PS3 Assault Rifle Misfires Inspite of Move [Video]

In multiplayer shooters, I’m the worst, and peripherals offer the seductive idea of an advantage. CTA Digital’s Assault Rifle Controller, for PlayStation Move, appears like something that would point-and-shoot me to pwnage, or not less than not sucking.

Billed as an all-in-one, enhanced solution for PlayStation Move’s upcoming slate of first-person shooter titles, the CTA Digital Assault rifle combines the Move’s navigation controller functions with a cradle under the barrel for the Move controller itself. The belief is to make moving and firing your weapon more accurate and more intuitive through a well-recognized object. But chances are high that, an assault rifle is anything but familiar to most who’d consider using this.

The Basics

CTA Digital has built some quirky and charming peripherals to bring console video gaming out of the orthodoxy of its current controller setup. Bowling balls, footballs, steering wheels, the shop in Brooklyn is an concept factory constantly seeking how to give gamers a more tactile feeling of playing the games they enjoy. It is what they’ve made for shooters.

Using It

The Assault Rifle Controller comes in four segments – a stock, a scope, an under-barrel cradle for a PlayStation Move controller, and the body of an automatic weapon. The scope is cosmetic. Fitting all of it together is modest. The cradle has a separate trigger that fits astride the primary one, and is used to activate the S button on a PlayStation Move controller (that is the firing control). Batteries go inside the handle. Place a dongle in one of several PS3′s USB slots, flip the ability switch to ” On” and press the rifle’s ” Home” button, and it’s good to head.

What We Liked

Well, it’s fun to hold and pose with it.

What We Didn’t Like

Practically everything. The box says the controller is ” compatible with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2; Call of Duty: Black Ops, Killzone 3, SOCOM 4 [and] MAG.” Of those, MAG is the only real currently available title with PlayStation Move support. Only inside the most literal sense is the compatible with the two Call of Duty titles, in that it has each of the working buttons of a DualShock controller spread across an assault rifle body. However it’s no more ” compatible” with that game than Madden NFL 11. Seeking to play Black Ops with it was a disorienting mess, especially for a game with so many set pieces and QuickTime events. In no case do I recommend this controller for it or any game without Move support.

With Move enabled in MAG, there wasn’t any form of breakthrough in control, convenience or tactical advantage. It’s still mostly a tremendous cradle for the Move wand, and a fairly heavy one at that. Ergonomically there is extraordinarily little that runs smoothly when using it. The left thumbstick is on the barrel and clicking it, to sprint, is harder to trigger at this attitude. Triangle, which controls crouching and going prone, is on the worst finger, your pinky, which also covers square because your index is on L1 (aim down sights) at the frontmost of the barrel. L2 is on the best thumb at the pistol grip, but due to the way the Move button on the wand overrides R2, switching your primary weapon (or to it from grenades) requires reaching down and pressing the Move button along with your left hand. Playing it for an hour, my left arm was sore from the near-right angle at which I had to hold the barrel and align my fingers to its buttons.

As far as your accuracy while firing, you do gain stability, that’s good for shooting, but attributable to its location underneath the barrel you’re always angling it high. You furthermore may lose you the strategy of wrist flick you get with a Move wand in hand, moving your look-around nimbly. That’s key because where you ” look” with one hand in a normal Move-controlled FPS, you’ve got to do it with two here. I got around MAG much easier with a Move wand and a DualShock acting instead of a navigation controller than I did with this rifle. Finally, the unit itself feels cheaply constructed, particularly within the triggers. A peg on the front of the detachable Move cradle mysteriously broke off as I reattached it after being silly in Black Ops, requiring me to tape the whole lot together.

The Bottom Line

As a PS3 controller for traditional games, here’s a luxurious and unplayable gimmick; as a Move peripheral, this can be built to seem like an assault rifle more it was engineered to provide you the tactical good thing about one. It offers only minimal aiming stability while requiring a new and infrequently awkward muscle memory for all other functions. In multiplayer, which MAG is exclusively, fast and intuitive reactions are key to having fun and unfortunately, this rifle is prone to jam you up at a critical moment. Nevertheless it did get me to check out MAG, and I rather enjoyed it. With a DualShock.

The Assault Rifle Gun Controller was developed by CTA Digital for use with the PlayStation 3. Retails for USD$59.99 and released in this configuration Jan. 12 (a model without the Move cradle released Aug. 10.) A device was given to us by the manufacturer for reviewing purposes. Tested on PlayStation 3 using Call of Duty: Black Ops and MAG.

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This post is tagged: automatic weapon, controller functions, controller playstation, controller setup, enhanced solution, first-person-shooter, steering wheels