Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Trending
  • Grounded 2
  • The Fantastic Four: First Steps
  • Donkey Kong Bananza
  • Switch 2 Starter Pack
Recommended reading
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hero Gustave in a striped swimsuit
RPGs Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's deeply frustrating minigames make harsh parries look like a breeze in contrast, and it's all Final Fantasy's fault
Resident Evil Village
Games The 25 best video game villains you just love to hate
The best survival horror games: a screenshot from Resident Evil 7.
Survival Horror Games The 10 best survival horror games to test your endurance skills
The packaging for Tony Hawk Ride's Shred bundle on top of a screenshot of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake
Gaming Controllers I just remembered the Tony Hawk: Ride Skateboard was a thing, and I'm starting to feel old
Baby Steps
Open World Games I lost all my progress in a single catastrophic fall in this impossibly hard open-world Steam Next Fest demo, and I'm not even a tiny bit mad about it
Three players on a desert planet shooting bug aliens during one of the best games like Borderlands, Helldivers 2.
Third Person Shooters Helldivers 2 designer outlines Arrowhead's "trainwreck in slow-motion" design philosophy, and another essential guiding star: "The tingle in the ass"
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Games Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made me cry after 30 minutes and convinced me to finally revisit the best sad games in my Steam library
  1. Games
  2. Action

The most sadistic motion control schemes in gaming

Features
By Matt Bradford published 16 May 2013

Touring the dark side of motion-sensing games

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Masochists, now is your time

Masochists, now is your time

Whether intentional or not, there are motion control schemes that seem to exist solely to inflict discomfort and misery upon gamers. Some are worth the pain, while others are reserved for a masochistic breed of gamer. Flail along as we count down some of the worst offenders...

Page 1 of 13
Page 1 of 13
Rise of Nightmares

Rise of Nightmares

Everything about Rise of Nightmares was a tedious, exhausting grind. Steering the hero Josh required a mix of awkward shoulder pivots and unresponsive foot gestures, while most of his attacks boiled down to slashing the air in vein attempts to murder waves of undercooked foes. On paper, Rise of Nightmare's control schemes sounded like a perfect fit for the Kinect. In practice, hit-or-miss controls and laggy reaction times left us with the chilling realization that we were our own worst enemy.

Page 2 of 13
Page 2 of 13
Diabolical Pitch

Diabolical Pitch

Diabolical Pitch

Sound like fun? Try tossing imaginary balls at a wall for more than an hour and let us know how long you last. Laced with repetitive encounters and detection issues, Diabolical Pitch started strong, but quickly wore out its welcome and our throwing arms well before the seventh inning stretch.

Page 3 of 13
Page 3 of 13
Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor

Despite its noble intentions, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor was a beast to learn, and a nightmare to play. Granted, the Xbox 360 controller could still be used to direct the Virtual Tank (VT) and fire its weapons, but key actions such as tossing grenades, giving orders, and operating the VT's umpteen internal controls were mapped to very specific player movements. Surviving more than a minute meant acting out exact Kinect gestures, with the slightest twitch or wrong movement leading to death on the field. Like the Steel Battalion game before it, Heavy Armor demanded flawless execution; something few (including the Kinect) were trained to handle.

Page 4 of 13
Page 4 of 13
Fighters Uncaged

Fighters Uncaged

Fighters Uncaged

Fighters Uncaged's heart was in the right place. The game intended to give players the feeling of full-body control in a video game fighter, but wound up tripping over itself at every opportunity. In lieu of a digital Fight Club, players were treated to a barely functional gesture-based fighting game that often failed to recognize our most basic of moves, but excelled at pummeling us with endless waves of AI idiots. If there was some redeeming value to be had, it was reserved for players with the fortitude and endurance to stick it out for the final fight.

Page 5 of 13
Page 5 of 13
Blackwater

Blackwater

half-star review

Blackwater

In short: There's no reason to play Blackwater. Maybe as a dare. Maybe as penance for a horrible crime. But not as entertainment. The game did a disservice to the Kinect and dealt blow after blow to the dedicated soldiers who were patient (and/or bored) enough to enlist with it for longer than the first mission. To you, brave soldiers, we salute. But we also have to ask...was it worth it?

Page 6 of 13
Page 6 of 13
Lair

Lair

Lair

The game wasn't broken, but it wasn't for the weak of heart either. Only those with nerves of steel and the patience of a saint survived long enough to save the day. To Sony's credit, however, Lair has since been retrofitted with normal analog controls. Unfortunately, the scars left by critics were too much to save Factor 5's experimental dragon sim from being regarded as a cautionary tale for motion controls.

Page 7 of 13
Page 7 of 13
Kinetris

Kinetris

Going by Conan's demo video alone, the game looks doable. However, this is Tetris, and the action has a habit of ramping up to superhuman speeds. We can only imagine that playing Kinetris on the higher levels would make us look like window washers on crack. Still, despite the inevitable muscle cramps, we're still strangely attracted to this hack.

Page 8 of 13
Page 8 of 13
Kung Fu: High Impact

Kung Fu: High Impact

Kung Fu: High Impact

Negatives aside, Kung Fu: High Impact dangles just enough carrots to keep you sweating. It's actually fun being injected into a silly martial arts brawler, and there's something awesome about using household items to beat down the forces of evil. We may look silly doing it, and we might need a nap after playing it, but damned if this Kung Fu isn't a little Kung...fun?

Page 9 of 13
Page 9 of 13
Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll

Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll

Step & Roll

To be fair, Super Monkey Ball: Step and Roll gave players the choice of teetering through the game on the Nintendo Wii board, or playing the game with a controller. It wasn't a bad game by any stretch, but choosing to hack it out with the former control scheme was a task reserved for true ballers.

Page 10 of 13
Page 10 of 13
Baby and Me Wii

Baby and Me Wii

Baby and Me isn't physically challenging to play. It does, however, open the door for psychological damage. For better or worse, Baby and Me never made it to the states, but it can be ordered online. Our advice? Make sure they ship it in an unmarked paper bag.

Page 11 of 13
Page 11 of 13
Super Mario Bros. Wii (multiplayer)

Super Mario Bros. Wii (multiplayer)

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

The problem is New Super Mario Bros. Wii's multiplayer assumes four players can get along civilly in the same gamespace. In reality, the freedom to crash into allies and fling them around invariably brings out the jerkwad in anyone who joins the party. It's a scientific fact* that 99.96% of all New Super Mario Bros. Wii multiplayer sessions end in curse-filled waggle fests and/or fist fights. And then, it's also possible we've just been playing with the wrong people.

*not an actual scientific fact.

Page 12 of 13
Page 12 of 13
Misery loves company

Misery loves company

Aching for more? Gesture over to our list of the Top 7 games that physically hurt to play, go retro with our look at 5 failed attempts at motion controls and 3D gaming, or just have some Fun with Kinect screens!

Page 13 of 13
Page 13 of 13
CATEGORIES
Nintendo Wii-u PlayStation Xbox Platforms
PRODUCTS
Lair Fighters Uncaged Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor Rise of Nightmares Diabolical Pitch Blackwater Blackwater Diabolical Pitch Fighters Uncaged Lair Rise of Nightmares Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor
Matt Bradford
Social Links Navigation

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries. 

See more Nintendo Features
Read more
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hero Gustave in a striped swimsuit
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's deeply frustrating minigames make harsh parries look like a breeze in contrast, and it's all Final Fantasy's fault
Resident Evil Village
The 25 best video game villains you just love to hate
The best survival horror games: a screenshot from Resident Evil 7.
The 10 best survival horror games to test your endurance skills
The packaging for Tony Hawk Ride's Shred bundle on top of a screenshot of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake
I just remembered the Tony Hawk: Ride Skateboard was a thing, and I'm starting to feel old
Baby Steps
I lost all my progress in a single catastrophic fall in this impossibly hard open-world Steam Next Fest demo, and I'm not even a tiny bit mad about it
Three players on a desert planet shooting bug aliens during one of the best games like Borderlands, Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 designer outlines Arrowhead's "trainwreck in slow-motion" design philosophy, and another essential guiding star: "The tingle in the ass"
Latest in Action
A young Noctis and Lunafreya in Final Fantasy 15 Kingsglaive
The Legend of Zelda movie has finally cast its titular princess, and it turns out she was already a video game movie veteran at roughly 12 years old thanks to Final Fantasy
Assassin's Creed art
The co-CEO of Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed and Far Cry subsidiary is the son of Ubisoft's actual CEO, but he says he's definitely not a nepo baby
GTA 5
Ahead of GTA 6, Rockstar makes more changes to Social Club before seemingly taking down its dedicated site entirely
James Bond in 007 First Light
"Don't make him a killing machine!": Hitman developer IO Interactive got the James Bond gig because its games are more about creativity and stealth than shooting
Death Stranding 2
After Metal Gear Solid 5 made sparing or killing enemies so important, I'm disappointed Death Stranding 2 wasted its most interesting mechanic
Dead Island 2 screenshot
"Boy, that game sucked": Notorious Dead Island 2 delay lasted nearly a decade partly because its original developer ignored "horrific" player feedback, says former Deep Silver lead
Latest in Features
Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Five questions I hope Fantastic Four: First Steps answers
Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Starlord (Chris Pratt), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Drax (Dave Bautista) in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
I've watched all the best James Gunn movies and TV shows, and this is how I'd rank them
One of the new Vault Hunters in Borderlands 4
Borderlands 4 is releasing in just under 2 months, so I'm revisiting the 5 best Gearbox games while I count down the days
The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature screenshot of a fairy, a ghost, and a mermaid looking scared
After 400 hours in The Sims 4, I've finally met my match: an occult-only household riddled with phantoms, house fires, and dead plants
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild screenshot of Link cooking over a campfire
The Legend of Zelda and Red Dead Redemption 2 have whetted my appetite, so I've found the 7 best cooking games to tuck into
David Corenswet as Superman fighting back flames
I’m tired of MCU post-credits scenes that go nowhere, which is why Superman’s organic world-building is such a breath of fresh air
  1. DK and Pauline look surprised in Donkey Kong Bananza
    1
    Donkey Kong Bananza Review: "Destruction isn't just a flashy gimmick for the Minecraft generation, it's one of the best inventions Nintendo has had in years"
  2. 2
    Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 review: "A nostalgic, must-play hit for fans"
  3. 3
    College Football 26 review: “Thanks to rivalries and dynasty, this is the greatest show on turf”
  4. 4
    Mecha Break review: "This mech battler makes up for lacking customization with a varied roster that lets me live out my Evangelion fantasy"
  5. 5
    Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review: "This tarpunk delivery epic is more Metal Gear Solid than ever, for better and worse"
  1. David Corenswet as Superman inside the Fortress of Solitude in James Gunn's Superman.
    1
    Superman review: "A triumphant reinvention and a promising start for the DCU"
  2. 2
    Jurassic World Rebirth Review: "An unscary sequel that needed a little more time in amber"
  3. 3
    M3GAN 2.0 review: "A bold sequel with a slightly underwhelming conclusion"
  4. 4
    28 Years Later Review: "Enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy”
  5. 5
    Predator: Killer of Killers review: "Great characters, thrilling action, and gorgeous Arcane-esque animation"
  1. Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun in Squid Game season 3
    1
    Squid Game season 3 review: "A staggeringly excellent final season wraps up one of the greatest Netflix shows ever"
  2. 2
    Ironheart review: "A relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era"
  3. 3
    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 review: "The show's most assured run of episodes to date"
  4. 4
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 8 spoiler review: 'The Reality War' is "a mix of the good, the bad, and the truly baffling"
  5. 5
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 7 spoiler review: 'Wish World' is "an exciting and ambitious" start to the season finale, with hints of WandaVision

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...