Razer Hydra brings motion controls to PCs this June, bundled with Portal 2 for $140

Despite a release window of "early" this year, Razer wasn't quite able to ship its Hydra motion gaming controller alongside Portal 2 this week. Instead, interested parties will be able to pre-order the $140 package this May ahead of a projected June ship date.

Wait, $140? We were told Razer was targeting a sub-$100 price point. That boosted price is for the Portal 2 bundle which includes (get this!) a copy of Portal 2! But this isn't your off-the-digital-shelf Portal 2; this version includes the Sixense MotionPack DLC featuring "six additional levels specifically designed for more portal testing fun with motion control," developed by Sixense.

Of course, any PC gamer worth his water cooler will have already purchased Portal 2 by then; luckily, the Hydra "is optimized with over 125 popular PC games out of the box," including Left 4 Dead 2 (melee weapons!) and World of Goo (think Wiimote). We've reached out to Razer to find out when a non-bundled option will be available and to see if it can share that list of 125 games with us. C'mon, FreeCell ...

If you want to read more about the rather impressive Hydra, look no further than our CES impressions.

[Update: We just heard back from Razer, who confirmed that it's "just the bundled option" for now. They also dropped us the entire list of compatible titles, which you can find alphabetically indexed after the break.]

Razer Hydra

A Reckless Disregard for Gravity
Alien Swarm
Altitude
Amnesia
And Yet It Moves
Assassin's Creed 2
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Audiosurf
Batman Arkham Asylum
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Beat Hazard
Beyond Good and Evil
Bioshock
Bioshock 2
Bit Trip Runner
Borderlands
Braid
Bulletstorm
Chains
Chime
Civilization 4
Civilization 5
COD: Black Ops
COD: Modern Warfare
COD: Modern Warfare 2
COD: World at War
Cogs
Company of Heroes
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
Crysis 2
Darksiders
DeathSpank
Defense Grid
Deus EX
Deus EX: Invisible War
Dog Fighter
Doom 3
Eversion
Fallout 3
Fallout 3: New Vegas
Galcon Fusion
Grand Theft Auto 3
Grand Theft Auto 4
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Half Life 2
Half-Life
Hitman
Hitman 2
Hoard
Just Cause 2
Kane & Lynch
Kane & Lynch 2
Killing Floor
Larva Mortus
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Lego Starwars 3: The Clone Wars
Lego: Batman
Lego: Harry Potter
Lego: Indiana Jones
Lego: Star Wars
Lucidity
Machinarium
Magicka
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Max Payne
Max Payne 2
Metro 2033
Mirror's Edge
Monday Night Combat
Mount & Blade
Mount & Blade: Warband
Oblivion
Obulis
Oddworld: Abe's Exodus
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
Osmos
Painkiller
Painkiller: OVERDOSE
Peggle
Plain Sight
Plants vs Zombies
Poker Night at the Inventory
Portal
Psychonauts
Quantz
Red Faction 2
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Resident Evil 5
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
Rush
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Sam and Max 101
Serious Sam HD
Shadowgrounds
Shadowgrounds: Survivor
Shatter
Sims 3
Singularity
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Super Laser Racer
Super Meat Boy
Swarm Arena
Team Fortress 2
The Ball
The Void
The Wonderful End of the World
Titan Quest
Titan Quest: Immortal Throne
Toki Tori
Torchlight
Trials 2
Trine
Warhammer 40,000
Windosill
World of Goo
Worms Reloaded
Yosumin!
Zeno Clash

Reader Comments (38)

What am I looking at? This thing is an abomination.

@TraceurRyuk Part III

You're looking at the future. "Glowing orbs"

@TraceurRyuk Part III
Since when a Hydra is not an abomination to begin with? :)

@TraceurRyuk Part III

From personal experience, I thought it was a ball gag.

>_>

I smell another Novint Falcon. Something I get excited for then completely forget about since nobody but Valve supports it.

@HighFiveJesus Out of the gate, it has more support than the Falcon ever did.

Where do I have to insert this thing?

@CaptainProtonX You don't wanna know.

@CaptainProtonX

Obligatory sexual reference joke. That is all.

Whatever happened to the Falcon controller? Funnily enough, I believe it was bundled with Half-Life 2. It looked cool enough. Anyone actually still have it/use it?

@ch3burashka
While it was a cool concept, mouse input was still more comfortable, more precise, and supported by more games.The falcon was expensive, big, and slow. So while it was a cool concept, it never made sense in gaming.

@ch3burashka

A friend of mine had one, and he said it was pretty cool (force feedback support, even), but eventually ended up giving it to someone else because it wouldn't fit on his desk.

Looks funky.

Why on earth would you pay extra to play Valve games with motion controls?

Hopefully this means a PlayStation Move version is coming, unless Valve said absolutely 'no', I can't remember if they did or not.

@mairondil
I read that it wasn't PS MOVE compatible out of the box, which all sources seem to agree, though it wouldn't be hard to imagine an update with it.

Or even crazier, someone using the PS MOVE with the SharpShooter attachment. x_x

@mairondil
They said they aren't really interested in making it move compatible unless they make a game from the ground up with the move in mind. They also mentioned that the compatibility with the hydra and all the hydra levels for Portal 2 were done completely by Razer, Valve had nothing to do with it aside from providing the source game.

@foxhound

I bet Razer did most of the motion control development. Perhaps Sony should do the PS Move development

@foxhound

Blue and Orange glowing PS Move Orb.

@oOWallaceOo
FUND IT. :D

Why do we need motion controls with games like Plants Vs. Zombies, Toki Tori, Windosill, and all these mouse pointer games? Wouldn't they have been better off releasing more RTS or FPS games in place of those? Or did they just get lazy :X

Wait, so let me get this straight... the biggest PC release in the next few months is already out, so now they're only offering a version of their product that's bundled with a game that damn near everyone in their target demographic already owns...?

Can they fire their Marketing guy before he single-handedly sinks the entire company?

No thanks. I'll stick to enjoying my PC games...

lol this is lame

They should have fought for World of Warcraft compatibility. It might have boosted the sales.

What the heck is that ball in the middle? What purpose is that used for?!

That's probably how the controllers work with the unit. I doubt it is just "for show".

@Anarqi
The ball probably houses the magnets that the controllers use to find their location/orientation

I will take my powerglove over this "thing" any day.

All I can say is Mount & Blade Warband mixed with motion control sounds extremely awesome-just would need a target dummy to pad my monitor with so I dont break it with the modified sword shaped controller in the heat of battle ;) but for $140 dollars I think I will stick with my mouse til it gets cheaper.

Mouse+Keyboard FTW!

I think the ball in the middle puts off a magnetic field with about a 10 foot radius and uses it to sense the position/acceleration of the controllers while you move them. That is assuming this is the product I was reading about somewhere else about a month ago. It was supposed to keep costs down by cutting out the most expensive technology, but $100 is still a lot.

Looks like a futuristic butt-plug complete with two futuristic dildos! It's not motion gaming it's motion sickness!!!

From what I've seen of this tech in action, it's vastly superior to Wii/move, and would be awesome mixed with some open source Kinect.
It actually detects orientation, so, with the modded L4D2 they were demoing it with, the player could actually attack, with say, the Katana, at the angles he wanted, which made it significantly cooler.

@Bielzer Except you would need a suit for the magnetic field to pick up on body movements, which is why it would be awesome combined with an opensource kinect mod of some kind.

41: Fallout 3: New Vegas

Anyone catch that?

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3? Civilization 4/5? Plants vs. Zombies? Dude. I don't think those games benefit very much from motion controls.

This is not the way I expected to find Yosumin mentioned on Joystiq.

But then again, I never expected Yosumin to be mentioned on Joystiq at all.

(Yosumin is a great game, by the way. Still sad the DS version didn't get localized and published in the US.)

Portal 2

Razer Hydra brings motion controls to PCs this June, bundled with Portal 2 for $140

Razer Hydra

Reader Comments (38)

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:42PM TraceurRyuk Part III said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:46PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:38PM P34nk said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 7:16PM Shockwave said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:45PM HighFiveJesus said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 4:15PM Mike Sylvester said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:46PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:17PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:17PM DasMadHatter said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:47PM ch3burashka said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:51PM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:21PM TRONdll said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:50PM callumshell1 said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:52PM dscuber9000 said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 2:54PM mairondil said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:03PM foxhound said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:08PM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:08PM mairondil said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:13PM oOWallaceOo said

Posted: Apr 26th 2011 8:50AM foxhound said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:08PM go4thegold said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:20PM onan said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:21PM sammo21 said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 3:33PM uncarlo said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 4:18PM vaajtswv said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 4:46PM Anarqi said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 5:11PM go4thegold said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 8:23PM atomicrat2552 said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 5:15PM Nordoyle said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 6:58PM alucard3000 said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 7:25PM melao said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 7:26PM megapython vs gatoroid said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 11:19PM Dukk420 said

Posted: Apr 21st 2011 11:47PM RequiemDogma said

Posted: Apr 22nd 2011 4:13PM RequiemDogma said

Posted: Apr 22nd 2011 1:15AM Dhexodus said

Posted: Apr 22nd 2011 6:55PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Apr 24th 2011 1:30AM Peretz said

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