Warhawk hands-on

Wednesday 10 May 2006
Once the doors of E3 were finally flung opened there was one very obvious destination - a game that not only showed off the power of PS3 but also the tilting and turning abilities of the new pad - Warhawk - and we lunged straight for it.

Within just a few minutes of playing, the game and the pad delivered more surprises than we had expected, even after we had salivated our way through Sony's pre-show conference. And the good news is this: the tilting controls work, and work very well.

During our play-test we found that, despite the new control method, it only took a few minutes to get used to the flying, with much of that being due to the intuitive way that you can turn and twist the craft. With near-perfect sensitivity, it made flying and fighting actually easier than it would be with sticks - which can only be a good sign of what is to come. Especially considering Incognito Entertainment had only around three weeks to add in the tilting element of the controls.

Above: In-game flying and fighting actually feels easier with PS3's tilt-sensitive controller

And while the team confessed that it hadn't been hard to include the tilt ability from either a hardware or a software point of view, it did admit that it isn't completely certain how it will implement it when it comes to the on-foot part of the game.

The aircraft's controls were pretty complex - using all of the face buttons and the shoulders pads - which might sound like a bit of a pain but it actually gave us a chance to test out the new triggers which have replaced the old L2 and R2 buttons.

And once again our verdict is that they are a dramatic and comfortable improvement over the old buttons. With just the right amount of resistance required to press them, and a distinct lack of the fumble factor that you used to get when lunging for the old shoulder buttons, they already seem a worthwhile addition.