A new take on the Light Gun technology
The death of the CRT TV and the rise of the Plasma and LCD was fantastic, unless you were a fan of light-gun games. These games were very popular in the arcade with notable titles like Time Crisis and House of the Dead, and they made the move to the home consoles very early on with the Nintendo Entertainment System coming bundled with Duck Hunt and a light gun, and every subsequent generation had a few games and devices.
The light gun technology is very picky about how it works and it does not work very well (or most of the time not at all) on modern flat screens.
The PlayStation Move was not introduced to solve this problem, it was more of a happy accident, but early on it was showcased that this type of game could make a come-back with this technology and a small single handed PlayStation Move Gun Adapter was released.
The PlayStation Move SharpShooter released about a year or so after that and was bundled with Killzone 3 and Resistance 3. The device has two compartments, the first at the front of the barrel is where you slot in and connect the Move controller, this one is mandatory. Secondly you can attach a Navigation Controller, this is optional for some games. The device itself is also more than just a piece of molded plastic. It has some simple integrated electronics that provide alternative buttons for the Move controller. For example the physical trigger on the gun in place of the T button and a button where the magazine would go, acts as the Move button.
There are also two sets of Square and Triangle buttons, to support left and right handed players, a reload button and a firing mode selector. At first, when I attempted to put the PS Move controller into the mechanism at the front, I thought I would have to remove the strap, which would be a bit of an inconvenience when swapping between games, but they thought of that and provided a pass-through for the strap too. You can even change the length of the stock to fit different player sizes.
I have to say I am impressed with the quality of it. When the controllers are attached it has a very satisfying weight and solidity to it.
The list of compatible games for it however, is quite low. This is the best list I can find, so even with some more obscure titles it’s around twenty games and MAG you can’t even play because it is permanently online and the servers have shut down. You do have to be careful when picking up titles though, some of the games only have move support on a re-release or a downloadable patch. I believe Resident Evil 5 needs the Gold Edition to get the support. Looking at my library of games I have eight compatible games but I decided to pick three to have a go at for this test. Those were: Time Crisis: Razing Storm, Killzone 3 and Resistance 3.
Compatible Games
- Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2011
- Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 2012
- Child of Eden
- Dead Space: Extraction (Included on Dead Space 2 Limited Edition)
- GoldenEye 007: Reloaded
- Greg Hastings Paintball 2 (PSN Only)
- Heavy Fire: Afghanistan
- Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear
- House of the Dead Overkill: Extended Cut
- Killzone 3
- MAG
- Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
- Resistance 3
- SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals
- Time Crisis: Razing Storm
- The Shoot
- BioShock Infinite
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (PSN Only)
- Modern Combat: Domination (PSN Only)
- Modern Combat: Demolition (PSN Only)
- Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection
Time Crisis: Razing Storm
Time Crisis with the PlayStation Move SharpShooter is fantastic. It is a totally valid replacement for the light-gun of days gone by. I found it accurate, responsive and tons of fun. I believe, although not tested, you could play local co-op if you had two SharpShooters and a willing friend. When I tried out Time Crisis I just assumed I would need the Navigation controller so I equipped it, as I played I realised that I didn’t, because there is no player movement, but I accidentally pressed a button on it which activated it as player two. This meant I could play two players all by myself and use the navigation controller thumb stick to move the crosshairs for the second player. Whilst initially realising this was brilliant I quickly determined that playing two controllers at once was far beyond my skill level, although with practice, I bet it could be done.
Killzone 3
Next up I tried Killzone 3. I thought this one worked alright, here you need the Navigation Controller to move around. So you use the thumb stick to move and you look around by physically moving the Move controller. In the opening section of the game you play through a tutorial taking place in a military base, it feels less than optimal to use the SharpShooter for this section, but when you get into combat it comes into its own. I could only manage the game in short bursts with this though, as the device is quite heavy and it gets a bit tiresome. I also realised that Killzone 3 and Resistance 3 support 3D, I sadly do not have a 3D TV but I would very much like to experience playing these games with this device whilst in 3D mode.
Resistance 3
Onto Resistance 3 now and the experience is very similar to Killzone 3, you start the game in a resistance bunker and it is quite funny to be pointing the gun at all of your family and friends as you move around the bunker chatting to people. I found the controls particularly frustrating on this one, it doesn’t feel as smooth as Killzone 3. You can configure the deadzone to try and make it better, but it is just so awkward moving the gun to aim and to control the camera.
Out of all three games, Time Crisis was definitely the best fit, whilst I appreciated the sharpshooter elevating the basic light gun concept with the ability to move around and play a more traditional FPS, it is just clunky, sub-optimal, and it limits your play session time.
The PlayStation Move SharpShooter is a pretty decent but underused device. Currently on eBay the device itself is going for about £40 - 50. The PlayStation Move and Navigation controllers can go between £10 - 20 each and then you still need to get a few of the games to actually have something to play, although ironically the games are the cheapest part of the whole package. Personally I don’t see myself finishing the campaigns of Killzone 3 and Resistance 3 with this, but I do think I will regularly pick it up to play some Time Crisis to scratch that Arcade itch and I think I am definitely going to go and pick up the House of the Dead now too, but for everyone else it is just far too expensive to justify it.