The Shoot (PlayStation 3)

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The shoot also known as Shooting Studio was made by Cohort Studios in 2010 for the PlayStation 3 and was distributed by Sony Computer Entertainment who took ownership. The game requires a PlayStation Move controller and can be considered Sony's archetype Move gun game.

In the game's story the player is an actor who stars several shooting themed movies. Typically people and objects in those movies are either puppets or plates. Instead of a live bar, the game shows the satisfaction of the director. If the player shoots civilians, misses shots or gets hit, the director's happiness meter will decrease. The player's limited continues are displayed as available takes. Health is replenished by making consecutive hits, without missing targets in-between. This will also fill up the stock of special shots, which are triggered by performing motion gestures or firing the gun at a special orientation. There are three kinds of special shots: one slows down time, another one is a shock wave and another one briefly gives the player a full automatic gun and stops the game from paying attention to missed shots and damage when counting the length of the consecutive shots series. The player may punch targets by swinging the gun controller. The reticle can be reset to the center of the screen by pressing the circle button, which helps to bear the typical gyro gun problem of losing the calibration's zero position quickly.

In the beginning of the game just one movie which is set of levels is available in the so called career mode. Beating this set exceeding a points requirement the player may unlock the same set for score mode and unlock the next set of levels in career mode. In total there are five sets each consisting of 4 levels: one is cowboy themed, in another set the player fights robots, one set is mafia themed, one takes place under water and the last set is monster themed.

Besides keeping the row of consecutive hits as long as possible, the player may trigger bonus portions in the levels to further increase the score. Additonally each level has unique bonus tasks which also affect score. In every set eight pieces of a movie poster are hidden. If all pieces of a set are collected, the player may access a corresponding bonus game in the so called challenge mode.

The game has an outstanding presentation. The music is very well made and the theme song reminds me of classical James Bond scores. The sound behaves strange though and often cuts out for no reason. Furthermore I wasn't able to capture the sound digitally. I think the choice of making the enemies puppets and plates is very smart, as it allows the game to show the guns causing tremendous damage without the game being violent. Move gun games have some common problems. Therefore I was intrigued to see, whether Move's inventor Sony was able to contract better suited games. Even though Cohort sort of acknowledges the frequent loss of zero position by implementing the quick recalibration, Sony advertised the game telling it had "pinpoint accuracy", which is far from the truth. The game suffers of the usual problems gyro based gun controllers have: After the gun experiences acceleration the zero position of the calibration is shifted. Sadly the game wants the player to frequently perform strong gestures such as swinging the controller over the head like a lasso. To me this is a stunningly stupid design decision. The forces to the gun are enough intense that even the sensitivity of the gyro sensor gets considerably changed after strong gestures.

I like the cover but I somewhat miss the under water level and I would have preferred if it was also represented. As already told the text on the cover is absolutely useless and just silly.