Even more money required for PS3 to play well…
For those that don’t know what the FragFX is, you can see what I’m talking about here.
I have recently gotten tired of the hassle of PC Gaming, and the issue with the invasive DRM crud that installs with BioShock pretty much nailed the coffin shut for me. Problem is, gamepads don’t really measure up when it comes to FPS games — not when one is used to playing with a keyboard/mouse combo. This is especially the case when you consider that I am a precision-type player; when I go killin’, I like to do it via headshot.
So, what to do? I started looking around on the net for answers and was surprised to discover that there weren’t many. Joey pointed me to this thing for the Xbox 360, but the user-reviews I read made me run quickly in the opposite direction. I was even more disheartened to learn that, based on the acceleration action* programmed into console FPS games, it wasn’t really going to be possible unless Microsoft got onboard and released a serious firmware update. And we know how well MS plays with others, don’t we?
Then I read about the FragFX. Apparently, the PS3 is a bit more open to receiving mouse and keyboard input than the 360. The people at SplitFish ran with that and made a controller that splits the Sixaxis into two parts. The analog dongle resembles the Wii nunchuck a great deal, especially considering that’s where the motion control of the Sixaxis is located on the FragFX. The question would be, though, what about the mouse?
I’m happy to report that it works well so far. I have only tried it on one game, and that one is a PS2 game (Black). The controller takes some getting used to, especially for people with large hands like myself (I’m 6 feet, 4 inches tall…most stuff isn’t built for me). But once I got it, I noticed an improvement in target acquisition. Since Black forces you to perform headshots, that was important.
I plan on picking up Resistance: Fall of Man soon and I’ll let you know how it works then. I didn’t get R:FoM immediately because I hate playing FPS with a controller (see above). I already own Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, so I’ll be checking that out, too.
(Before anyone points it out, I know that a 360 will allow the use of a mouse and keyboard…when entering text or browsing Live. It just doesn’t support mouse/keyboard game control, last I checked).
*For an example of the acceleration feature, fire up a game of Halo on the 360 and push the right stick all the way to the right or left. Notice it starts off slowly and then accelerates. Apparently, this is a feature of the hardware and makes creating a mouse-based controller nigh impossible.
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