It’s ironic; Sony tried so hard generating a cool image for videogamers with the PlayStation brand, only to bring out a control pad that frequently revels in making you look completely ridiculous. There was a time when only idiots moronically shook their DualShocks and leant side to side while playing racing games, yet the Sixaxis has turned such dorky movements into necessities for us all.

Dark Mist is the latest PSN title to make us look silly with the PS3’s motion controls, and is a top-down, Gauntlet-style shooter, developed by Game Republic (of Genji and Folklore ‘fame’). You play a weird fairy and progress through a series of simple mazes, finding keys and killing various monsters with your magical bow and arrow. There’s also a story, but judging by the 100-word introduction, the author probably wrote it on a loo wall while taking a shit.

So where do all the Sixaxis shenanigans fit it? Well, monsters aren’t the only things occupying the mazes in Dark Mist, there’s also lots of mist, and guess what? It’s dark. Dark Mist’s dark mist clouds your vision as soon as it envelops you, making the nasty monsters and surrounding environment imperceptible. The only way to get rid of this mist and illuminate your path is to shake the Sixaxis.

Initially this gameplay quirk isn’t too obtrusive. But as Dark Mist progresses you’re confronted with rooms teeming with projectile-firing baddies and – even worse – gaping floor chasms that send you tumbling to your doom. So, in order to survive, you have to shake, and shake, and shake. And then shake a little bit more. No matter how you package it, constantly jiggling a control pad gets incredibly tedious, and if you take into account the challenging difficulty level and ridiculous lack of in-game saves, then you have all the components of an irritating experience.

But there is a kernel of fun lurking inside Dark Mist, and Game Republic shows the same flair for character and environment design that it did in Folklore. However, the game just isn’t addictive enough to successfully mitigate its two major irritants, and it’s unlikely that you’ll want to play it more than a few times. This, and the fact there are so many other exciting titles on the PSN, makes Dark Mist difficult to recommend, despite its budget price.

Christopher Reynolds