At the Consumer Electronics Show last week, PC peripheral maker Razer has announced a special version of Valve's upcoming first-person puzzle game Portal 2 designed for use with the company's motion-sensitive Hydra PC controllers.
A special version of the game, including new puzzles and maps designed to take advantage of the Hydra's unique abilities, will be included with a special bundle when the controller is released early in 2011, the company announced.
Joystiq reports those special levels will utilize the ability to rotate, move, and scale in-game cubes by moving and reorienting the hand-held controllers in real space.
Based on TrueMotion technology created by hardware partner Sixense, the Hydra senses the position and orientation of two handheld controllers using a magnetic field generated by a base station.
These motions can be mapped to keyboard and mouse controls, or accounted for specifically in specially designed games. The controllers also include thumbsticks and buttons for non-motion-based controls.
At last year's Consumer Electronics Show, a specially designed version of Left 4 Dead 2 let players use the prototype to swing an axe with complete freedom of movement.
Price points for the controller and bundle were not revealed, but a Razer representative told Joystiq they were targeting a price under $100 for the two-controller set up.
Portal 2 is currently targeted for an April 18 release date.
No, I expect them not to give exclusive content to people who own a specific PC gaming peripheral. That's like withholding levels because I don't own the right kind of keyboard. It's gimmicky and lame.
i played around with this hardware a bit and i actually really like it. there's a cool new input device that fails every year (remember the novint falcon?) and i hope this is NOT one of them.
I also tried this tech and it works really well (think super-accurate wiimotes). Here's hoping some 3D art packages support this controller because getting core PC gamers to try anything other than a mouse seems to be a losing proposition (See above comments).
If a high-calibre fantasy RPG came along that fully took advantage of this, I'd buy. But I'd also want it to take advantage of my TrackIR -- which I use in my flight and racer sims.
I'm excited about this. The fact that Valve is behind it, and giving it a "system seller" so to speak, gives it a chance to be more than a curiosity. I'm sure they'll be pushing it on Steam as well.
You can configure these to work with just about any game or program. "Native" support would take more advantage of the hardware, though.
I'm also glad they went wired for now. That should cut lag down even further, hopefully making them more acceptable to serious gamers.
Why would I want to try a motion controller for a first person game on PC?!
Put a head track camera so I can lean my own body in front of the monitor, give me a thumb trackball, or anything else, but give me something that improves my gamming time is some way.
Don't try tricking me, you offend my intelligence.
If you buy this special controller and they'll toss in a few extra levels. It's called an "incentive"
(Because they're doing that still.)
You can configure these to work with just about any game or program. "Native" support would take more advantage of the hardware, though.
I'm also glad they went wired for now. That should cut lag down even further, hopefully making them more acceptable to serious gamers.
Why would I want to try a motion controller for a first person game on PC?!
Put a head track camera so I can lean my own body in front of the monitor, give me a thumb trackball, or anything else, but give me something that improves my gamming time is some way.
Don't try tricking me, you offend my intelligence.