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Killzone 3
At Sony's CES booth the company is showing off Killzone 3 with all its bells and whistles. Why fight the Helghast in HD with a DualShock 3 controller when you can play it in three dimensions with the Move controller housed in a gun-shaped peripheral?!
As you can see in the image below, the PlayStation Move Sharp Shooter houses the Move wand in the barrel of the gun and places the Navigation nunchuk at an angle beneath it. To keep your fingers from contorting too much during battle, Sony smartly placed the crouch button on the gun handle and moved the square and triangle buttons to the gun body above the trigger. Players can also control the rate of fire with a handy toggle and decorate the weapon with ISA or Helghast decals.
The level I played found me fighting up a hill, only to run into a massive Helghast crawler firing missiles at everything that moves. As I worked my way toward the inevitable David vs. Goliath confrontation, I had a chance to familiarize myself with the controls in a few tight corridors populated with Helghast grunts. The aiming is relatively accurate, and if it gets hairy you can switch to auto-targeting by pushing the Navigation trigger. To reload the weapon, you simply twist the gun at an angle.
As you would expect, the transition from aiming at targets to choosing a direction to move can be tricky. As this PlayStation Blog entry explains, the game basically nullifies character movements when the reticle is in the aiming deadzone. To get your soldier out of the open and into cover, you need to swing your aim with an extreme gesture. Finding the sweet spot for this transition may be difficult, but developer Guerrilla Games is including customization options in Killzone 3 so you can fine-tune the responsiveness to your liking.
Once I moved through the trenches, my deadly dance with the huge crawler ensued. After picking up one of the awesome heat-seeking rocket launchers sitting on a shelf in a nearby bunker, I started lobbing volleys toward the massive machine when its exhaust valves discharged. The hulking crawler responded in kind with a barrage of fire, ripping my cover to shreds. I came away from the fight more impressed with the new control scheme than with the 3D effects, which, despite Jimmy Fallon's nerd worship, still don't feel like a game changer.
Though buying a Move wand, Navigation controller, 3D television, 3D glasses, and the Sharp Shooter peripheral is an expensive proposition, those of you who are crazy enough to drop that kind of money to play Killzone 3 will be treated to a unique experience. The $39.99 peripheral hits store shelves when Killzone 3 launches on February 22, and it's also compatible with SOCOM 4.
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