getting a 2nd Move controller for as well, I should be getting The Fight Lights Out tomorrow so I'll give a mini-review on these forums once I've spent a few days getting to grips with it. The vast majority of user feedback and user reviews give it an average of 7/10 so I'm really looking forward to trying it out. I don't think I've ever seen such a huge discrepancy between professional reviewers and the average bloke on the street before!