Tumble on Tumblr. Whatever next?

I bought a PlayStation Move, much to the shop assistant’s amusement, without a navigation controller, a camera or any games. Just the wand, like a confused wizard.

I already have a camera, I’ll use my controller as a ‘navi’ replacement and, most importantly, the entire retail launch line-up looks absolutely shocking. Low budget nasties and quick cash-ins and the generic motion controlled sports game (now a requirement of any motion controllers launch) and Kung Fu bloody Rider.

But I’d seen that Sony had dumped about 15 demos for the thing - from Sports Champions to Echochrome 2 - on the PlayStation Store, and it seemed worth it, to me, to grab the Move controllre and sample a few of the digital delights before me.

Turns out, the launch games aren’t gross or hideous or scum filled junk, they’re just very expensive tech demos. There’s one that films you and puts a funny object on the end of the controller with a bit of augmented reality wizardry. There’s a painting one and a table tennis one and a legitimately dreadful one where an Asian man escapes the Feds on a wheely office chair.

But then there’s Tumble. Tumble isn’t a retail game - its only £8 and delivered digitally - so it doesn’t try to hide it’s obvious tech demo nature. It knows it’s main priority in life is to demonstrate the pinpoint accuracy, 1:1 movement and versatility of the controller. It’s about stacking blocks - not to escape the Feds or as part of some movie set shenanigans - just stacking some nice little blocks. In a big old tower.

The game offers the sort of tactility and precision that the Wii remote has always lacked. (I never got the motion plus nubbin, I’ll admit.) The game registers every wrist twist, every bank and turn of the remote, and as you move around the world in 3d space to line up a tricky brick, the game intelligently follows you.

And there’s a tiny, barely noticeable rumble when you cautiously scrape two pieces together, to tell you not to push any harder or your giant 200 metre tower will fall. How will the Kinect convey such important information, I wonder? Sony often calls up the need for buttons when duking it out against Kinect, but what about rumble?

Once you get passed the initial glee of a motion controller that’s as deadly accurate as you’ve always hoped, Tumble is actually a pretty damn enjoyable game.

There are levels about stacking and levels about destroying, levels where limbo bars threaten to knock down your creations and levels where the building platform is on a nuisance slope. It takes a Lego builders mind or a physics nerds experience to battle some levels, including a particularly nasty one which has you building on a seesaw.

The game has 3D support, as long as you’re flash enough to own a stereoscopic telly and a pair of tri-dimensional goggles. I’ll wait till they nix the glasses. But I can see how it would work: you’re left relying on shadows beneath objects to know where, in space, you’re hovering. This isn’t the first time, much to my chagrin, I’ve thought 3D and gaming would make a good mix.

So yes, Tumble. Make sure the demo is part of your launch experience to understand why the move is so special, and to see exactly what the tech is capable of. Echochrome 2, also, uses it with far more creativity than DURR ITS A RAQUET. I look forward to downloading that, too, when it’s available.

Right now, the Move’s critical narrative goes that the tech is grand but the games are lacking. That’s definitely true, for the most part. But if you already have the camera, or your family wants to get Moving (with a capital M), get Tumble. It’s solid.