Move "doesn't ruin" hardcore SOCOM 4 experience says producer

Third-person tactical shooter SOCOM 4 is one the games that will support Sony's upcoming PlayStation Move controller, causing concern for hardcore fans of the series. But speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, producer Elliott Martin says he doesn't believe it will ruin the SOCOM experience one bit.

Zipper Interactive's PlayStation 3 exclusive, SOCOM 4, was one of the games announced by Sony earlier this year to offer support for their motion controller - something which Martin admits is causing concern amongst fans of the game.

"They have a very specific idea of what they want SOCOM to be and anything which deviates from that worries them," he answered to a question about the reaction from fans.

"I would consider myself a hardcore gamer, so I feel I can have an opinion on this," he said, "but I've seen games in development which would be considered hardcore and which make very good use of the Move implementation -- SOCOM being just one of them".

"It doesn't ruin the experience, that's the important thing. It may not be the exact experience certain people want but that's why we're being very careful to not lock it down. We're trying to preserve the different playing methods to appease everyone."

Martin also explains that there are many options for calibrating Move for use in SOCOM, such as defining the screen area and movement speed. Fortunately for those with no interest in Move, the motion-controller is only being implemented as a bonus feature.

"The Move implementation isn't being looked at as a core feature of SOCOM -- it's just an additional feature. The game isn't being made for Move, Move is being integrated into the game. You can play the game from start to finish with either controller."

While Martin doesn't believe one control method is harder than the other - it's just down to preference - he does admit that Zipper is looking very hard at how Move may effect multiplayer matches. When asked about how the game will handle the mixed use of controllers in multiplayer games Martin responded, "I don't know if we've announced those kind of details yet. Those are good questions and they are things the team is perfectly aware of. They are in the process of implementing Move support into the game, and of looking into questions like that."

SOCOM 4 is currently expected to be released later this year.