“Sports Champions” is a great missed opportunity for Sony. Bundled with the new PlayStation Move controller, like “Wii Sports” with the Wii, “Sports Champions” could have been the perfect showcase to demonstrate the Move’s technical superiority over the Wii Remote. Instead, the game seems determined to ignore its considerable hardware advantages and focus on retreading “Wii Sports.” It’s like driving a Ferrari with a speed governor. What’s the point?
Too bad, because the Move is a really neat pice of technology. Combining the Wii Remote’s internal accelerometers with a camera in front of your TV to track the Move controller’s movement through 3-D space, this system can measure not only that you’re moving left or right, but exactly how far. So the “Sports Champions” version of ping-pong, which was fun but stilted in “Wii Sports Resort,” should be a completely freeform experience, just like playing the real game, right? “Sports Champions’ ” table tennis at least gives you the freedom to choose forehand or backhand, but still relies on arcadey shortcuts, like on-screen indicators of when you can slam an “on fire” shot. Shouldn’t we be able to hit the ball hard when we think it makes sense?
