At CES, we had the chance to get our hands on Razer/Sixense’s new motion controller for PC, which to this point does not have an official name. These controllers are pretty sweet peripherals. Using magnetic technology, they have significantly more accurate accelerometers than Nintendo’s Wii remote, meaning they don’t require all the recalibrations the Wii often does.
We were able to play Left 4 Dead 2 using one of the Nunchuk-shaped devices, and it worked surprisingly well. The demo showed off a number of different ways in which the controller could be used — as a standard mouse with motion functions (swinging it for melee attacks, etc.) to more motion-centric designs.
Even though it seemed pretty usable at CES, the peripheral is still in its early stages. Nevertheless, it’s a huge improvement over Nintendo’s controller. Even better, it’s programmable, so gamers who aren’t so keen on complete motion control can use it just as easily as gamers who like hacking and slashing with their controller. As seen in the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, Valve is already providing support for the product because it definitely shows promise. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
