By Nelson Schneider - 01/12/13 at 06:01 PM CT

Last July, I wrote about the ways FPSes could be adapted to make me actually enjoy playing them. Number 4 on that list – Pointer-Based Aiming – has recently become even more important to me, as the MeltedJoystick crew is planning on jumping into the PC version of “Borderlands” and “Borderlands 2” (once the GotY version of the sequel hits bargain basement prices on Steam). Outside of Chris, the ‘Borderlands’ series is one that none of the MeltedJoystick crew would ever consider playing, especially not for $60. But with cheap prices (like $6 cheap) and a small amount of RPG elements to set it apart from more traditional FPSes like ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Battlefield,’ even erstwhile MeltedJoystick guest-blogger, Matt, has decided to join the action and fill-out the team of 4. So, now we have the game (the original “Borderlands”), we have the players, we have gaming PCs capable of running an “AAA” game from 2009… What’s missing? Pointer controls.

I know “Borderlands” isn’t available for the Wii and the PlayStation 3 version doesn’t support the Move controller. But the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race ALWAYS runs around the Internet gloating and trolling about how their SUPERIOR gaming platform can do ANYTHING. Surely, then, PC gaming can provide a simple solution to get pointer-based aiming into a 4-year-old FPS?

Nope.

Thus began my epic quest in search of a pointer-based aiming solution for my gaming PC. Asking in several heavily-trafficked gaming forums met me with the most common response of, “LOL.” I know that the vast majority of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race are asshats who obsess over hardware power, framerates, and other inconsequential minutia, but how difficult is it to give a simple answer to a simple question?

When the few non-ass members of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race deigned to actually provide an answer to my question, the universal response was, “Get a Razer Hydra.” The Razer Hydra is a fairly expensive gadget that differentiates itself from typical motion controllers by using neither an IR light nor a gyroscope, but a magnetic field generated by a glowing orb. The price of the Razer Hydra made me balk, as did the wired nature of the device. While future renditions of the Razer Hydra are supposed to be wireless, the current models all require a USB cable to run from the PC to the base station, which then sends wires to the two nunchuck-style halves of the controller… which must never be more than 3 feet away from the base station. My gaming PC sits on a high shelf right next to my TV, which is about 6 feet away from my coffee table, which is about 4 feet away from my gaming chair. Even if the Razer Hydra wasn’t terribly expensive, it just seems like it’s a solution that’s meant not for a Steambox-style living room PC, but a traditional PC where the gamer sits hunched over a desk in front of a 20-some inch monitor. What’s worse, though, is that in a video review posted on Amazon.com, a gentleman by the name of Aaron Steinmetz tried the Razer Hydra with “Borderlands” specifically, and discovered that the controller only works well with a tiny handful of (mostly Valve’s first-party) games that have special profiles pre-programmed into the Razer Hydra’s driver software.

With the Razer Hydra firmly out of the question, I scoured the Internet in pursuit of other controllers that might fit my needs. I came across the Asus Eee Stick… which seems to be discontinued. I learned about Wizard Sticks, the Stix 200, the Stix 400, FriiHand, a Chinese knock-off called the MI-WPC, the SplitFish Dual SFX Evolution, and the MAG II (which actually looks like a light gun). Unfortunately, the one thing that all of these motion controllers for PC have in common – despite their widely varied range of quality – is the fact that they rely entirely on gyroscopic motion sensing instead of IR for their on-screen pointer, much like an air mouse. I have a Gyration Air Mouse for my gaming PC, and I really like it, but without a more gun-like configuration (the “trigger” on my Gyration mouse must be held to activate gyroscopic movement and can’t have a different function mapped to it), it won’t really serve as a good controller substitute (especially without a nunchuck-like device for joystick movement). Furthermore, after playing “The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword,” in which Nintendo replaced the IR pointer mechanics from the Wii version of “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” with gyroscope pointer mechanics, I am VERY dubious about any motion controller that relies solely upon gyroscopes. The Wiimote Plus and PlayStation Move both have light-based orientation methods combined with pure gyroscopic methods, and even in these two first-party products, pure gyroscopic controls are barely useable and need to be re-calibrated constantly. I will give the Razer Hydra the benefit of the doubt until I actually get to try one in person, but any other motion controller that doesn’t include some kind of IR recognition would have to be very cheap and praised by a large number of reviewers to catch my interest… None of these fulfilled both of those requirements.

My big question is this: WHY isn’t there a decent, IR-based pointer controller made specifically for the PC? I presume it has something to do with the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race’s disdain for motion controllers in preference of wired gaming mice with too many extra buttons sticking out everywhere. But with the broadly-sweeping fad of motion controls on consoles, with the Wiimote, Move, and Kinect, someone, somewhere SURELY must have come up with a comparable piece of technology for the PC besides the Razer Hydra?! The Wiimote and Move are both standard Bluetooth devices! The Kinect uses a standard USB port! How difficult is it to copy this technology for a supposedly superior platform?! It’s even possible to buy a cheap Wii-style sensor bar that plugs into a standard USB port! There is no reason for motion controls on PC to be this hard to acquire.

With a dedicated solution not called the Razer Hydra out of the question, I decided to look into the last dark corners of PC gaming for a solution: Hacks. Normally, I don’t like messing with hacks until they have been well tested by numerous other guinea pigs… err… people, because homebrew software doesn’t have much in the way of quality control and the entire process relies upon the end user having a broad base of general technological know-how. While I DO have the required base of knowledge, I also like to keep my gaming life simple. If I install a hacked driver on my perfectly-configured Steambox, end up borking Windows somehow, and have to reinstall everything (and re-download ALL of my Steam games at 1.5Mbps), I will not be a happy camper. This kind of jacking around with drivers and troubleshooting is what caused me to flee in disgust from PC gaming into the warm arms of consoles in the first place!

But I really don’t want to play “Borderlands” with right-analog stick aiming and I really, REALLY don’t want to play it with a keyboard and mouse balanced precariously on my lap. Time to roll up the sleeves and get dirty…

The first place I looked for a hackable solution to my pointer-based aiming woes was MotionInJoy, a well known third-party hacked driver that allows the use of PlayStation 3 controllers on Windows. After downloading and installing MotionInJoy on my laptop (where I test EVERYTHING before it goes on my pristine Steambox), I discovered that the driver is an ad-riddled piece of trash that doesn’t support the Move… but for some reason does support the Move Nav controller.

Uninstalled… Time to move on.

The only other solution I was able to find for hacking console motion controllers into playing nice with the PC is a thing called GlovePIE. GlovePIE isn’t so much a driver as it is an Xpadder-style button mapper for the Wiimote and Nunchuck (as well as a ridiculous number of other bizarre controllers… seriously, rowing machines?), written by Carl Kenner (a man of questionable sanity, based on the design of his website). Since the Wiimote is a standard Bluetooth device, it just relies on a user’s PC having a compatible Bluetooth radio. First step: Check. After connecting the Wiimote to a PC via Bluetooth, GlovePIE needs to run a custom script to interpret the data the PC is receiving from the Wiimote…

OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I hate scripting. I am not good at scripting. I can edit scripts to make simple changes if forced, but I really prefer never to have to look at any of this kind of stuff. Fortunately, GlovePIE comes with two premade Wiimote scripts. Surely one of them is perfect?

NO.

One of the two included scripts is pure gyroscope and makes the Wiimote behave identically to my Gyration Air Mouse. The other is a simple script that doesn’t use the pointer at all, but turns the Wiimote into a copy of the Stix 200/400 waggle controllers I mentioned earlier, apparently for use with the ‘LEGO’ series of licensed games. After hours of scouring various Wiimote hacking forums and testing numerous garbage scripts, I finally found one that seems to work… But I haven’t tried it in-game yet.

So, in the upcoming weeks, I will be testing the experience of playing a PC FPS using a Wiimote & Nunchuck with GlovePIE. Keep your ears peeled, for you might hear my King Lear style howls of agony should the experience prove to be less than perfect.