The control scheme of the Wii lends itself perfectly to playing sports where you’re swinging a stick of some kind, so in March, Ubisoft released on the Wii a five-sport collection entitled Racquet Sports to middling reviews. (You know Ubisoft is a French publisher, since they spelled it as “racquet” instead of “racket.”) They’re hoping for a better outing with the PlayStation 3 version of the game, which will launch this fall with PlayStation Move compatibility. After all, Move is pretty much just a more precise Wii, right?
Developed by Asobo Studio, the same folks who brought you the Wii version of Racquet Sports and last year’s Codemasters-published off-road racing title Fuel, Racquet Sports on PS3 will feature the same five racket- or paddle-swinging sports as its Wii counterpart: tennis, ping-pong, badminton, squash, and beach tennis. The latter looks to be identical to regular ol’ tennis, except… it’s played on sand.
The PS3 version at least sounds like it’ll be more of a visual feast — Ubisoft is touting 30 “rich graphical environments,” and in the three screenshots below, the game does look pretty. The Wii version shipped with MotionPlus support, and on PS3, PlayStation Move will offer “unprecedented realism and pinpoint gameplay mechanics,” so there might be more of a simulation feel than the cartoony, larger-than-life art style would appear to suggest. Four-player co-op and competitive multiplayer is included as well, although I haven’t heard of anyone who is planning to shell out for four sets of Move controllers ($420 $320 for four Move wands and four Navigation Controllers).
So who’s up for some high-definition racket Racquet Sports? By the way, just as a heads-up, PlayStation Move will be out in North America on September 19th.
