Playstation Move games (Article)

Another post from Kotaku. This one was prompted by the announcement that the game House of the Dead: Overkill was being ported from the Wii to the PS3, complete with 3D and Move functions.

So House of the Dead: Overkill is coming to the PSMove.

While I have absolutely no problem with Overkill coming to the PS3, is anyone else concerned about how many PSMove games are nothing more than ports of games from other consoles or simply existing PS3 games with really basic Move features thrown in?

On the ports side we now have Dead Space: Extraction, HotD:Overkill, No More Heroes, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (forthcoming), The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, The Sly Collection and Time Crisis: Razing Storm.

(And yes, I'm aware Aragorn's Quest was a multiplatform release, but it was delayed to add Move functionality to the PS3 version, so I'm counting it.)

On the 'enhanced' side we have de Blob 2, Heavy Rain, Resident Evil 5, Tron Evolution and Toy Story 3, to name but a few.

Like I say, I've not much of a problem with this happening, but shouldn't the advent of the Move have been about creating games that genuinely needed the Move, like Sports games (Top Spin 4, for example), keep fit titles (like Zumba Fitness) or just fun stuff like Heroes on the Move (I refuse to call it PS Move Heroes, which is just clunky)?

If the majority of titles released that use the Move are simply going to be enhanced ports of Wii games, then why bother releasing them on the Wii in the first place? Ok, the Move wasn't announced when the games I mentioned were released, but is it really worth digging them up and converting them just for a few precious more pennies? Will they even break even?

And if you're going to enhance existing games with Move functions, do they have to be so token? Toy Story 3 was particularly bad, with one measly shooting minigame, and Tron Evolution wasn't much better with its brief Lightcycle sections... and nothing else.

Again, games that genuinely use the Move to fully enhance a game, like Sports Champions or Top Spin 4, I can fully support. They do a great job of pulling you into the game and if I could just be arsed to play them I'm sure I'd lose loads of weight, which'd be nice.

And games that are built around the system, like Heroes on the Move or Zumba Fitness, I can also support. Heroes is... well, it's entertaining enough, and it makes good use of the Move, as do the keep-fit titles.

But when a game is simply a port, that's when I get concerned. Because if you already played them on the Wii or whatever (and if you had a Wii, then you definitely did play them, because what else was there to play?), then what's the point of getting them again?

Finally, I note that a lot of the ports or upgrades don't actually need the Move. Most of them are fully playable without needing the Move at all. Which begs the question of why bother porting them if you're not going to make sure people play the game the way it was designed?