Although setting up Move is as simple as pointing the camera in the right direction, plugging it in and loading up the disk, the first thing to do is watch the brief tutorial on how to set up the PlayStation Eye camera and use the Move motion controller correctly and safely. The camera tracks your arm movements closely both side to side and in and out, and some games encourage quite vigorous arm movements so make sure you have plenty of room side to side and headroom too, as it’s easy to whack a ceiling light when playing some of the games.

The Move motion controller is a robust and well-designed piece of kit, much lighter than the Wii’s Wiimote, and much more suited to kids and small-handed adults too. The soft “bulb” at the end almost hypnotically glows different colours as games load and can be set to a colour by any particular game to identify which player is which. The standard PlayStation symbol buttons are all placed on top of the controller as is the Move button (the one you’ll use most), there’s gun-like trigger underneath (‘T’ button), Start and Select are hidden away in the sides of the controller, and the PS button is inset within easy reach of your thumb so you can return to the XMB menu at any time. The controller recharges via the same USB lead you got with your PS3 to charge the normal Sixaxis or Dual Shock 3 joypads.

The disk included with the current starter pack (no doubt the games lineup will change) includes 9 demos of really varied game types - unfortunately they all need installing onto the HDD before you can play them, which is a bit of a pain as inexplicably some take 10 minutes or so to install. All are briefly described below.

Beat Sketcher is a basic umm... art package/drawing tool that allows you to graffitify your TV screen while listening to music. Movements of the motion controller also make various sounds and you can take pictures of your “creations”, including the ‘artist’, and export them to the XMB menu and beyond! Probably doesn’t demonstrate enough of what you can do with the game or how much fun it can be.

Echochrome II is a rather clever puzzle game that uses shadows to form previously unseen shapes with which you get a little man to the exit, Lemmings-style. A clever, strangely atmospheric and addictive puzzle game.

EyePet Move Edition is simply a Move compatible version of the highly-rated but poorly selling virtual PS3 pet. The hairy little thing is just as adorable and the game plays pretty much the same as the original but a few tasks in the game are definitely easier to perform as the camera recognises the Move controller more accurately than your hands. You’ll get to give the EyePet a shower and then help it draw a paper plane which it can then fly around on!

Sports Champions is a Wii Sports–type game with stunning graphics that the Wii simply couldn’t manage. The demo includes disk golf (chucking a Frisbee around beautiful countryside trying to hit a target) and table tennis, just try opening up the face of the bat to see how much spin you can apply, and you’ll see how this sort of subtle movement and realistic in-game physics could affect the future of all sorts of Move compatible games, not just table tennis.

Start the Party!’s first demo is a bug swatting game. The Whacky Races-esque presentation is great fun for kids and adults alike (at least for a while) and good exercise too, but doesn’t exactly tax the brain, or the PS3’s graphics chip either. Splatting bugs on the TV screen does look hilarious though, and some care needs to be taken to avoid twatting the big red bugs. The second demo is a shape copying game, a shape is projected on screen and you have to copy it and fill it in before the time runs out. Brilliantly simple and simply brilliant, a perfect example of what the Move controller can do.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 - thanks to the realistic golf swing required to hit the ball accurately and any useful distance, Move makes this good golf game great, although it does seem to be slightly slower and more fiddly to play.

The Shoot is basically a light gun game without a light gun – in the demo you get dragged through a Western town ‘on rails’ shooting at cardboard cut-out bad guys while avoiding shooting innocents with your itchy trigger finger. The full game features several other familiar movie scenarios. You can duck by holding the controller down, and interact with certain scenery and objects. A good example of how accurate Move is, and although there’s a hint of lag in the aiming it bodes well for future first person shooters that will be Move compatible.

TV Superstars is a series of OTT pretend game shows, and you start off by either choosing one of the presets or making your own avatar, personalized facial expressions and all. The first gameshow on the demo, Frockstar, may be great fun for little girls who “wannabe,” but without wanting to sound homophobic this is just about the gayest game I’ve ever played. It wants you to sashay down a catwalk and then wave your arm around in time with the music and to try and match the on-screen prompts, some of which I found really difficult to follow. The problem is that it’s all done in an overtly camp way thanks to raving homo host Randy Darling (Shudder)..... Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Bruno would probably love it. The second game is called Let’s Get Physical and is a kind of Superstars game that has you running on a giant wheel while jumping over a giant boxing glove and then being shot through windows via a giant catapult, while orienting your avatar correctly with the Move controller. Much better this one, and more like what I was expecting from the game.

Tumble is probably the star of the show, and the sort of game that demonstrates Move perfectly. A cross between Jenga, Tetris and pick-up sticks all in glorious 3D with amazing physics that allow you to carefully place varied objects in a pile, while hoping your opponent will stack them badly and lose points. There’s a couple of levels from the first two zones of the full game that hint at the addition of some clever power ups, moving parts and special bricks, so every level isn’t a matter of just stacking one interesting shaped brick on top of another. I think Tumble is a very special little game and the full game will be one of my first Move-compatible purchases.

So is Move the future of PS3 gaming? Probably not, but it does offer a whole new aspect to gaming and is undoubtedly an excellent reply to people who say that Nintendo’s Wii is easier to use because of its controllers. People who have never played games before will probably feel a lot happier with the Move controller in their hands and the simplified yet tactile feel that Move games give them over games played with a standard joypad, but Move also opens up all sorts of new possibilities to both new concepts (like Tumble) and established franchises like Call of Duty. As I touched on earlier, PS3 first person shooters could be a very immersive experience when played with Move as there’s also a second type of navigation controller available (not included in the starter pack) which acts as a thumbstick similar to the Wii’s nunchuck. None of the demo games is optimised for this controller but it could be very useful for other types of games.