The first thing we (and most people) noticed when we took the Dual Shock 3 out of its packaging was the weight. The Sixaxis is a flimsey, light controller that feels like it is going to break if you drop it, the Dual Shock 3 however, is heavy. The controller isn't heavy enough to cause any discomfort, but the weight does make the controller feel a little more solid.
For those who don't know what it looks like.
So, how is the rumble? Well, it's a surreal moment when the Dual Shock 3 actually starts rumbling. Rumble has been in controllers for a while now, but it's still a great feeling when the controller rumbles during a crash in Burnout Paradise or when you can feel the rumble during Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The rumble does seem a little less powerful than in the Dual Shock 2 though.
As the Dual Shock 3 has only just come out, there are several titles which missed out on the rumble feature. Some developers knew the Dual Shock 3 was on its way and included rumble in their games and other developers have since released Dual Shock 3 patches. We thought we'd test out how easy it is to add rumble to a game, and there was no better title to test than MotorStorm, one of the PlayStation 3's launch titles. As soon as signed in, MotorStorm instantly told us there was an update to download and once that had finished we were ready to jump into our first rumble race, which felt fantastic. MotorStorm is a game that really did suffer from the lack of rumble and the its addition does add to the MotorStorm experience. Most first party published Sony titles have been patched (or now come with the relevant code) to allow rumble, as well as several high profile third party titles (such as Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 and Grand theft Auto IV), so from this point on we expect most PlayStation 3 titles to support rumble.
Yes, it does look extremely similar to the Sixaxis.
We also thought we'd test out some PlayStation 2 games that contained rumble support, just to see how the Dual Shock 3 compared. The Dual Shock 3 came out really well from this test. Every game we tested that rumbled on the PlayStation 2, also rumbled with the Dual Shock 3.
The Dual Shock 3 may be about a year late, but it does everything that Sony promised. The controller feels a lot more solid and gamers can rest assured that they don't have to worry about their controller blowing away in strong gusts. Our main point of contention with the controller is mainly the price, at $99.95 it's a little bit more expensive than the Sixaxis, but if price isn't an issue then anyone who has been crying over lost rumble should rush out to the shops today.
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