Game industry icon Hideo “all cutscenes, all the time” Kojima has suggested that Killzone 2‘s motion control implementations were rushed, and in doing so has warned his fellow game developers that careful use of such new control schemes is important. After spending some time with the upcoming PS3 exclusive, Kojima reported a less than fluid experience with the Sixaxis:
For some players, motion control will come naturally straight away, but for others it might feel difficult, so the game designer is really now responsible to think about which direction he or she should take. I played Killzone 2 this morning, actually, and it was funny because the FPS control was traditional FPS, but when you come to a door and have to kind of open the latch, you all of a sudden have to use the Sixaxis, and nobody was succeeding. So maybe they were kind of rushing to implement the technical design, which might not be the correct way to do it in that title.
It’s certainly nice to see people talking about more than just the graphics, but dodgy Sixaxis controls are not a good sign, especially if nobody was getting them right. It will probably be a little niggle, and one gamers will swiftly adapt to, but Kojima is right to advise caution when using motion controls. Briskly shoehorning them in merely for inclusion’s sake is rather silly and can lead to problems like the one Kojima mentions. Just because you have something, doesn’t mean you’re bound by law to use it. I sometimes miss the days when buttons were enough for developers.
