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Motion-Controlled Teabagging: Why SOCOM Fans Shouldn't Fear Move
Zipper Interactive has a lot to prove with SOCOM 4.
It will most likely be the first solidly hardcore game featuring the ability to play it either with a standard controller or the Playstation's motion-sensing Move controller.
But that doesn't mean the experience has been in anyway dumbed down to accommodate Move. Ed Byrne, creative director at Zipper, assured me that there is no reason to worry about that. In fact, he said, the game was originally developed for the Playstation 3's standard controller. They later added in the ability to play the game with Move.
Taking the Move controller in my right hand and button-packed sub-controller in my left, I took the game for a short test drive. As McWhertor laid out in his write up of SOCOM 4 with Move, the game uses a thumbstick on the left controller to move around and pointing and aiming with the right to look around and shoot.
Various buttons let you throw grenades, zoom in, reload, fire and sprint. Almost no motions are used besides for aiming. But there's a good chance that could change before release.
Byrne said that the team is looking at a lot of options for adding optional motions into the game to do things like zoom in, run or even... "victory dance."
To be specific, I asked Byrne if they would be adding motion detection for teabagging. As I said this I demonstrated the idea for the concept by holding the controllers at my waist, pointing them at the floor and repeatedly squatting.
Byrne laughed and said that there have been "lots" of conversations about that sort of motion control detection. Like allowing players to do the robot to trigger an in-game, over-corpse robot dance. Or perhaps do some arm waving to do a chicken dance. And yes, even deep squats to pull off a teabagging.
Motion-controlled victory dances or not, SOCOM 4 felt like a fairly solid shooter when played with Move. I was able to pull off quick headshots, snap in and out of cover effortlessly and zoom in on targets located several blocks away.
The only thing I wasn't happy with was the turning speed. This would only come into play if I was flanked in a match, something that can happen quite a bit. But Byrne said that the team plans to tweak that. Perhaps, he said, they'll allow gamers to tweak the settings themselves so they can control the turn speed and how far a person has to point away from center of screen to start turning.
I asked if the team had thought about playing around with the colored ball on the front of the Move controller. Perhaps using its ability to change colors in-game. You could, I theorized, have the color of the ball tell players there current health.
Byrne nixed the idea, pointing out that players usually won't be looking at the controller itself while playing the game. But, he added, the ball can change colors up to once a second, so perhaps they could do something with it.
Zipper Interactive has a lot to prove with SOCOM 4.It will most likely be the first solidly hardcore game featuring the ability to play it either with a standard controller or the Playstation's motion-sensing Move controller.
But that doesn't mean the experience has been in anyway dumbed down to accommodate Move. Ed Byrne, creative director at Zipper, assured me that there is no reason to worry about that. In fact, he said, the game was originally developed for the Playstation 3's standard controller. They later added in the ability to play the game with Move.
Taking the Move controller in my right hand and button-packed sub-controller in my left, I took the game for a short test drive. As McWhertor laid out in his write up of SOCOM 4 with Move, the game uses a thumbstick on the left controller to move around and pointing and aiming with the right to look around and shoot.
Various buttons let you throw grenades, zoom in, reload, fire and sprint. Almost no motions are used besides for aiming. But there's a good chance that could change before release.
Byrne said that the team is looking at a lot of options for adding optional motions into the game to do things like zoom in, run or even... "victory dance."
To be specific, I asked Byrne if they would be adding motion detection for teabagging. As I said this I demonstrated the idea for the concept by holding the controllers at my waist, pointing them at the floor and repeatedly squatting.
Byrne laughed and said that there have been "lots" of conversations about that sort of motion control detection. Like allowing players to do the robot to trigger an in-game, over-corpse robot dance. Or perhaps do some arm waving to do a chicken dance. And yes, even deep squats to pull off a teabagging.
Motion-controlled victory dances or not, SOCOM 4 felt like a fairly solid shooter when played with Move. I was able to pull off quick headshots, snap in and out of cover effortlessly and zoom in on targets located several blocks away.
The only thing I wasn't happy with was the turning speed. This would only come into play if I was flanked in a match, something that can happen quite a bit. But Byrne said that the team plans to tweak that. Perhaps, he said, they'll allow gamers to tweak the settings themselves so they can control the turn speed and how far a person has to point away from center of screen to start turning.
I asked if the team had thought about playing around with the colored ball on the front of the Move controller. Perhaps using its ability to change colors in-game. You could, I theorized, have the color of the ball tell players there current health.
Byrne nixed the idea, pointing out that players usually won't be looking at the controller itself while playing the game. But, he added, the ball can change colors up to once a second, so perhaps they could do something with it.
