Child of Eden, Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Kinect-powered techno-psychedelic musical-shooter/tone poem on the nature of digital existence, is finally ready to complete its long journey to the PlayStation 3. Scheduled to arrive September 20, 2011, Child of Eden for PS3 will carry a $49.99 suggested retail price and include PlayStation Move support.
Released last month for the Xbox 360, Child of Eden is a motion-controlled game of a different stripe -- it's about as far away from minigame collections as players are apt to get.
Fans of Mizuguchi's previous work, particularly Rez (award yourself bonus points if you played the Japanese Dreamcast version) should know what to expect. Newcomers to the Q Entertainment line of products will likely need some time to acclimatize, though take heart: Child of Eden may be visually overwhelming and borderline hallucinogenic, but at least you get to shoot stuff.
Game Rant first got to go hands-on with Child of Eden at PAX East last March. We worried then that the game may not contain enough content to justify a full-priced retail product, a concern that remained after we played through the finished version (check out our full Child of Eden review for all the details). Simply put, some players are going to have a problem with paying $50 for Child of Eden. Given that the Xbox 360 edition of the game, on store shelves for barely a month, has already been discounted to $30 at GameStop, a $50 price point on CoE PS3 seems high -- though how long it remains at that price remains to be seen.
On the Xbox 360, Child of Eden is one of the (very) few motion games not pitched directly at children, and as such it fills a unique niche: a Kinect game that grown-ups might reasonably be expected to buy for themselves. Still, without any obvious competition for the adult gamer's Kinect dollar, Child of Eden still only managed to move 34k on the 360 last month. What do those numbers mean for the game's pending appearance on PS3?
On PlayStation 3, the motion-control landscape is vastly different. PlayStation Move owning gamers can already play Killzone 3 and SOCOM 4, and there is even a nifty Sharpshooter peripheral for players who really want to go all in. The point is, Move owners aren't looking for a game to justify their investment -- they have plenty of choices. Where does that leave Child of Eden?
Hopefully, not lost in the shuffle. Issues of price and audience aside, there simply isn't anything else quite like Child of Eden. Esoteric though its aesthetic may be, the game remains highly accessible and quite a lot of fun. Now, about that price...
Ranters, what do you think of Child of Eden? Any PlayStation 3 owners planning on buying the game this September? Tell us all about it in the comments below.
Child of Eden for PlayStation 3 arrives September 20, 2011.
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Source: 1up