Ubisoft's Women's Things
Jacko! Just Dance! Racket Sports.
In practice, Wallon is right about the wrist thing - your avatar follows your arm movements with accuracy. Unfortunately, it doesn't also follow them with speed. There was a noticeable lag problem with the demo on show at the Ubisoft showcase, or at least that's what Wes said when I beat him 40-Love.
There are some serious questions hanging over Racket Sports right now. Will the lag problem be fixed by the time the game launches alongside the Move? Can Ubisoft strike a balance between giving hardcore players control and challenge and letting casual gamers have fun? And does the world really need another mini-game compilation, especially one which only features racket-based games, and only has five of them, one of which is badminton?
Motion Sports
Ah, another mini-game collection. This one is for Kinect and will feature six or seven mini-games, however, and they're more varied than those in Racket Sports - those revealed so far include horseback riding, hang-gliding, boxing and "soccer".
But the two on show today are skiing and American football. The first of these will be familiar to anyone who's played Family Ski, as it's the same game without the Balance Board and controllers. You squat and lean forward to race downhill, tilting your body left and right to slalom.
The visuals are more realistic than those in Family Ski, or indeed in Racket Sports. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable lag, either. But the highlight is the way the Kinect camera takes photos of you while games are loading, then plasters virtual skyscrapers, billboards and in-game screens with your image, hailing you as a sporting superstar.
The American football game involves racing down the pitch, or field as they possibly call it, heading for the touchdown goal, or whatever it is, while being attacked on all sides by vicious wingers and mid-fielders. You can lean left or right to avoid them, fend them off with your arms or even try to jump over them.
Or you can just sit back, relax and enjoy the spectacularly hilarious voiceover by the excitable American commentator. "That was a back alley mugging, but you took it to the house and you burned the mother down," he says. "Check your wallet."
Let's hope we get to play some other Motion Sports games soon, and aren't the victims of any back alley muggings in the meantime.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved
You might think Your Shape is a rip-off of Wii Fit, but you'd be wrong. "Your Shape is a lot more about fitness, whereas Wii Fit was a lot more about fun," explains Wallon. "It's more of a Western approach to fitness, where as we know the Japanese approach was more holistic." See? It's actually a rip-off of EA Sports Active.
To be fair, there are some significant differences. You don't have to wear a stupid neoprene thigh strap or muck about with a giant rubber band, for starters. Instead, the Kinect camera works with Ubisoft's own-brand Player Projection Technology to render a 3D map of your body as it looks in real life.