Okay, this is my first stab at a video review. Sorry about the poor quality of my voiceover and overall fatness of my face. I'm working on fixing one of those problems. Won't say which.
Overall opinion: there's a lot of potential in this device, but not a lot of substance yet. Fingers crossed: the company will be around long enough to see this thing through because it could be great.
-Aaron
P.S. Also, I had high resolution in mind when I edited this; I couldn't get this down to size to upload while keeping the text readable. Again...sorry about that. I'll do better next time.
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This device is awesome! Using a motion controller to blast away zombies in Left 4 Dead 2 puts a big ol' banana grin on my face.The technology behind the Razer Hydra isn't perfect yet, but it is pretty darn close. The one issue I initially had with this device was interference from surrounding electronics. Things that have powerful magnetic fields (some speakers, laptop power bricks, etc) have the potential to cause some jitter of the cursor. This issue is very unlikely to effect you, and if it does the resolution simple. For me, the solution was just to move the base station more towards the front of my desk.
[EDIT] After some testing to find out what was causing my level of jitter, I found it to be my Asus 23" 3D monitor. With the monitor off, my jitter drops to basically nothing (tested this with second monitor). Hoping to hear some good news from sixense regarding this, but seems that I just have a highly interfering product. The Hydra is still perfectly functional even with this interference, I just have to hold the controllers at a closer distance to the base to get the jitter to become unnoticeable.
[EDIT #2] From another post on the sixense forums, it seems like another guy with jitter determined it to be his 3D monitor (Benq brand I think he said it was). I have a second monitor (Asus 21.5" LED) and it causes zero interference. Also, no interference from the display on my laptop.
In conclusion if you have a 3D monitor you may experience jitter with the Razer Hydra.
The general setup in most games is to use the analog stick on the left controller to move around, while using the right handed motion controller to aim. Some games (at least L4D2) also feature motion gestures for the left controller. Tilting the controller up quickly jumps, tilting down crouches, tilting left and right switch weapons, and rotating the controller to the left reloads. Other important actions are bound to one of the four buttons on each side. There is no way as of yet to program your own control setup for games, but Razer states on their support website that the option will be available soon.
[EDIT] As a sixense moderator has stated in reply to this review, you can in fact modify your controls even now. It isn't yet natively editable within the Razer Hydra config program from Razer's site, but modifying a few text files within your Razer Hydra program folder is all you need to do to change your controls. They will add native support within the config program eventually I imagine, but it's not here just yet.
One specific mechanism you will have to learn with motion controllers is called "ratcheting." When you are using the controller to aim, you're going to tilt your wrist to the side. What happens when your wrist cant bend any more to the right? In order to continue aiming right you hold a button on the right controller which locks the cursor in place, while you whip your wrist back to the default forward position. This allows you to continue aiming in all directions even though you reach the edge of how far you can move. Takes a little bit of learning to get used to, but not too tricky.
You can also use the Razer Hydra in gamepad mode, where it essentially becommes a 360 controller that has been chopped in half. The four buttons on the right controller correspond to ABXY, while the four buttons on the left controller correspond to dpad up down left right.
If you are looking to have fun with a high quality motion controller on your PC, look no further. The Razer Hydra will truly add another dimension to your game. I could not recommend this product more!
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The Razer Hydra is awesome and I hope it succeeds. It has 3 major problems that it needs to over come:1) Jitter
2) Controls Mapping Software
3) Game/Software Support
If you're willing to work with the Hydra then you may be able to partially overcome these issues.
1) To remove Jitter you need to move the base in front of your keyboard. Basically as close as you can to the controllers.
2) Most recent alpha software available from Sixense but it's very difficult to use. Can work well if you love to tinker with software.
3) Only main stream game with direct support for the Hydra is Portal 2. Beyond that you may ask yourself, "Why am I not just using my mouse and keyboard instead?" You can get it to work with other game, but it's a pain.
I think Sixense needs to partner with Oculus Rift (Upcoming awesome VR goggles) and put a Sixense sensor inside the Oculus Rift. Oculus Rift currently has problems with horizontal drift that Sixense would fix. These controllers combined with the Oculus Rift would be a new gaming nirvana. It would motivate developers to support both. Sixense get hold of Palmer Luckey quick and make it happen!
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