Except that the Osborne effect refers to a company unintentionally killing its own product with a careless announcement of an upgrade, while in this case it was Sony killing the Sega product (which was most probably their intention).
I don't mean to be offensive, but I rarely (if ever) see people express this view who don't have some kind of Nintendo-related image in their avatar or signature. I wonder.
My favourite controller is still the enormous Xbox one. However, I don't even like analogue sticks (let alone buttons) and think they should all die.
I don't mean to be offensive, but I rarely (if ever) see people express this view who don't have some kind of Nintendo-related image in their avatar or signature. I wonder.
My favourite controller is still the enormous Xbox one. However, I don't even like analogue sticks (let alone buttons) and think they should all die.
They really are needed for 3D games, though... I think the first few years of horrible control on the PS1 kind of confirmed that. I have never played a 3D game on the PS1 that worked right without the analog sticks.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Except that the Osborne effect refers to a company unintentionally killing its own product with a careless announcement of an upgrade, while in this case it was Sony killing the Sega product (which was most probably their intention).
I hope you are not talking about first-person shooters. Because the only way to play those is with a mouse and keyboard. Game controllers simply SUCK big time for playing FPS games. They are just plain horrible.
http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/consolefps.html
That sounds more like he just sucks than a valid complaint. I've never had any problem with aiming in a Console FPS. Sure you have to adjust if you're coming from years of playing on PC, but that's not because the control is inherently bad.
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
Try playing Alundra 2 sometime. It's a 3D Zelda-style game which is controlled with the D-pad, and the controls are terrible for that very reason.
D-pads would also make FPSes harder to play, true. But that wasn't the point.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Sure you have to adjust if you're coming from years of playing on PC, but that's not because the control is inherently bad.
The control isn't inherently bad, it's inherently worse than mouse+keyboard, because of both the increased precision and reasonably more handy key access.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
That sounds more like he just sucks than a valid complaint. I've never had any problem with aiming in a Console FPS. Sure you have to adjust if you're coming from years of playing on PC, but that's not because the control is inherently bad.
The tiny analog joystic of the game controller requires an enormous amount of practice to get accustomed to. As I write in that page, fine-tuning the sensitivity of the joystic is of no help: If you make it more accurate, turning speed suffers. If you increase turning speed, accuracy suffers. You can't win.
Sure, there are people who would beat me 10-0 with them using the game controller and me using the mouse+keyboard, but those people have years of playing experience with the controller. It's just horrible for casual playing for people who don't have that experience.
The mouse is way more approachable. Not only is it easier and more precise to control (because it has an enormous degree of accuracy, and the turning speed is virtually unlimited), most people already have years of experience in using the mouse for accurate aiming: They do it constantly to aim at tiny icons and buttons. While it probably takes weeks if not months of constant playing with the game controller to get used to it, I bet for most people it just requires a few hours, a few days at most, to get used to the mouse as the aiming device. And they will get good at a much faster rate.
Besides, you don't have to take my word for it. Just *look* at people playing FPS games with the controller. Look their gameplay, how awkwardly and sloppily they move and turn. Even expert players. Just download some FPS speedrun which has been made with the game controller, and compare it to one which has been with the mouse+keyboard. The latter just looks a lot more smooth, natural and skillful. The simple fact that the mouse as a virtually unlimited turning speed, while the controller has an extremely limited one, makes a huge difference on how good the playing looks. It makes a huge difference on how good it feels to play the game.
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Warp wrote:
IST wrote:
They really are needed for 3D games, though...
I hope you are not talking about first-person shooters. Because the only way to play those is with a mouse and keyboard. Game controllers simply SUCK big time for playing FPS games. They are just plain horrible.
http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/consolefps.html
I have Halo fro Pc and Xbox, and I prefer using the controller, even with my epic controls i have set up for pc.
What moozooh said. I was perfectly content with playing Oblivion on my Xbox and didn't have any difficulties with the controls. And then I watched the speedrun, which was played on the PC, and now it's just painful to use the Xbox controller when I've seen how much faster everything is with the mouse: turning, scrolling inventories, conversing etc.
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Location: Malmö, Sweden
I guess something like this varies greatly between different people. I don't think I've ever seen anyone struggle with a controller at an FPS for more than a few minutes, an hour tops, before getting the hang of it. Though pretty much everyone of those had several years of playing non-FPS console games and controlling a camera with that second stick.
The only thing you really gain with the use of a mouse is speed. I do agree that in the end, at least for a high level of playing, mouse+keyboard does beat a basic controller, but that is, again, simply because of the speed. But a standard controller is NOT horrible in any way, it's a slight disadvantage at worst.
Even the best player is limited by the speed of his fingers, or his mind's ability to control them. But what happens when speed is not a factor, when theory becomes reality?
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Warp wrote:
IST wrote:
They really are needed for 3D games, though...
I hope you are not talking about first-person shooters. Because the only way to play those is with a mouse and keyboard. Game controllers simply SUCK big time for playing FPS games. They are just plain horrible.
http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/consolefps.html
Really true. As bad as FPS games are to play on a game pad *cough*halo*cough* it did seem like a limitation to the GC that the C-stick was a poor substitution for a normal analogue stick. This only really came up for me playing metroid (not a true FPS, but it controlled like one for the 15 mins I could stand to play.)
I hate auto-aim, and its all but needed for a game-pad FPS. Feels like skill plays less of a factor. I think that PC gaming will be superior to console for FPS and RTS until the day mouse and keyboard can me introduced and designed for.
I hope you are not talking about first-person shooters. Because the only way to play those is with a mouse and keyboard. Game controllers simply SUCK big time for playing FPS games. They are just plain horrible.
http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/consolefps.html
No, I mean pretty much any 3d game other than an FPS. Think 3D platformer, action/adventure game(I cannot see God of War on a dpad. I just can't), things like that.
Games where the third dimension is actually used.
I must say, though, an analog stick is much better for an FPS than a dpad. Still, keyboard/mouse wins that battle.
I don't get it. There is rarely a time in any 3d game where I need to choose between more than 8 different directions. This is my issue with analogue pads.
Also, when Sony came up with the idea of 'clicking in' the analogue sticks as extra buttons... wow, were they just trying to get people to break their pads?
I don't get it. There is rarely a time in any 3d game where I need to choose between more than 8 different directions. This is my issue with analogue pads.
You're welcome to try to play Ocarina of Time without using the full 360° range of motion you have. Again, I've tried playing Alundra 2 (which is functionally a 3D Zelda clone without analog input). It is seriously a royal pain. Worse than playing an FPS with a console controller.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
You people do realize that modern console FPS games usually have aim-correction and auto-aim features to help non-patriots that can't handle using their opposable thumbs properly, right?
Yes. And I agree with Twelvepack about those. Playing with auto-aim seems pointless because you can just spin aroud while firing your weapon and kill everyone in a few seconds - including snipers that are peeking out of a fifth-story window 100 meters away - without even aiming. Then again playing without auto-aim is frustrating as well because it feels like you're handicapped when you can see the enemy but can't line that damn cursor up with it just because of clumsy controls.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
So... you obviously don't understand how even auto-aim is staggered so that it can only aid your attempts to aim, rather than do the work for you. They don't snap to target; instead, they slowly roll reticules on to hitboxes if they are within an appropriate proximity of the player's forced view. It's only meant to smooth out the fact that some people aren't capable of adapting to any new method of anything, be it inquisitive or not.
If you honestly think that they're going to ship aimbots with console FPS games then I have to question how much experience you really have with the subject matter.
Well I'm not sure what counts as an FPS. Have you played GTA4? Do you really think it's very subtle?
EDIT: D'oh I guess I should've thought about the F in FPS.
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
GTA4 isn't an FPS. It's Action/Adventure. Just getting that out of the way now, but I may as well digress...
The aim snapping found in that game is series exclusive and is only included because of the PS2 version of GTA3. In that game, there was a mission where you were unable to manually aim (at hitmen on balconies) without a scoped rifle. In testing, they found that people preferred the snapping aim function over having to labor over manually finding the tiny targets. Furthermore, allowing free aiming would require them to add a skybox to the game that wasn't fully implemented until the PC version. In order to ship in time, they opted to simply let you snap to the nearest target rather than redo the vertical limits on viewing. We can all agree that that was pretty lame.
That being said, your one example is an extremist series exclusive established control method that was only implemented to save money. The only other example I can think of that includes snapping is Metroid Prime, and that was only because locking on targets was necessary for scanning and activation. Also, that world was too vivid to be able to pick out things in certain situations.
