From the Vault — originally published October 28, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.
A PlayStation Move launch title The Shoot is a first-person orientated arcade shooter featuring motion controller based gun-play. The game features support for up to two players. The game is a kind of interactive shooting gallery of sorts with five themed movie sets (stages) including Haunted House Party, Outlaws, Robot Rebellion, Deep Perils, and The Mob. Each set or stage has 4 acts and in order to unlock the next act you have to earn a certain amount of points. The unlock point total is cumulative so if you almost have enough points after the first play though your point total is not reset and it will unlock after the second play-through earns you enough points to the the required total. The stages include destructible environments that can be shot away to expose enemies, secret power-ups, and bonus items such as deleted scenes.
Your targets are mostly animated “cutouts” that appear in a traditional shooting gallery style. The cutouts feature really simple animations that get the job done. Your objective is to shoot as many as you can before they dissapear. Some of them will throw items at you ot shoot at you as well. The western stage features cowboy bandits the robot stage features robots that appear and attack and so forth. The variety in the stages and emenies are good and its nice that they decided to go for variety instead of animation detail. The cutout style gets the job done and the game is fun.
The shooting mechanics are great provided that your move controller is properly calibrated. You may have to go throuogh the short calibration routine a few times to get it right. Another tip is to go to accessory options in the XMB and select the option to calibrate the playstation move. Press triangle to disable the magnetic sensor and the calibration in the game The Shoot should be flawless.
The game registers headshots with instant kills for enemies that require multiple shots and is very responsive. I did find the reticule to be purposefully slower than it should be though. Its as if the developers decided not to have the reticule move at full speed even when the sensitivity is at the highest setting. I have read some reviews where it has been called laggy but its not lag per se. This did not damper my enjoyment of the game and I think the reticule speed is appropriate for the action on screen. Perhaps it was done to prevent the game from being too easy.
The gun-play includes powerful special attacks, such as Rampage, Showtime, and Shockwave, that allow players to take out multiple enemies very quickly. One of my least favorite things about the game is the Showtime special attack that requires the player to actually spin in place to execute. Yes, it requires you to spin in place and I have tried faking it to no avail. No I do not want to spin in place.
Another element that sets the game back is the inclusion of a dodgy dodge mechanic. During certain parts of the game you are prompter to move the whole move controller (and your body) to the far left or right. It just does not work properly. You have to move much to far for it to register and I found it more effective to aim and shoot down the missiles or projectiles headed my way versus dodging them.
My gripes with the game are small and dont dampen the fun that much at all. The Shoot is lots of fun. Its highly reminiscent of arcade gun shooters of days past. If you have the PlayStation Move and have an itch for a gun game this is a good game to have. A better than decent game that’s at least three to four hours of fun if you play through it once and never again. But you probably would play it more than that. Not sure if its worth the full $39 retail price but at $25-$29 I say go for it. For the most part it seems as though it could have been a downloadable title though I am sure Sony wanted something on store shelves to show that they are supporting the PlayStation move.
