Hands On PS3 Move: Socom 4
By Joseph Tresca
It was the last hour of the last day of E3 and I knew exactly what game and peripheral I wanted to play before heading back to New York where Eyeballistic’s day to day operations take place. So I made my way over to Socom 4 in one of the Playstation Move showcase booths. I stood on a short line and I was assured by a Sony representative that I would be the last person they would let in before closing out the show.
I’d like to come out and say this first and foremost, Socom 4 is fantastic. If you had love for any of the previous Zipper Interactive developed titles then Socom 4 will feel natural and familiar. The new third person and over the shoulder camera views really help with shooting accuracy. You can go prone which is great for sneaking around just as in the older titles. The new cover mechanic is second nature and looks very cool. You really feel as though you’ve stepped into the shoes of a highly trained special forces soldier. All that said, this isn’t a preview of what to expect for Socom 4, so much as I’d like to give you an idea for what it was like controlling Socom 4 with the Playstation Move.
To some sum it up with one word I’d describe the experience as akward. I’m left handed so perhaps It was difficult for me to wrap my right-brained mind around how the controls should work. It’s also very possible that with some tweaking to the button mapping for the PS3 Move controllers I would be able to adapt perfectly. However as it stands right now and based on the titles I had the opportunity to play at E3, I remain skeptical of the PS3 Move’s appeal with the hardcore gaming public.
The Move controller itself is actually pretty light weight compared to what you might expect. This is a very good thing because your arm gets tired when holding even the lightest of objects in front of your body, especially during extended play sessions. Admittedly this wasn’t really a problem for me during my 10 minutes of demonstration time. The accuracy of the Move as a pointer/cross hair is excellent. I didn’t receive any jitters, hops or studders while aiming at enemies. The Playstation Eye, which was sitting just above the television, appear to do a fine job of tracking the glowing orb attached to the top of the controller.
Where things get a bit confusing is when you need to turn your character’s head (essentially the camera view) to pan accross the environment, the Move controller requires you to push your cross hairs to the edge of the screen so that you can pan your view to look in that direction. In its current state, this is really very slow. Any advantage gained in accuracy is lost to head turning speed. Also using the navigation stick in your other hand can take some getting used to. I was constantly pulling the trigger on the Nav controller to fire my gun instead of pulling the trigger on the Move controller, a small problem which I’m sure could be alleviated with configurable button mapping. It’s also worth noting that the Nav controller repeats the X and O buttons which are also located on the Move controller. I understand that this is supposed to allow for easy access, but it does add some confusion and complexity which at this point in time seems excessive.
Although my first experience with Sony’s motion control peripheral was less than perfect, I’m willing to give it another shot when it makes its debut. Perhaps it just takes a little longer to get acquinted with the new controls. Perhaps some developers will implement the controls better than others. Maybe it’s because I’m left handed and with a bit of time I’d feel like a pro. I think it’s worth giving another look when I can spend hours with a final copy of the game.
