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Since day one, the PlayStation Move has struck me as this bizarre attempt to capitalize on
an audience that doesn’t seem to exist—PS3 owners interested in playing games with waggle.
In fact, I think the truth about the Move is best reflected in this, one of its better
games. Sorcery works just fine, there’s nothing technically wrong with it...but it’s
like a collection of ideas from other things, only without any of the inspiration.
Or the magic. See what I did there?
Released to the PlayStation 3 earlier this year, Sorcery is an immediately familiar experience.
It’s your typical adventure game for the most part, but combined with a Harry Potter
theme and motion controls. It all sounds promising, but the problem is Sorcery never goes beyond,
“Hey, this is kind of like other better things.”
I think the most general criticism of Sorcery is that it doesn’t have a character of its
own. You play as a young boy who is a sorcerer’s apprentice and—get this—has an extremely
chatty pet. It should come as no surprise that said pet plays a role in the quest at
hand...a quest obviously comprised of a standard tale.
It just comes off as a bit generic. The characters are all archetypical, and the same applies
to the gameplay, in a sense. Nothing feels original, despite the game’s clear production
values. Sorcery took years to develop, and as a result, it’s a very clean,
very polished experience...if also an exceedingly familiar one.
Still, that polish applies to virtually every component of Sorcery. The gameplay makes some
occasionally brilliant use of motion control, although at times it does have a vibe like
the earliest Wii games...forcing motion in places where it doesn’t benefit. You can
attack enemies with Potter-like wand motions, all effectively casting spells in-game.
The crazy part is that it works really well.
The crazier part is that you have to hold two controllers.
This game boiled in the cauldron for a long time, and as much as that benefitted the game
from a technical perspective, it didn’t do much on the conceptual end. This is an
attractive game with dull art, a fantasy with no character, a motion game with fantastic
and forced motion.