I won’t lie: Out of all the PlayStation Move titles I had a chance to play, TV SuperStars was easily my favorite title. I know you’re probably thinking “but Thomas, you can’t be serious!!”, but I am! You and up to four of your friends are battling for the spotlight on 5 different TV shows: Frock Star, Let’s Get Physical, Watt’s Cooking, Fabulous, and Diamond Shopping Channel. I played Let’s Get Physical and Watt’s Cooking. Gameplay was great but I’ll get that in a bit. First things first.
Before you can play, you must create your avatar for the game. The first step is to take three images of your faces. One normal, one happy, and one angry. Next you will choose the color of your skin, hair, shape of your face, etc. Afterwards, you have to record a sound byte for your character. Even though music was playing and people were walking past me, the PS Eye was STILL able to pickup my ‘Hey it’s Thomasio!!!’ line as if I was the only person in the entire room. Impressive!
I had one problem during my time with the demo: My first ‘smile’ photograph wouldn’t work correctly, so for some reason my character’s face looked like I had been hit by a shovel. We think it had something to do with my moustache. Still, It looked horrible, but hilarious at the same time. Me and Mark Hems, Senior Designer for the title, who was previewing the demo with me, had a ball with my dis-configured smile and could not stop laughing every time my character was happy. Good times!
The coolest part about the avatar creation? The game saves them and you never know who might be cheering you on during a game, with their own unique saying they may have made months ago.
Now to the Gameplay!! Let’s Get Physical was the first game show I tried and boy howdy did it get my juices flowing. The game consisted of my character running on a HUGE wheel as a monkey with a boxing glove was trying to knock me off. The best part? You had to run in place, as face you can to get the ball rolling and whoa, by the time the minute was over, my fatass was tired! Still, it was very fun and active as where the rest of the mini-games in Let’s Get Physical.
Watt’s Cooking did a perfect job of showing what the PlayStation Move is capable of, however, the demo decided to crash on me. Once it rebooted, Mark recommended that I recreate my avatar… as a girl! Now imagine my face with nice brown hair and an ‘hourglass’ body and tell me you’re not laughing your butt off.
Back to Watt’s Cooking! The game has you recreating meals and rapping as you try yo’ best to impress the Chef. One part of the demo had you going all ‘Parappa The Rapper’ style with the Move controller, as you would point it in whichever direction the screen demanded plus sing along with the game. While that was cool and all, the really interesting part of the demo was cooking pancakes. I know you probably won’t believe me, but cooking the pancakes really showed what the Move can do. I was able to move into and out of the 3D space of the game, pouring the batter into the skillet and when I tipped the move controller to the floor, the game would realize this and pour faster. Heck, when I cut a banana to help decorate my pancakes, the faster the I cut the thinner the slices. The guys and gals at Sony Cambridge sure know their PlayStation Move technology.
My only complaint is that there isn’t going to be an online mode, however the team has been discussing some DLC shows for the future. I know this though, TV SuperStars is going to be one of the first PlayStation Move titles I will be buying because the demo was great and I can only imagine how the game will be playing with four of your friends. Here’s to hoping I’ll have the chance to review the game once September arrives!
