Buoyed by my success with controlling Resident Evil, I decided to try this game again. (Assassin’s Creed and Mega Man 2, which also use virtual d-pads had been deleted, so I couldn’t try those.) Guess what? It worked far better than it had before. It seems that Resident Evil had taught me how to get the best from virtual controls.


Moving around with the virtual d-pad and looking around by tilting the phone works best for me, though it’s hard to make small adjustments when lining up shots. The generous auto aim helps most of the time, but sometimes you just wanted to udge the sight slightly and it doesn’t respond until you’ve tipped the phone over more than you want to. Still, it’s a very workable solution, all things considered. I can’t imagine it working for something fast and precise like Quake or Unreal Tournament, but Terminator Salvation does seem to have been designed with the controls in mind, judging by this demo.


I played through it a couple of times and had fun both times. So much so that I’m toying with the idea of getting the full game.

I think I’m going to download Mega Man 2 Lite again to make sure it was as awful as I thought it was.