Motion Controls Were A Mistake

We are now moving into an age where VR is all the rage.  With the release of things like the Occulus Rift and the HTC Vive, when people talk about novel ways to control games that's at the forefront of the conversation.  But not so long ago motion controls were all the rage with things like the Playstation Move, Nintendo Wii and the Kinect.  It was a terrible time but it seems to have been a fad that is mostly dead now.

It all started with the Wii, when it was announced that instead of having a traditional controller it would have this remote type thing.  People were understandably excited because imagine playing something like Zelda where you could manipulate the sword freely, it was a cool concept.  What the controller for the Wii turned out to be is an awkward piece of shit that didn't quite work correctly and a lot of the best games for that system don't make all that much use of the motion part of the controller.  Hell, I remember buying Monster Hunter Tri for the fucking thing and having to drop extra money on a "proper" controller so that I could play that thing.

After that, Sony tried to imitate the Wii because despite the awkwardness of the controls, it did sort of work and the system was selling well.  The PlayStation Move came out and was largely ignored.  I've never met a single person who owned a move and now that I think about it the only game I can think that actually used it was that Time Crisis spinoff thing.  Microsoft was the company that really came along and ruined it thought with the Kinect.  A terrible, barely functional camera type thing that had 0 compatible games of any quality.  It's legacy can be boiled down to a Star Wars game where they made a bunch of corny Star Wars versions of pop songs that you had to dance to for points.

Motion controls were a thorn in the side of the industry and we are better off now that they are mostly gone.  They still exist in some capacity, for example you can tilt the WiiU controller in certain games for certain effects and that feature also extends to things like the Vita but it's not so bad since the movements are slight and the applications limited.  When a game does feature that sort of movement control as a main feature it's usually not very good.

Like I said before, we are moving into an age of VR now, so it'll be interesting to see if this is another "innovation" that will cause a slew of shit titles for years to come or a quality innovation we will stick with in the distant future.  VR is sort of a cool idea so I'm hoping that it's something we stick with but as of right now, this very second, things aren't looking so hot.  Give it time though, I have faith.