The Playstation Move and the Xbox Kinect were both launched with tremendous fanfare. Both motion-control mechanisms were supposed to revolutionize high-end gaming, bringing the active gaming, motion control experience the Wii pioneered to high resolution games. It would usher in a whole new world of virtual reality gaming.

Both Sony and Microsoft took very different approaches to motion gaming. Microsoft opted for motion sensors that detected the whole body’s movements from head to toe, touting a controller-free experience. Sony, on the other hand, basically mimicked the Wii’s use of a handheld controller, offering much more precision than the Wii could deliver.

As someone who’s reviewed a lot of games on both this site and its sister site XboxFitness.Org, I can say that the results on both systems have been largely disappointing. The Kinect has some impressive technology, but developers seem unable or unwilling to create much of anything but lumbering, sluggish games that require way too much playing space.

On the other hand, early games such as The Fight: Lights Out and the original Sports Champions for the Playstation Move were nothing short of extraordinary. High resolution graphics combined with highly accurate motion controls helped you really feel like you were boxing, or playing ping pong, or fighting with swords.

That was in 2010. Now, more than two years later, there haven’t been very many games that seem to really take full advantage of the Move. most game developers that use the Move seem to include it almost as either a gimmick or as an afterthought.

Sports Champions 2 is the first Playstation Move game in a while that’s been worthy of a five-star rating. Just like its predecessor, the developers showcase the Move’s full capabilities. It’s really a shame that other developers can’t follow suit.

The idea behind Sports Champions 2 is simple: think of it as Wii Sports for the Playstation. In fact, four of the sports (Tennis, Bowling, Boxing and Golf) were literally in Wii Sports and were most likely left off of the original Sports Champions because the developers wanted to avoid comparisons or accusations of them being derivative (which they were of course). In addition, they’ve brought back archery (which was also in the original Sports Champions), and added skiing.

You start out by calibrating one or two Move controllers by pointing them at the Playstation Eye one by one and pressing the Move and trigger buttons.

You can jump into playing the sports right away using “Free Play”, or you can select “Cup Mode” to play matches against progressively harder opponents and earn Bronze, Silver, or Gold prizes for completing a certain number of matches (including challenges and “boss matches”) and collecting points for achieving objectives along the way. Finally, you can select “Party Play” to play as a group.

As with the original Sports Champions, after you finish playing you have the option of taking a “victory photo” of you holding an augmented reality piece of sports equipment. They also added the ability for your to save your photo or post to Facebook.

Bowling is pretty much the same as the Wii Sports game, of course with much higher resolution graphics. The one big difference is when setting up your shot, instead of using arrow keys to position your player, you can press and hold the Move button and actually walk to your left or your right. Other than that, it’s just a matter of holding down the trigger button, making a bowling motion with your arm, and releasing it at the right moment. You can also make the ball spin by twisting your wrists.

Obviously, there’s not much of a workout in this, and in all honesty other than the improved graphics it really doesn’t feel much different than what we were playing on the Wii years ago.

Boxing, on the other hand, is obviously much improved over the “fling your arms wildly” boxing games you find on the Wii and even the Kinect. It uses two Move controllers to let you control both your hands.

The obvious comparison is going to be to The Fight: Lights Out. The graphics in both games are excellent; while The Fight: Lights Out presents a gritty street brawl-type environment, the environment here is more like traditional boxing. Also unlike The Fight, there’s no blood or guts in this one, it’s very family friendly.

Like The Fight, you have pretty precise control over your fighter. You can punch to the head and to the body with jabs, uppercuts, hooks, or quick combinations. You can block punches to your head and to your body by holding the Move controller over either, and you can dodge by using the trigger buttons on either hand. The harder you punch in real life, the harder you punch in the game. As you increase in difficulty, you do need to employ a certain level of strategy, such as being able to anticipate what combinations your opponent will be using, tiring out aggressive opponents with good defense, or even faking out opponents by having them block fake punches before you counter with real ones.

This sport is by far the best fitness activity on the entire disc. You’ll get a pretty good aerobic workout each time and build some pretty good arm muscles.

Archery is pretty much the same sport as in the first Sports Champions; as in that game, you hold two Move controllers, one being the bow and the other being the arrow; you simulate an archer’s shot by “reaching into your quiver of arrows” with your arrow arm and then line up your shot as if loading your arrow and drawing it back on the bow (you can use the Move button to zoom into your target). As with the former game, controls and game play are excellent and very precise.

Sports Champions 2 adds an interesting twist to the game by allowing two people (or one person and the computer) to play on the same field and shoot for the same targets, which doesn’t just include regular targets but also things like balloons. You compete for the highest score.

Again, I wouldn’t exactly call this the most intense fitness activity, but after a few minutes of playing you do end up moving quite a bit. Add some hand weights to your Move controllers and you’ll actually be getting a pretty good arm workout.

Skiing is an interesting new game. You hold your Move controllers like ski poles, but unlike real skiing you don’t move your body to turn, but your Move controllers. To move faster, you sweep your Move controllers as if they were ski poles. To jump, you lift up the Move controllers and make sure they’re angled properly for a smooth landing (you can even do a couple flips if you have some good hang time).

The result is actually a much more realistic experience than I thought it’d be. It certainly doesn’t have the same workout intensity that skiing on Kinect Sports has, where you have to twist and turn and jump with your whole body, but it definitely has much, much more precision than the Xbox; when skiing on the Xbox I never really feel like I’m in control, while with the PS3 the turning and jumping are incredibly precise. Again, not a very intense workout, but a fun game nonetheless.

Golf, again, is much more precise than on other systems in many ways. It’s not necessarily going to help you with your golf swing (whether you use a technically correct swing or just wave your arms, the system will treat the shot the same). But what the game lacks in realism of mechanics, it makes up for in terms of precision and accuracy of your swing; a bar on the screen will show you the strength of your swing from 0% to 100% and your target strength given the ball location and your club, and you need to swing the club with precisely the right force.

Putting is also the closest I’ve felt to the real game on any system, from lining up the shot to using the precise right force to get the ball in the hole.

Finally, tennis is probably the most realistic tennis game I’ve played on any system. Some parts of it are amazingly realistic. Just like with ping pong in the original Sports Champions, when you can move your hand in any direction, tilt it, or twist it, the on-screen racquet will respond with uncanny precision.

This precision carries over to the gameplay as well; unlike Wii Sports or tennis on the Kinect, playing tennis is not just a matter of flicking your wrist wildly with the right timing. The position, angle, and velocity of your swing all matter. What’s more, you can apply things like top spins and lobs very similar to real life.

Granted, when you first start the game it’s not all that realistic, as a trail of your opponent’s returns are displayed to you visually so that you know where it’s going. Plus, shots will tend to land magically within the lines. But as you progress deeper into the game, some of the aids you get early on the in game start to disappear and the game starts to feel more and more like real tennis.

I can’t say you get too much exercise in this one, as you’re really just moving your arm (you can move your body left and right when setting up your serve by pressing the Move button and walking to the left or right, but otherwise the running is done for you automatically). But if “get into the game” by doing a little footwork as you’re playing, you might be surprised at how good a workout you get.

You’ve probably seen a few recurring themes through this review. Every sport is definitely a lot of fun and makes great use of the Move controller to simulate playing the actual sport. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them real simulations or virtual reality experiences, but they definitely are polished games and give you a nice feel for the real thing.

As far as workouts go, I’d say the only real one is the boxing. Tennis and skiing may give you a bit of a workout if while you’re playing the game you’re also moving your feet. As for the rest of the sports, if you use Weighted Training Gloves you can get a pretty decent workout from even those.

It’s tough for me to review this one. From a pure gameplay point of view, it’s easily a 5, one of the best games yet for the Playstation Move. But if I were reviewing it strictly from a fitness perspective, I’d probably give it less. Still, given that it’s one of the only decent motion games to be released for the Playstation Move in the past year or so, I’d say it’s a worthwhile purchase and a good choice to supplement your aging PS3 fitness games.

It’s been a while since I posted a new PS3 fitness game review. It’s certainly not been for want of trying; I’ve been checking the new game release schedule pretty closely for the past few months, but it seems that there are only two Move games that involve any kind of physical exertion this season. The first is Sports Champions 2, which I’ll be reviewing shortly, and the second is Just Dance 4, which I’ll be reviewing now.

Just Dance 4, of course, started on the Wii and continues to be the most popular dance franchise on that platform. For the Xbox 360, Dance Central 3 reigns supreme. For the Playstation 3, last year Sony released Everybody Dance, which I thought was a pretty good game, if the weakest of the three as a showcase for the platform. The fact that there is no 2012 edition leads me to believe that perhaps sales of Everybody Dance weren’t necessarily phenomenal. It’s clear that PS3 developers are focusing more on hardcore games and less on motion control or fitness games. Still, if you are a household who happens to own a PS3, there is still a lot of good exergaming to be done, and the game we’re going to review today is a shining example.

With Just Dance 4, Ubisoft made the good choice of developing it to be virtually identical between platforms. You can learn the moves on a PS3, take those same moves to a friend’s house with an Xbox, and the kids can use what they learned in gym class on a Wii.

When you start the game you’re asked if you want to create a Uplay account. In all honesty, between my Playstation Account and NIntendo account and my Microsoft account and my gazillion other accounts I wasn’t all that enthusiastic of signing up for yet another one. But since it seems that this will be the main way that Ubisoft allows users to access downloadable content, and there might be some interesting bonus content in the future, I figured I’d go ahead and sign up.

The opening menu of Just Dance 4 should be familiar to everyone by now; it consists of two options: Just Dance and Just Sweat. Selecting menu options is a pleasure on the PS3 with the extra big buttons and the precision of the Playstation Move controller. Reports are that the Xbox version suffers greatly because its menus are almost impossible to navigate using the Kinect.

Selecting “Just Dance” lets you go right away to selecting songs. One unique thing about Just Dance 4 is that depending on the song, you’ll get choreography for one, two, or four players. Four player choreography is especially fun if you’re playing with a group of people; each player gets a different and unique part to dance to, and the results are amazing if all four of you do it well and amazingly hilarious if you don’t (which will be the more common occurrence). Here’s a duet of my wife and me dancing to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” (spoiler alert: she wins).

While the PS3 often gets third world status when compared to the popularity of the Wii or the full body motion detection of the Kinect, in this case the PS3 shines in that you get the best of both: because the PS3 Move controller’s motions can be detected both by light trails on the Playstation Eye, as well as through radio signals similar to the traditional Wii controller, players don’t necessarily need to be in camera range to be detected. This means that unlike the Xbox version where four players would have to squeeze to fit inside the camera view of the Kinect camera, on the PS3 version all four players can play, providing all have a PS3 Move controller.

The playlist for Just Dance 4 consists of a surprising number of licensed tracks from some of the hottest pop stars. There’s also a good selection of oldies and songs from multiple genres, so there’s a good chance that everyone in your group playing will find a song that appeals to him or her:

Asereje (The Ketchup Song) – Las Ketchup – Duo – 1 of 3
Beauty and a Beat – Justin Bieber featuring Nicki Minaj – Solo – 3 of 3
Beware Of The Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke) – Panjabi MC – Quartet – 2 of 3
Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen – Solo – 1 of 3
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – Boys Town Gang – Duo – 1 of 3
Crazy Little Thing – Anja – Solo – 3 of 3
Crucified – Army of Lovers – Quartet – 3 of 3
Disturbia – Rihanna – Solo – 3 of 3
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love – Dancing Bros. – Duo – 2 of 3
Good Feeling – Flo Rida – Solo – 2 of 3
Good Girl – Carrie Underwood – Solo – 1 of 3
Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)” – Blu Cantrell – Solo – 1 of 3
Hot For Me – A.K.A – Solo – 2 of 3
I Like It – The Blackout Allstars – Duo – 3 of 3
(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life – Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes – Duet – 3 of 3
Istanbul – They Might Be Giants – Quartet – 1 of 3
Jailhouse Rock – Elvis Presley – Quartet – 1 of 3
Livin’ la Vida Loca” – Ricky Martin – Solo – 3 of 3
Love You Like A Love Song – Selena Gomez and the Scene – Solo – 1 of 3
Make The Party (Don’t Stop) – Bunny Beatz – Solo – 2 of 3
Maneater – Nelly Furtado – Solo – 2 of 3
Mas Que Nada – Sergio Mendes featuring The Black Eyed Peas – Solo – 1 of 3
Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera – Solo – 2 of 3
Mr. Saxobeat – Alexandra Stan – Solo – 1 of 3
Oh No! – Marina and The Diamonds – Solo – 3 of 3
On The Floor – Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull – 1 of 3
Oops!… I Did It Again” – The Girly Team – Quartet – 2 of 3
Rock N’Roll (Will Take You To The Mountain) – Skrillex – Solo – 2 of 3
Rock Lobster – The B-52′s – Duo – 2 of 3
Run The Show – Kat DeLuna featuring Busta Rhymes – Duo – 3 of 3
So What – Pink – Solo – 1 of 3
Some Catchin’ Up To Do- Sammy – Solo – 1 of 3
Super Bass – Nicki Minaj – Solo – 3 of 3
Superstition – Stevie Wonder – Solo – 1 of 3
The Final Countdown – Europe – Duo – 3 of 3
Time Warp” – Halloween Thrills – Quartet – 3 of 3
Tribal Dance – 2 Unlimited – Duo – 3 of 3
Umbrella – Rihanna featuring Jay-Z – Solo – 1 of 3
We No Speak Americano – Hit The Electro Beat – Solo – 2 of 3
What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction – Quartet – 1 of 3
Wild Wild West – Will Smith – Quartet – 3 of 3
You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” – Barry White – Quartet – 1 of 3

Gameplay is pretty much the same as always: you dance by mirroring the moves of an on-screen counterpart. The more precise your dance is, the more points  and stars you’ll get and the more positive on-screen feedback you’ll get. Pictographs will scroll along the bottom of the screen to cue you on upcoming moves. Unlike the Kinect, the Wii and Ps3 versions of the game only detect your right hand, which is holding the controller. In a sense, you’re on the “honor system” to move the rest of your body the right way, but after a lot of experimentation I found that to get the highest scores it’s a lot easier just to dance the correct moves with your whole body than to try to figure out how to game the system by moving your right hand in the right way.

Something new to Just Dance 4 is “Battle Mode”, where you can play against another player (or against the computer). You start by choosing a character that corresponds to a song. Then, you basically compete in a dance-off. It’s an interesting twist on fighting games like Street Fighter, where the player that dances the most precise dance steps will score “hits” on the other. Whoever has the most life left at the end of a round wins that round and their song will be imposed on the next round.

Overall, Just Dance 4 is by far the best dance game for the Playstation 3, and among the best fitness games of any kind. Highly recommended.

As I mentioned in my review of MiCoach, one thing they don’t mention very prominently on the game packaging or in online advertisements is that the game does require some extra equipment that doesn’t come bundled with it. You can still use the game without this equipment, but you’ll have to skip lots of exercises that use the equipment. You’ll know whether you have to use the additional equipment in any given exercises by looking at the icons next to each exercise. Also, your on-screen instructor will show you exactly how to use the equipment, either verbally or clearly in the demonstration of the exercise.

In order to have a full experience, you’ll need to invest into buying some additional equipment. I’ve put some of my suggestions below.

• Towel – Any old hand towel should do here. In some games you’ll fold the towel and use it as a pad to make exercises more comfortable.
• Bench – This is another piece of “equipment” mentioned. You’ll need this from time to time to rest a hand or foot on it for support. You should be okay with a folding chair or a kitchen chair here, just keep it handy near your workout area.
• Stability Balls – The manual suggests you use an “Adidas Core Stability Gym Ball”, but as luck would have it that’s not available in the United States. You should be okay getting any brand of Exercise Balls. I just decided to go by the highest Amazon ratings and go for the one with the highest ratings, the Body Sport Exercise Ball. The Isokinetics Balance Ball Chairis a pricer option but also one I considered, as that could also double for your “bench”. To choose the right exercise ball for your height, use this as a guide:
  • 34-inch (85 cm): For users 6′ 7″ in height and taller
  • 30-inch (75 cm): For users between 6′ 2″ and 6′ 6″
  • 26-inch (65 cm): For users between 5′ 8″ and 6′ 1″
  • 22-inch (55 cm): For users between 5′ 1″ and 5′ 7″
  • 18-inch (45 cm): For users between 4′ 6″ and 5′ 0″
• Dumbbells – Dumbbells are used in some exercises to introduce resistance and help with strength and muscle conditioning. Again, brands of dumbbells will work, but I like these Valeo Hand Weights because of their rating and the ease of holding them with the PS3 Move controller. The game will advise you on what weight to get, so I’d suggest playing it a couple times without the weight to get a sense of what the exercise entails. One bit of advice–don’t go too high too fast in your weight selection. Even the lightest handweights get very, very heavy as you get longer into a workout.

• Heart Rate monitors - The game integrates with heart rate monitors. Obviously, the one Adidas wants you to buy is the Adidas MiCoach Pacer Bundle Heart Rate Monitor. But I like the fact that they didn’t make it so that you had to use their own proprietary heart rate monitor (like EA Sports did), but will support any third party heart rate monitor or USB dongle that supports the ANT+ standard. Here’s a list of some at Amazon that range in price from $30 to $300. When you have this equipment set up, your heartrate will be displayed on screen throughout your workout.

At first, I wasn’t happy that I had to buy all this extra equipment to use this game. Then again, I figured these are all pieces of equipment you should have anyway in your home gym or when doing your workouts on and off the PS3. Plus, I’d rather choose my own equipment than have a flimsy resistance band or non-standard heart rate monitor like EA Sports did. Bottom line is, MiCoach is not just another game–it’s a system that will require a bit of an investment to get the full value out of. Shop around and try to find the highest quality, lowest price equipment to use.

As a kid, the Olympics were always a big thing in our house. I faintly remember Nadia in 1976, I remember screaming in the family room during the 1980 Hockey Finals, and of course there was the 1984 Olympics where somehow the absence of the Soviet bloc didn’t quite make the impact I think the Soviets wanted it to.

Of course, during those years I learned to love video games as well. An I’ve been a big fan of Olympic video games since I first played Microsoft’s Olympic Decathlon on the Apple II in 1982 and Summer Games in 1984. While not all of us can be Olympic athletes, at least we can get a taste of the thrill of victory, et. al.

Olympic games have been hit or miss since then. They’ve generally come down to a competition to see who can wiggle their joystick quicker or whose thumbs can move the quickest. Which is why I was very eager to try out London 2012 by Sega for the PS3.

When you start up London 2012, you get treated to a nice video montage that shows off the graphics. One very nice thing about this game is that it’s officially licensed with the International Olympic Committee, meaning that you’ll see all the official logos, sights, and sounds of the real Olympics. They’ve recreated a number of venues in London with uncanny realism.

I wouldn’t say that most of the graphics are exactly photorealistic, but they’re definitely nicer than any Olympic game that’s preceded it. And if you’re lucky enough to have a 3D display, you can view all the action in 3D.

There are a staggering number of events in London 2012. It doesn’t have every sport of the Olympics, of course, but there’s definitely a very good mix of events. Here’s the full list:

Track:

• Men’s 100m
• Men’s 110m hurdles
• Men’s 200m
• Men’s 400m
• Women’s 400m

Field:

• Men’s Discus Throw
• Men’s High Jump
• Women’s High Jump
• Men’s Long Jump
• Men’s Triple Jump
• Men’s Javelin Throw
• Men’s Shot Put

Swimming:

• Men’s 50m Freestyle
• Women’s 50m Freestyle
• Men’s 100m Freestyle
• Women’s 100m Freestyle
• Men’s 100m Breaststroke
• Women’s 100m Breaststroke
• Men’s 100m Butterfly
• Women’s 100m Butterfly
• Men’s 100m Backstroke
• Women’s 100m Backstroke

Diving:

• Men’s 3m Springboard
• Women’s 3m Springboard
• Men’s 10m Platform
• Women’s 10m Platform
• Men’s synchronized 3m Springboard
• Women’s synchronized 3m Springboard
• Men’s synchronized 10m Platform
• Women’s synchronized 10m Platform

Shooting:

• Men’s 25m rapid fire pistol
• Men’s skeet
• Women’s skeet

Archery

• Men’s archery individual
• Women’s archery individual
• Men’s archery team
• Women’s archery team

Gymnastics

• Men’s trampoline
• Men’s vault
• Women’s vault

Other sports

• Men’s Keirin (a.k.a. cycling)
• Men’s K1 Kayak single
• Men’s Single Sculls
• Men’s Table Tennis
• Men’s Weightlifting over 105kg
• Women’s Beach Volleyball

Now while this game is advertised to have Move support, one thing to bear in mind is that only a subset of games really use the Move. I’ll cover those in depth below. But the vast majority of games, as well as the main story mode, use the Dualshock Controller. As with most previous Olympic video games, it comes down to who can manipulate their controller the best.

Each event lets you view a tutorial on how to play. For most events, it’s mainly a game of timing. For example, in the swimming competition, you press “X” to dive, mash “X” to get your initial momentum, pull back on the “L” and “R” joysticks to do your strokes, press “O” to turn, and press “X” to lunge.

Similarly, for the running activities, you press “X” to start, mash “X” with the right cadence to keep your runner going, and lunge using the “L” joystick at the end.

Overall the controls were pretty intuitive and easy to learn, but did feel a bit dated.

There are a couple different game modes. “Olympic Games” is more or less the “story mode” which lets you play 20 events over several days against CPU opponents at easy, medium, or hard level. You choose which country you’ll be competing for, and you can even customize athletes on your team (unfortunately it looks like all the names are made up; it probably would have been cost-prohibitive to get approval for actual names and likenesses). Then, you choose two events from a short list of events on each day to compete. Your goal, of course, is to win as many medals as possible. As with the real Olympics, you need to qualify first and then if you make it, compete for the medal.

There’s “Events Play” mode, where you can select a group of events to play against the CPU, against other players, or paired up with other players on the same national team.

With “Party Play”, you can jump right into a number of activities that are most suitable for multiple players, including javelin, trampoline, kayak , keirin, skeet, table tennis, and 100m.

“Online Play” is a mode where you can actually compete against others on the PSN Network. You can compete in random events, a custom event, or even take place in a tournament against friends or random players. When I tried “Quick Play” the number of players to compete against were pretty sparse (it took a few minutes for the system to find someone for me to compete against), but that should change as more copies of the game are sold. What’s cool about this is that because the game is sold all around the world, chances are the players are really from countries they represent.

When speaking of the game solely in terms of using the Dualshock controller, it’s fun enough, but really not much different than every Olympic game that preceded it back. That said, the graphics and realism alone put this in a class of its own.

I’ll spend the rest of the  time talking about the portion of the game that had Move support.

The part of the game I was personally most interested in was the games that had Move support. Sadly, Move support is really relegated to one part of the game called “Motion Play Party” mode, where you can play a subset of events against up to 3 other players with the Move or against the CPU. The events supported are:

• 25m rapid fire pistol
• Archery individual
• Archery blitz
• Javelin throw
• Javelin target
• Kayak slalom
• Kayak super sprint
• Keirin
• Keirin battle
• Skeet
• Skeet attack
• Table tennis
• 100m

There are also “Party Challenges” for 2 or more players where you need to compete in certain events to unlock further challenges. I would recommend learning the sports in Motion Play Party mode first.

The first Move event I tried was the 100m. 1-4 players can compete. You basically run in place with the Move controller in your hand and then lunge towards the finish line by throwing your arms back. This one actually felt a lot more natural than the awkward button mashing on the controller, and it acutally provided a pretty good workout. But it was admittedly tempting to cheat by just shaking the Move controller like a drumstick or a baton (which works better than just running in place).

They also have an event called keirin (I had to look it up on Wikipedia…it’s basically cycling on a track). This one was an ill-conceived one for the Move. The graphics and the realism are pretty good, but it’s just not a great use of the Move controller. They have you holding it sideways to steer a la Mario Kart, and accelerating by mashing the Move button. Problem is, your left hand is covering up the glowing ball on the Move controller so the system is constantly losing contact, and it’s awkward for your thumb to reach the Move button. Ironically, this would have been a lot stronger using the Dualshock controller (which has an internal gyrometer that would do just as well for steering) rather than the move.

I had high hopes for the kayaking event. I assumed that you’d be able to hold your Move controller sideways, or even hold two Move controllers, and use it like a real paddle. But instead, they have you swiping your Move controller down and to the left to paddle right and down and to the right to paddle left, almost as if you’re rowing a rowboat with one hand. It’s definitely not a natural paddling motion. I got a decent workout to my right biceps, but mainly because I kept flailing in every direction trying to figure out the controls. Perhaps if you figure out the motion controls to this one it might be fun, but it was too frustrating for me to want to try.

Table tennis was moderately fun, but don’t expect anything even close to Sports Champions. Remember the “ooh, ahh” at how realistic Sports Champions felt the first time you rotated the Move controller in your hand and and saw the paddle rotate as precisely on the screen? There’s none of that here. For that matter, most of the controls are unrealistic and unnatural. I tried playing using “real ping pong” strategies, but the CPU would clobber me. It’s only when I started doing bizarre things such as moving the paddle straight up for topspin and moving the paddle straight down for backspin (without even trying to aim or spin the ball) that I started getting competitive against the CPU. This is a major step backwards from the standard set in Sports Champions.

Where the Move excelled in this game were in the “shooting” and “throwing” games. Pistol shooting, for example, was extremely realistic and precise, something the Move is head and shoulders better at than the Kinect or the Wii.

Similarly, I found the archery to be comparable to Sports Champions, maybe a little bit better. As with Sports Champions you can use one or two Move controllers; using two is definitely the way to go. Unlike Sports champions you don’t have to make the motion to grab an arrow from your back, which I always found a little awkward in that game.

The unrealistic thing is that you can shoot random targets during the competition to get bonus points, multipliers, and extended times, although I have to say that did add to the fun and challenge. No matter how much I tried, one of the CPU players kept beating me, so if you want to win against the CPU, you need to rack up a big lead early and master hitting all the special targets in the last round.

The javelin throw was also quite realistic. You hold the Move controller like a javelin (with the glowing ball facing forward). You don’t need to run, but you do need to time your throw perfectly; the force, angle, and straightness of your throw will determine how far it goes.

I played a couple games in 3D, and the 3D effect really does a lot to enhance the game play, from seeing the depth of vision in archery to the first-person view through the kerin track at breakneck speed. If you have a 3D display, the 3D really takes the already excellent graphics to the next level and adds to the realism of the game.

Overall I’d give this game a 4 of 5 stars. It’s a solid title that any fan of the Olympics can enjoy. I’m not sure of its replay value after the Olympics are over, and aside from one or two Move games it really doesn’t have much for someone looking for PS3 Fitness. But from a fun perspective it’ll be a great game to take off the shelf and play with family and friends during the Olympics and probably for a few months after.

The summer of the PS3 Fitness Game drought continues, but I did want to chime in with a pretty good promotion from Amazon. This is a teeny tiny promotion that Amazon isn’t making very obvious, but it’s a good one.

On the PS3 product page, there’s a teeny banner that says:

Clicking on it takes you to a page about Amazon Instant Video, on the top of which is a teeny banner that says:

So it seems that if you register your PS3 with Amazon to start watching videos on the Amazon Instant Video application on your PS3 (which I’ll bet you didn’t know you had), you’ll get a cool $5 to use towards buying or renting a video.

The cool thing about this is that is really expands your ability to use your PS3 for fitness. How? There are a ton of exercise and fitness videos out there, most at only around $1.99 to rent or $9.99 to buy. And so while the PS3 hasn’t been graced with a Jillian Michaels video game like the Kinect or Wii (trust me, we’re not missing much), we can still have Jillian grace our PS3 screens by using one of her videos. Not to mention Bethanny, Bob, Denise, Billy, and the gazillions of others who’ve put out exercise videos. It’s the perfect antidote for the paucity of PS3 fitness games lately.

Here’s exactly how to do it.

1) On your PS3, go to TV/Video Services. You may already have a green icon there that looks like this.

If not, go to the “My Channels” icon that looks like a test pattern and select the Amazon icon.

2) Once you select the icon you may be asked to download software.

You may or may not have to install a system update. After that you’ll be asked to sign into your PS3 account. Don’t worry, you’re almost there

3) Finally, you’ll get to the main Amazon video screen.

The interface looks similar to what you’ve seen on devices like Roku, Apple TV, and Xbox LIVE.

4) Next, select the box that says “Register Your Device”. You’ll be brought to a screen showing you a 5-digit code. This code will be unique to your device.

5) Next, go www.amazon.com/mytv. If you have multiple people in your household with Amazon accounts, make sure you sign in with the account you want permanently associated with the PS3.

6) Magically, on your PS3, you’ll see a success screen.

7) Next, you’ll go through screens asking to confirm your 1-Click settings. From Amazon’s perspective, they of course want to make it as easy as possible for you to make an impulse buy . They’ll then try to push you to buy Amazon Prime, which actually is not a bad deal if you do a lot of ordering on Amazon. Not only do you get free 2-day shipping on all orders, you also get access to a bunch of free videos you can watch through streaming. The free videos you can watch with Amazon Prime aren’t the latest hits, of course, but there are some good ones (I watched all three seasons of Arrested Development using Amazon Prime).

8) Finally, you’ll get to the success page on Amazon.

Now here’s the annoying thing. Amazon, of course, makes it difficult to look up your promotional certificate balance. To do so, you have to choose an instant video and then look at the tiny print under the product description.

When I checked, I saw a balance of zero. Not cool.

I started a chat session. I was bracing myself for a big fight, but they were fast and very, very nice.

This is where I love Amazon. While other companies I’ve had similar issues with would argue with me, ending up costing hundred of dollars of their customer service people’s salaries to fight against me just to deny me the $5, Amazon credited it right to me, no questions asked. This is why I continue to be a loyal customer.

So your mileage may vary. A lot of people are reporting that the $5 credit is being instantly credited to them, but even if it’s not Amazon is smart enough not to deny it to you if you ask about it.

Once I registered I was able to see the videos I’d previously purchased on Amazon under “Your Video Library”, and also access the free Prime videos, as well as buy new videos of course.

So that’s the story. I actually just made a great deal with Verizon FIOS and upped my Internet speed from 50/25 from 15/5, so Internet is blazingly fast on my PS3 now. When I had cable and DSL, I was used to video pausing in the middle at random times and being choppy, but right now I’m watching a video that’s running as smooth and clear as a Blu-Ray. The nice thing about FIOS is that you get your own dedicated line, meaning if the teenager in the apartment upstairs has WoW playing 24×7, you won’t see your bandwidth affected and your video streaming will still be lightning fast (self-serving note…if you’re interested in FIOS go through this link to sign up for FIOS, and both you and I will get a shiny new $50 American Express gift card ).

So that’s it. Enjoy instant video on your PS3…and start working out those abs!

UPDATE: we’re a week from launch and the Web sites of both GameStop and Best Buy still reports that MiCoach is not available for pre-order and in-store pickup. But happily I walked into my local GameStop and they let me pre-order it. I’ll be trying it out and will provide my review here as soon as I can

After what seems like a drought that’s lasted forever, we have a bunch of new PS3 fitness games coming down the pike.

The most imminent is Adidas MiCoach which at long last is being released on July 24. It’s available for preorder at Amazon for $49.99 or for $10 less at GameStop. Oddly there doesn’t seem to be an in-store pickup option for the PS3 version at GameStop…I emailed them to ask why and they first responded with a form response that had nothing to do with my questio. when I replied to that a person responded and said, “yes, micoach for ps3 is available for pre-order.” which of course didn’t answer my question. I’ll keep trying. :p

One of the burning questions I had about MiCoach was whether there’ll be any interaction with existing MiCoach peripherals. Simon Drabble was kind enough to respond on Twitter saying yes, the heart rate monitor will be able to be used in the same by plugging the USB MiCoach Connect to the PS3. He added that all game data will be able to be accessed online at MiCoach’s site so that any workouts done at home on the PS3 will be integrated with workout data done outside the home. In other words, MiCosere seems to be offering many of the features that EA offered and abandoned in Sports Active.

The recent E3 conference brought showed some exciting news for the other platforms with Nike collaborating with Microsoft and Nintendo planning a new version of Wii Fit that includes a pedometer. While it seems at first blush that PS3 owners may be getting the short end of the stick, bottom line is, if 505 Games and Adidas do a good job with MiCoach, chances are they’ll be more successful on the PS3 than on other platforms, being the only (fitness) game in town, which hopefully means there’s a good chance they may take over the helm of the best PS3 fitness game. Time will tell, of course.

The only other potential fitness game I saw come out of E3 for this fall was Sports Champions 2. Seems that they’ve added a lot of sports from the original Wii Sports, including tennis, boxing, golf, and bowling, sports which actually make a lot more sense on the PS3 than on the Kinect because of the importance of precision (Kinect bowling and tennis, for example, can easily be played by monkeys).

Guess what? The PlayStation 3D Display Bundle is available at Best Buy for $200. That’s right, the same system I happily forked over $600 for on launch day is now a third of that price.

Considering the system includes a $60 game, a $60 pair of glasses, and a $20 cable, that’s like getting the actual monitor for…aw, I’m actually too depressed to do the math…

Just kidding of course…I have no regrets about buying it at the original retail price, as you can tell by my rave review of the PS3 3D Display. But if you were lucky enough to procrastinate about it until now, I’d jump on it while you can.

As I wrote in my original review, this is a great low-cost way to experience 3D of a lot of the games you already have without forking over $3000 for a bigger TV that’ll be outdated in a year. I’ve enjoyed Uncharted 3, MLB 2012, and a bunch of games I didn’t realize we’re in 3D.

Dont forget that you can also watch 3D Blu-Rays on this thing, as well as use it as a high-end computer monitor.

Well, I’ve been talking about Adidas MiCoach for it seems like an eternity now, but at LONG last the pre-order link is available on Amazon. The pricing will be $49.99 and the original list of athletes that were promised to be part of the game will be there: Kaka, Dwight Howard, Manuel Neuer, Jessica Ennis, Jose Mourinho, Ana Ivanovic, Will Genia and Eric Berry. The athletes aren’t just generic computer animations with their faces painted on–word has it that the athletes actually did the exercises and skills challenges themselves, and it’s their actual performance that’s part of the game.

Early reports of the game had said it’ll come with additional hardware, but since the game is priced at $49.99 I doubt that hardware will be the MiCoach pacer nor even the speed cell. Perhaps there’ll be a heart rate monitor such as the one that came with EA Sports Active. We’ll see about that.

One thing the MiCoach will definitely come with is an already active online community where you can track your progress online and compete in challenges against friends or even strangers. Again, early news reports said that you can earn points that you can exchange for discounts on Adidas products.

In other words, early indications are that this will for all intents and purposes be the next progression forward for EA Sports Active 2 (we all know by now that from all appearance EA Sports has abandoned that product). Time will tell, of course, but I for one plan to be one of the first in line for this.

More information as it comes, as always.

Back in 2010 when I reviewed EA Sports Active 2 for PS3, I loved it. It was a fairly good port of the Wii version which at the time was far and away the best video game workout for any system.

Daskreeh and Alexey both asked a very good question in the comments section of the post. With EA’s recent pulling of online support, is the game still worth having?

I’m a little torn on this one. For one thing, at a street price of Around $155, this is a great price for a game that works (as long as you stick with it, of course). Remember that for the $15, you not only get the game, you get the resistance band and the heart rate monitor. That’s a deal and a half considering that the game originally retailed for close to $100.

On the other hand, EA’s pulling of support for its online community is troublesome. The online features were never earth-shatteringly good (you could view your progress online and participate in group workouts which helped motivate you, but the signup process and the user interface were both very clunky). But what troubles me is that EA Sports had every chance in the world to improve it (unlike the video game, their online features could have been improved continuously) and they never did. I expected them to continue to evolve their online features to last through EA Sports Active 3, 4, and beyond. Instead, the recent actions of EA Sports lead me to believe that it was just a gimmick all along to get us to buy the game and that they never intended to build it into anything more.

The fact that they treat online support of EA Sports Active 2 no differently, say, than online support for outdated versions of their other sports games leads me to conclude that they just don’t understand the fitness gaming community. They treat us like “gamers”, but as anyone who’s sweated out a 9-week routine, that’s not what we are.

Worse, there is not a peep from EA Sports about a sequel like EA Sports Active 3, which makes me wonder if they’re abandoning the fitness gaming genre altogether. Which is a shame, because there is so much more they could have done by doing more “simulation” type games that combined their traditional sports games with Move.

So my recommendation–at the price it’s at now, I’d definitely still recommend it as a game you can play and completely benefit from “offline” — there was never any dependency on the online features to do things like the 9-week workout.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for something that’ll be supported for the future and a company that will continue to grow its online features, I’d suggest holding out for Adidas MiCoach instead. Because Adidas’s cloud-based online features are already established (for people using MiCoach with their PCs, iPhones, etc.), those aren’t going to be abandoned like EA did. Of course, we’ll have to see if the workout routines for MiCoach improve upon EA Sports’.