Motion controls have been one of the defining changes in this generation of consoles. The revolution that kicked off with the Wii has spread, and Nintendo's rivals have introduced their own take on the idea via Xbox Kinect and PlayStation Move.

While casual players have embraced the control schemes, they have had the opposite effect on core gamers, who view them with skepticism and outright derision. It's a fair position to take. Although motion controls cater to a wider audience, the games for the devices are generally bad.

They're often minigame collections that lack variety or depth, or they're tacked on to a release as an afterthought. There are a few genres where motion controls work -- mostly

dance and fitness games -- but they aren't as appealing to the same demographic.

So where are the motion-control games for the core gamer?

Capcom and Sony are taking a stab at it with two recent releases, "Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor" for the Kinect and "Sorcery" for the Move. For hard-core gamers, both projects have familiar trappings: "Heavy Armor" is a sequel to the 2002 mech game and "Sorcery" is a fantasy action title.

The more intriguing of the two is the new "Steel Battalion," which requires players to use both the Kinect and Xbox 360 controller at the same time. Done in the first-person, the game puts players in charge of a vertical tank, aka a giant robot. Players control the vehicle and interact with its crew

as they try to liberate America from the U.N. (Yes, it sounds crazy, but it's a long story, involving a silicon-eating virus that destroys computer technology and China's domination of the world.)

At first glance, it looks fantastic. Players see a cockpit and use the Kinect controls to access the different levers and buttons on the mech. Reaching up will pull down a periscope. Grabbing a side console and yanking a chain will vent the tank.

In theory, this would make a deeply immersive experience that Kinect was designed for. Unfortunately, the execution is off, and the new "Steel Battalion" is a mess. The gestures don't always work. Sometimes they activate other controls. It's frustrating when 40 percent of the time, the game doesn't do what you want.

The rest of the game is fine, when players use the Xbox 360 controller to maneuver the tank and shoot, but it's the reliance on Kinect gestures that ruins "Steel Battalion" and sends it to the video game scrap heap.

While Capcom's title is a disappointment, "Sorcery" does better with its motion controls on the PlayStation 3. The Move works more like the Wii remote with the same type of one-to-one fidelity. As the protagonist, Finn, players have to help a faerie

princess named Erline battle her mother, who has been corrupted by an entity called Nightmare.

Armed with a wand, Finn can cast arcane bolts to defeat foes and gain elemental spells along the way. To fire off magic, players have to flick the Move control in the direction of the enemy. It sounds intuitive, but "Sorcery's" lack of a lock-on system makes fighting frustrating at times.

Waggling the Move control at an enemy won't get the job done. Players have to precisely aim at foes in several directions, but doing it precisely and under pressure can be daunting. The camera can also be awful, forcing players to look in one direction when they don't want to or switching perspective based on the proximity of a monster. They'll be battling the camera more than the foes at times.

Despite these flaws, "Sorcery" is at least a playable core game. It even has a decent fantasy story and beautiful moments. It's a title that deserves a try, but don't expect it to be the blockbuster that sells gamers on motion controls.

Contact Gieson Cacho at 510-735-7076 or gcacho@bayareanews group.com. Read his blog at http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei.