Hasta La Gadget!

Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified isn’t the only console spin-off that will be exclusive to the PS Vita, as Sony‘s Gamescom press conference also treated us to the announcement of Killzone: Mercenary. Like most spin-offs, Killzone: Mercenary will be quite a bit different from the core Killzone franchise, as this time around you’ll be playing as – surprise! – a mercenary working with both the Helghast and the ISA. This marks the first time in Killzone history that you’ll be working alongside the Helghast (at least sometimes), so get excited Vita owners.

The game was announced with the short trailer you see posted below. Half live action and half gameplay, the trailer gives us our first look at Killzone: Mercenary on the PS Vita. The graphics actually look excellent (especially for a handheld game), but that’s because the folks at Guerrilla Games are working on this entry as well. That’s right, the development duties haven’t been handed off for this particular spin-off, so we don’t have to worry about an unknown studio making a sub-par game in the Killzone franchise.

Not only that, but Mercenary is being made with the Killzone 3 engine, which is why the visuals look so good. With Guerrilla Games developing the title and using the Killzone 3 engine to do so, this might just turn out to be the high-profile, console-quality game the PS Vita needs. Check out the announcement trailer below.

Killzone: Mercenary is scheduled to launch at some point next year, but other than that, details are still pretty scarce. Sony promises that more details will be shared soon, so hopefully it won’t be too much longer before more information arrives. Keep it tuned to SlashGear for more details on Killzone: Mercenary!

Killzone: Mercenary announced as Vita exclusive at Gamescom is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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When it comes to FPS gaming, I don’t think anything can top the ol’ mouse and keyboard combo if we’re looking at functionality. The sheer number of keys plus the accuracy of the mouse just can’t be beat. But if we’re talking about comfort, you can’t beat the console’s sidekick, the gamepad. What if there was a controller that combined the best of both worlds?

Sadly, Peter Von Buskirk’s Trackball PC Game Controller is not that perfect amalgam. But it is a compromise with potential.  If you’ve used either a gamepad or a trackball then you know what to expect from this concept.

I like the controller a lot, but I have two complaints about it. First of all, why is this only being made for the PC and not for consoles? I think this will benefit not only the fans of the annual Shoot of Shooty: Men of Shooting fps games, but also strategy games and other games that require lots of pointing and browsing, games which are hard to implement on the console partly because of the lack of a mouse.

My second complaint is the location of the trackball. By placing it on the right, it exacerbates the weakness of gamepads – now you’ll have access to even less buttons because your right thumb is making sweet love to that sexy trackball. It would be fine if the left half of the controller had buttons, but there’s still a D-pad there.

Von Buskirk setup a Kickstarter fundraiser for the controller; unfortunately as of this writing he’s only managed to raise about $12,000 (USD) out of his $125,000 goal, with only 8 days remaining to fulfill the quota. You can still pledge for the controller if you want – $36 is enough to reserve a unit – you won’t be charged if the fundraiser doesn’t meet it’s quota anyway so you don’t have anything to lose. I hope Von Buskirk keeps working on his controller even if his fundraiser fails. Maybe he’ll find the perfect compromise someday.