Child of Eden for the PS3 is a combination techno music plus shooter game. You get extra points for shooting the enemies in time with the music. It can be both lush and frustrating.

I played this both with and without the PS3 Move system. Then I put the game aside for a while and played other games for a few weeks. Then I came back to it to see if my thoughts on it changed. They didn't, so I'm quite comfortable with both the good and iffy parts of how this plays.

First, the good. This is a cool shooter game with an immersive (assuming of course you like techno-music) soundtrack. Think of the old racing-down-tunnel shooter games with enemies on all walls of the tunnel. You move your cursor around furiously trying to point at all the enemies to kill them before you move past them. You can either one-off shoot them or create a chain of shots to take them all out. You of course get more points for the chain and, as mentioned, if you shoot in time with the music it's even better. Since your shots make sound, it's almost as if you're playing along with the music. It's quite fun.

The graphics have a line drawing / techno feel to them as well, so you're immersed in this whole world.

Just be sure to ignore their plotline, which is incredibly silly. Just focus on the gameplay and the shooting.

The game can get immensely challenging very quickly. So you have to have quick reflexes to be able to get past the levels. You're trying to shoot multiple targets in multiple locations in split seconds.

Now, on the not-so-great side, I found both the regular PS3 controller and the PS3 move to have issues. I've used the PS3 move for many games and it would seem to be a natural here where you're pointing at things on the screen and shooting. But I had numerous problems with it shooting where I wanted it to. I don't have that problem in other games. It often felt like I had to "pull" at the controller to get the screen to line up properly. It was quite a frustrating feeling, especially in something as super-quick as this game. And when I went to the regular controller, trying to control 3D space and moving around with the regular device was quite a challenge. There wasn't fine enough control for what they expected out of you. They really did expect you to be using the Move controller.

I adore games like Lumines that are sound based. I thought I would absolutely fall in love with this. But the controller issues made it too frustrating for me, and with the many other games I have that I *do* love, I just never find myself putting this back in to play some more.

So I have to say that there was great potential here, and maybe a new version will come out that fixes some of its issues. I give it four stars for pushing the envelope, but it loses a star for implementation.

I purchased this game with my own funds for the purpose of doing this review.

Buy Child of Eden PS3 from Amazon.com