So I finally caved, and bought a Move-controller. Of course, it's one thing to test it on a calibrated demo-setup, while standing in a lit room, and another thing to set it up for yourself. So let's see what we have here.
The package (the starter kit) contains:
A bunch of manuals. A disc with some demos. One bulb-controller. And a PSEye.
The controller is pretty light, lighter than a wii-mote with the bluetooth module - even though it's about 20cm long or so. It's thinner on the middle, and heavier towards the point right before the bulb - so it rests nicely in differently shaped hands. Or, said differently, your hand slips forward until your fingers rest on the buttons. Underneath the controller is an analogue trigger - very soft and comfortable. Lighter than on the sixaxis, in other words.
The square/triangle/circle/x buttons are placed around the middle of the soft "move-button". Unlike the sixaxis controller, the face-buttons are state-switched, and are shrinked down a bit. So you need to push a bit harder before they click down. It seems to me that this is a good idea over using soft buttons for all of them, since you don't rest the bulb-controller against your other hand for support. So the soft "move-button" in the middle is easy to push with the thumb without accidentally hitting anything else. As long as you don't use the smaller buttons for aiming switches, this should work well. There's a start and a select-button on the sides as well.
The bulb, as has been pointed out, is soft and won't break very easily. Which is a good thing, as the calibration cycling that goes on between starting up a move compatible game, and until you actually get to the calibration screen may very well induce mind-burn and mild insanity. The blue power-indicator on the PSEye is also impossible to turn off - though I could cover it with electric tape and have fewer side-effects.
The PSEye is basically a usb-camera with a microphone. It's not as light as the typical stick-cameras, and comes with a tiny stand you can rotate around. It's easy to place this on a desk, or on top of the tv. But you can get away with resting it below or on top of a flat monitor as well. It has a 2.5m long usb-cable. And the contact has a cap you can put on. Nice touch, since most ps3s only have two usb-ports, and you're bound to switch the cables in and out a bit.
Installing it is basically just finding a spot for the pseye in front of you, and plugging the bulb-controller to charge on a the other usb-port. Once you do, you can switch around on some settings for the pseye for noise-reduction, or calibrate the bulb-controller. But it's not necessary. The move-controller also uses bluetooth, like the other controllers, and receives an ID at the end of the ID list - there's no conflicts going on by connecting a move, and then timing out a pad, before connecting it again, etc.
At this point, the xmb should automatically remind you that it's possible to navigate it by holding in the trigger-button, and flipping back and forth.
This is fairly good, actually. You hold the trigger-button down to catch a reference point, and then you flip up and down. Slow movements cause accurate movements, fast movement zaps past the items, before you can slow down and pick the item you want. It will take your average 12 year old about three seconds to pick up on (though please don't tell her I said she's average. Obviously, she's not, just so we're clear on that. But she lets me know that it's really easy, even for dumb people).
I'm not that impressed either - so let's move on to (ohh, hahaha).. something else. In the starter pack, there's a disc with a bunch of demos. Using the move, we navigate to the box with Tumble, and do the install. Then.. the patch-install.. and two minutes later, we're greeted with full localisation and voice-overs for the game. This is definitively designed for kids, and my heart sinks. I'm noting a couple of spelling errors, but I'm defeated, and I will renege the ownership over the bulb-controller for the rest of the evening.
"Point the move-controller towards the pseye and hold down the move-button". That's all there is to the calibration in this game. A green hook, and we're on a screen with a hand hovering across the menu. Now this is extremely smooth. If we compare to the wii, it would have this jitter, even if you put the wii-mote down on the table. The bulb-controller is perfectly accurate and utterly smooth. You also don't lose sync just because something is stupidly waving in front of you. It's also smooth and accurate if you move further back (blehh..). No wonder, really, since the eye is just picking up the coloured ball, and not a beam. The controller is also ambiguous.
Once we go into the game, in the 3d context, the pointer receives a small trailing, though. Obviously, the design chooses a different sync once it needs to update the 3d scene, and calibrates it to lower than the screen's refresh. It's not enough to upset your aim in any way, but you notice that it's not entirely 1:1 any more. ..by a small sliver of a fraction of a second, basically.
Tumble is a block-building game, just without the mess. Accordingly, the entire game is pristine and clean, with white and bright colours, calm music, and clean UI.
And it's a good demo of what the bulb-controller is all about. You can move the controller back and forth in the scene. Reach into it, etc. Then pick up a block, flip it around, rotate it in all directions, etc. It doesn't particularly mind if you hold the controller at an angle either - or shift the position of the "center" during gameplay. Very slick, in fact.
The first time I saw something like this was several years ago on a tech-demo with infrared sensors around a glove. Basically, it had limited movement around the axes, as well as some rotation detection. There was talk about using this for precision incisions during operations, and so on. But it didn't really take off. The 3d imagining software was rescued for some other project later, I believe.
With this solution instead of an infrared detector array - to use a coloured ball in front of a camera, along with a few gyroscopes inside the controller - it has perfect mapping of movement in all the axes, as well as shifts in depth and direction following your movement. The smaller the ball, the further away, etc.
It's a technically well made product, no doubt. And it's also mature when it comes to the presentation. Not often Sony pulls off both of those at the same time. So full props to Anton and Richard at the development labs. This is a really neat gizmo.
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CoarseDragon - March 02, 2011 (12:10 PM) Nice. I do not have one yet but just might get one sometime soon. |
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fleinn - March 03, 2011 (04:21 AM) ..have to admit Tumble closed the deal for me here. ..Ok, ok, so you pick up a cone-shaped transparent glass-piece with the bulb - the controller is inside the screen in the angle and direction you're facing. Then you flip it with a flick, and suspend it by the pointy end. And then reach around the back on the side, turning the controller so it points in from the right, and then slowly, slowly, and extremely accurately, place the piece in between an arc between two larger pieces you just see from your angle. The piece rolls a little bit, the tower zooms out and does a count-down from 3. The tower shakes in the foundations, but it still stands! Yess! It also has two-player. Build together, one piece each, make your own rules.. ..I ah.. I bought the Move for Socom4, though. Yeah. *cough* |
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