Killzone 3 isn’t even out yet and here we are talking about the game, its nifty little features, and the grand scope of its wizard-like technology. Guerrilla Games managed to pack 3D functionality (and the reports are saying it is the best out there) and a more than rubbish, less than essential Playstation Move controller setup (if you want it).
A few folks have been trying out the beta (still open) and finding it exciting at first then irritating later as they realize there is going to be a fairly unforgiving learning curve. I myself find it turns the experience into the less relevant gaming environment of arcade (for that trademark Killzone atmosphere anyway), providing a credit-worthy demonstration of how accurate the technology is but offering an unnecessary gimmick in the long run.
Principal programmer at Guerrilla, Tommy de Roos, headed the development for Move-Killzone lovemaking and suggests that the hardcore FPS audience is simply in a time of “transition”. I myself am unsure of how true this actually is, I’ll agree that Move has been selling admirably, but not nearly well enough to make it replace the Dualshock. Most gamers have grown up on joypads/sticks and the extent of their brain-finger-button-game calibration is deeply buried in their muscle memory, Move has been out for a few months and most PS3 owners don’t even have one.
The people who did buy one were expecting a more accurate Wii and that’s what they got. Casual gaming controllers for casual games and casual gamers, little else. Don’t get me wrong, I love the odd half sized Lucozade bottle of sexual innuendo but it remains in my mind as an ACCESSORY, and that dear readers is the key word that is being looked over.
Move is in the same goodies bag as all those weird steering wheels and fancy joypads you can get from dodgy internet sites and smelly high street stores, Sony have Shakespeare in a strip club. Coming back to Tommy de Roos from Guerrilla, he thinks people are “opening up to it” and that it offers an “extra dimension”. Fair enough I guess, but I don’t personally feel any more immersed into a game by having to twitch my arms about, in fact it makes me even more aware of the fact I’m playing a game. It’s like someone is laughing on the other side of a two way mirror while I practice getting dressed.
However Mr de Roos did admit that “You lose some of the accuracy when rotating, that becomes more difficult” but argues you make up for this loss by being able to “point anywhere on the screen and send your bullets flying there. A trade-off”. I can see his point but don’t think there should be any trade off at all in the first place, gamers have honed their technique to allow them to aim and turn quickly without sacrificing one or the other.
But whether or not the motion control craze will simply “poof” out of existence in a year or so, or swamp the FPS market with its glowing balls and gyroscope wizardry, is all up to you lot.
What do you think?
