PC and Console Interface Design:
Dumbing Down

By Shamus Posted Monday May 19, 2008

Filed under: Game Reviews 106 comments

Last week the thread on Oblivion deteriorated into the old PC vs. Console debate, based mostly on my comment that games were “dumbed down” for consoles. That debate is as stale as they come, and I doubt we’ll gain any new insight into the issue.

Indigo Prophesy, wack-ass controls.
But lest console gamers think I’m being “elitist”, let me point out that this can work both ways: In the game Indigo Prophesy – which enjoyed both console and PC releases – there are several types of gameplay events. On the console, action events require you to operate two thumbsticks at once. Button-mash events require you to flutter two adjacent buttons. And normal gameplay requires you to move around and look at stuff. On the PC, there is no control scheme that can do all of this, so you have too keep moving your hands around. One hand on each side of the keyboard for action events. Both hands on the left for button-mash. One hand on the mouse for normal navigation.

They could have changed the core parts of the action gameplay to suit both platforms, and console gamers would rightly be able to complain that the action parts of the game were “dumbed down”. Any button-mashing that works gracefully on the PC is going to be very easy and simplistic on a gamepad, and any fast-paced button pushing that works on a gamepad is going to be a mess on the PC. Re-working God of War or Soul Caliber so that the controls work for both PC and console gamers would ruin the highly polished experience that console gamers have grown to love. Designers can either cater to one platform at the expense of another, or they can write two different games. Guess which one is more likely?

But I have been thinking about the differences between the two control schemes. Let us dismiss from the start the idea that one system is superior to the other: They each have their purpose, and each has their place in gaming.

The Dual Shock controller (and it’s many cousins) is a very interesting device. Check out the diverse selection of buttons:

  • There is a pair of thumbsticks, one for each thumb, providing two analog directional inputs.
  • There’s a direction pad for the left thumb for when it’s not busy using the left stick. You can think of this as four buttons, because that’s what it is.
  • There are four buttons for the right thumb for when it’s not busy with the right stick. These buttons are referred to as “touch-sensitive”. To me, it feels like they have two levels – you can push them gently or hard. Perhaps they’re more sensitive than that and I’m not experienced enough to discern it.
  • There are four “shoulder” buttons, which are operated by the index and middle fingers. Each of these buttons has a dedicated finger, which means you can have the player hold the button down without depriving them of the ability to press other buttons. The shoulder buttons are often used as a modifier, to change the behavior of other buttons, like shift keys. Four shift keys – each with their very own dedicated finger. Try that on a PC!
  • Each of the sticks can also be pushed down, for two additional buttons.
  • There are two special-purpose buttons in the middle of the controller. Since the player has to “reach” to hit these – moving their fingers out of the default position – these buttons are usually reserved for special stuff like bringing up the menu and pausing the game.

That’s a total of sixteen different buttons, four of which are pressure sensitive, and fourteen of which are always within reach without the player needing to move their hands. It maximizes the use of both hands while providing several different types of input.

Contrast this with the PC. The average keyboard has at least 101 keys. Unlike the Dual Shock, these keys are not all being cradled by the player’s hand. They’re spread out all over the place. Depending on how the player sets things up, they aren’t really going to have more than a half-dozen keys easily within reach. Their d-pad (the WASD keys) are not governed by the thumb, but by most of the left hand. So the PC has far more total keys, but there are restrictions on how those can be used. Usually only one hand is running the show, and it’s bad interface design to insist that the hand move very far on a regular basis, or that the user needs to press more than a couple of buttons at a time.

But the PC also has one of the finest pointing instruments ever devised: The mouse. Console gamers often claim that the thumbstick is “just as good as the mouse” once you “get used to it”. They’re wrong.

No, don’t go down to the comments and start writing your flame. Just don’t. Look at how laptops have evolved. Look at what they use when a mouse isn’t available. A thumbstick is a fine instrument and can stand in for a mouse in a pinch, but it will never be a match for the mouse in terms of accuracy and speed. I can believe you can get “good” at the thumbstick, and I know many people enjoy it, but if you want to move a pointer around the screen (or, say, aim your crosshairs) then the mouse is unparalleled and the thumbstick is a poor substitute. Note how on the console you do not “mouse” around the screen selecting options – you page through them with shoulder buttons and directional keys. This isn’t because console developers can’t figure out how to make a windows – type interface, it’s because such an interface would be maddening to use with a thumbstick. I know there are console fanboys out there who just refuse to believe that their chosen platform isn’t the very best at doing everything all the time, everywhere. There really is no sense in arguing with those people, but on this subject it’s hard not to. The supremacy of the mouse over the stick for aiming something (a gun or a pointer) should be obvious to anyone who has tried to use both.

/rant

Anyway, these are two very different systems for accepting user input. On the console, the thumbs are in charge of most of the action. They operate the sticks and press the most crucial buttons. On the PC, the thumbs are barely involved. The right thumb is idle – it rests by the mouse. The left thumb is most likely set to thwack the spacebar every once in a while. The PC can only provide two axis of analog input via the mouse. The console can provide four via the thumbsticks. None of the buttons on the PC are pressure-sensitive.

You don’t steer a car with toggle switches. You don’t turn on the TV with a crank. You don’t use pullchains on your thermostat. You don’t open doors with a footpedal. This “which one is better” argument is futile. The problem isn’t which system is better, the problem is which system is better for the game you’re trying to play.

On the console you design menus to be very short, because nobody wants to hit the down button 50 times to get to the option they want. You want the text to be nice and large so you can read it from across the room on a television. The PC can fit lots of information onto the screen at once, because even the average PC has more pixels than the best HDTV, and the user is sitting just inches away. The mouse can zip to wherever it needs to be and stop in just the right spot without trouble, and so it’s better to offer all the options on one big page.

You can’t pack as much info onto the HUD of a console game, because by the time you make the text readable for non-HDTV users you’ve eaten up a lot of the screen. So the natural thing to do is to make games appropriate for the medium. Make menus larger with less options. Reduce the number of things you need to cram onto the HUD. That’s just good game design. But if the game ends up on the PC, then PC Gamers are going to notice the missing things. The game will, inevitably, feel dumbed-down.

Looping back to the discussion that started all this, I do expect Fallout 3 to get some dumbing down. If you played either of the two previous games, you know that their interfaces are purely mouse-driven beasts, dense with options. If you ported that directly to the PS3 or XBox 360, the gamers would savage you for it. The thing would be unplayable. The game needs some adaptation and simplification to be playable on a television with a gamepad, and old-time fans are naturally worried if their favorite mechanics will survive the transition. I know I am. Oblivion did not fare well when it was adapted for consoles, and I don’t see any reason to expect that Fallout 3 will do any better.

As someone who has spent the last four years cataloging the decline of his favorite platform, I’m more than aware of the shortcomings of the PC, and I have a rough idea of how the current consoles compare. Let us not stoop to the “your platform is teh suxors” stuff. Really, leave that debate to the kids.

On a more positive note, Indigo Prophesy is excellent so far, despite the cumbersome controls. I plugged in my USB Dual Shock clone and my enjoyment of the game was improved even more.

 


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106 thoughts on “PC and Console Interface Design:
Dumbing Down

  1. Zukhramm says:

    Actually, twelve, or eight (depending on if you count the D-pad as four buttons) are preassure sensitive, and not only with two levels. You can press them how hard of soft you want, and if the game is made for it, have different effects. (Noticable in MGS3 where one of them could be used for zooming, I think.)

  2. Andrew says:

    I refuse to play Indigo Prophecy (the American version of the game) because several sexually suggestive scenes that are in the international version (which is titled Fahrenheit) were censored to get a lower rating, so Wal-Mart and other “family-friendly” stores wouldn’t refuse to stock the game. Such censorship makes me irrationally angry, and I don’t want to shell out one cent to pay for a game that’s been doctored to please self-appointed “moral guardians.”

  3. Rob Conley says:

    Why can’t PC Games require the use of a Game console controller and what the status of hooking a USB Mice and Keyboard to a Console game controller?

  4. Josh says:

    Indigo Prophecy was a lot of fun. My brother-in-law and I played and beat in one marathon sitting. It literally blew my mind how the interface and timed gameplay kept you in the game while you were watching the scenes. Some of the fight scenes are wonderfully choreographed and I felt like “I” had accomplished that with my character. It created a wholly different experience from games where “A” is punch and “B” is kick. I would love to see some other games experiment with it.

    The game was a little wonky though. I’m not going to spoil anything, but with the choices we made, we got to the end of the game and were surprised by a group that we had never heard of to that point. The script assumed you had, but we apparently never chose the paths that would introduce them. We found out after we beat it that you can go back and just play the chapters that you didn’t pick (instead of the whole game). If we had known that up front, we probably wouldn’t have played it straight through. Straight through may have missed some of the nuances, but it was a lot of fun with my brother.

  5. Shamus says:

    Andrew: I agree with the sentiment that it Makes No Sense for Wal-Mart to refuse to carry an adult game, but still sell the Showgirls director’s cut DVD twelve feet away.

  6. Zukhramm says:

    Wait woah, what? Indigo Prophecy is Fahrenheit? You don’t call Fahrenheit Fahrenheit over there? XD o.O

  7. Nilus says:

    Nice article, I agree with almost everything you said. My comment in the other thread was not attacking the idea that game controls might be dumbed down when moved to another platform, they are all the time. I just felt that the post seemed to imply that PC games moved to a Console are dumbed down because consoles are naturally dumber.

    Anyways to comment on a dual shock controller. The 4 buttons on the right are usually not pressure sensitive. But on the 360 two of the buttons on the back are actually analog triggers. Which were great to simulate gas and brakes on a car.

  8. Froody says:

    Indigo Prophecy is a fantastic game, but I think playing it via mouse would drive me totally mad. Luckily, I’ve got a PC gamepad for such occasions which allowed me to enjoy the game immensely :)

    If only a gamepad was a standard equipment for the PC along with the mouse, I think we would see many more of the great console games on PC.

  9. Z!re says:

    Maybe the people porting console games to PC should just learn to take advantage of the mouse in those amazing, fantastic and highly evolved (Sarcasm) button mashing events that tax the mental capacity and ingenuity of the player to the absolute max (Sarcasm).

    Why does it have to be two buttons being mashed? Why not moving the mouse left/right?

    Moving on, 14 keys on the console?
    Let’s see, on a PC you have WASD, shift (or ctrl) for ducking, E for use, R for reload, F for flashlight, Q for grenade and Space for jumping.
    That’s all readily available, on the left hand.
    10 keys so far.
    On the mouse we have left and right button (Not counting middle button here, but if you want to then add 1 button)
    Scroll wheel which is two directions.
    And you can move the mouse in four directions (More, but let’s make it simple)

    Adding it up: 10 keys on the left hand plus 8 keys/directions on the right hand.
    That totals up to 18 keys/directions, without moving your hands an absurd distance.

    Moving on:
    WASD for movement, TAB for score, Shift to duck, Ctrl to walk/run, Space to jump, Q to lean left, E to lean right, R to reload, F for flashlight, G for grenade, C for use.

    Now, on the left hand we have 14 keys, readily available on the left hand…

    How many did the console have again?

    Don’t confuse poor game control mechanics (Button mashing versus mouse movement) with actual hardware restrictions.

    Even just going for a bare minimum:
    WASD, Space to jump and mouse to look/shoot you get:
    WASD, Space, mouse directions, two mouse buttons
    Which equals (Assuming we still count 4 directions for the mouse): 11 keys/directions…

  10. JFargo says:

    All we have to do is evolve a fully functional tail, and problem solved as far as the comic goes.

    The rest of the problems via the article? Well, don’t know how to go about solving that, but I DO agree with the rant.

  11. Eric J says:

    The Sega Genesis had pretty much the last controller I was comfortable with. Once Analog sticks came in I lost interest in gaming.

  12. Dev Null says:

    Part of the problem that gets everyone in defensive rant mode is probably the language. The problem isn’t _really_ PC games being dumbed down for console, or console games being dumbed down for PC. Its games for either set of powerful but – as you point out – fundamentally different sets of controls being dumbed down for use with both.

    I remember really enjoying some of the Mechwarrior games on PC… til I tried to go back and play them again without a joystick with a rotation axis and 5 buttons. Arg, the pain. Some games are just designed with a set of controls in mind, and you’re better off giving in and using them or not bothering. Some games _try_ to be designed for use with any set of controls, but that way lies madness (and the rare success story.)

  13. MintSkittle says:

    FWIW, I use a trackball instead of a mouse, so my right thumb doesn’t atrophy, as it’s used for the left button. My track ball has four buttons, a left and right, and two “shoulder” buttons right above them. The only thing missing is a scroll wheel.

  14. theckhd says:

    On keyboards as input devices: Along the lines of what Z!re said, keyboards let you have many more buttons than a console controller. I’m a WoW player and a button-masher (as compared to a clicker, if that means anything to you). I have nearly every key on the keyboard bound to some function or other. While I mostly use the right-hand keys for stuff that doesn’t happen often, I have most of the keys between the A column and the J column bound to things that happen in fast-paced combat scenarios. So that’s 7×4=28 keys right there, and that’s without counting shift-, alt-, or ctrl-, which extends that to well over 100 unique combinations, all able to be used quickly with one hand.

    On Indigo Prophecy: I eagerly await to see your reaction to the game’s plot. “Indigo Prophecy Syndrome” is a term I expect to factor heavily into future posts. :)

  15. Phlux says:

    Threat level for flamewar: Severe

    I sit on fence for this debate. I love PC gaming and console gaming equally. If I didn’t I wouldn’t get to play as many awesome games as I do.

    I would never claim that a gamepad is equal to a mouse in terms of accuracy and speed. I will however claim that FPS games are every bit as fun on the console as on the PC. At least they are for me. Some people are put off by the controls and won’t give them a fair shake.

    I had my choice between Call of Duty 4 on PC or Xbox. I have a pretty beefy PC, so the graphics argument was moot. I normally play FPS games on PC, but I went with the 360 this time, because I knew the multiplayer experience would be far superior.

    I got the PC version as a gift a while back and I was not wrong.

  16. mark says:

    from all accounts i’ve heard, (without using mods to help the pc version) Oblivion was far better on 360!

  17. pdwalker says:

    The most fun I’ve ever had playing a game was Battlezone for the PC using a sony dual shock controller with a special usb adapter to allow it to work on the PC.

    I couldn’t aim for crap with the thumbsticks, but man, could I drive that hovertank with them.

  18. Martin says:

    The only thing I use consoles for are racing games. If I bought a USB wheel, I’d probably not use a console again. Ever since my XBox almost burned my house down, however, I’m not interested in another console.

  19. Shamus says:

    theckhd and Z!re: I think I made it pretty clear that the keyboard has way more keys, but you have to reach a bit to get to them. Which is what both of you are saying?

    This thread has enough fodder for a fantastic flamewar – do we need to argue about the stuff we agree on?

  20. Mark says:

    The controls are obviously very different. I just don’t see how that makes them stupid.

  21. Shalkis says:

    The PS2 has two USB ports on the front and supports USB mice and keyboards. Xbox 360’s ports are basically USB ports. Wii and PS3 use Bluetooth. Old console controllers can be plugged into a PC with cheap dongles. No technical issue prevents cross-pollination of control schemes between the PC and consoles, it’s inertia. PC gamers are used to keyboard+mouse, console gamers are used to 4-pad+analogs+buttons. And because the gamers are used to those, console and game companies felt reluctant to take the risk of experimenting. Fortunately, Nintendo’s gamble seems to have paid off and hopefully the popularity of dancing and playing games will leave their mark as well. However, that leaves the PC games. Back in the Descent days there were some experiments with 3D mice, but unfortunately those seem to have died off. One viable alternative might be a Minority Report-style free-floating multitouch interface. Perhaps combined with some eye tracking..

  22. Stu says:

    I wanna throw in the wiimote for consideration as pointing device.

    example: Resident Evil 4 aiming method (on wii): Point ‘n’ shoot!

    Granted this serves a niche style of gameplay but it is faster than both mouse and thumbstick. As a side note, I will condone a single thumbstick in cooperation is d-pad. What tends to happen with 2 thumbsticks is some games will use a look/move split while other games will swap these roles (lefty/righty) and still other games (why oh why) will mix and combine lookY/strafe with lookX/move.

    edit: Shamus, I think you want one of these! :-)
    http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/front/wolfking.jpg

  23. Dave says:

    The other problem with just counting keys on a keyboard is that you can’t use more than a few at once without the keyboard locking up and your computer beeping at you. I remember playng Micro Machines 2 on the PC with 4 people – you could stop other people from turning by pressing some keys over the other side of the keyboard. Console controllers (I believe) can take everything you throw at them.

    For most of the games I play, I can’t beat the keyboard for a huge range of keys within a reasonable space of time. Some games need fewer keys but far lower latency, though, and for those I have a USB gamepad.

  24. James says:

    The PC vs Console argument will go on for decades, and so this is a brief comparison between the two.

    Console:
    Rumble Pad. (vibrational feedback)
    Small Amount of buttons.
    Shaped for the hand.
    2 analogue sticks.

    Best for: Driving games, fighting games, simple strategy, multiplayer, fast action games , delicate games (such as Super Monkey Ball – it wouldn’t work on PC)

    PC:
    Mouse. (High accuracy, quick movement)
    Large amount of buttons.
    Good moniter.
    Internet. (and so Indie and Mods come into the equation)

    Best for: Complicated games, turn-based games, shooting games (Mouse), Slower games.

    Of course, some shooters will work best on the console (being made for consoles, such as Halo on the Xbox, which doesn’t work on the PC at all), and some driving games (such as Trials 2) will work better on the PC (it basically consists of 2 buttons, and is wholly controlled by the mouse).

    This is not definitive, and I do not expect it to be, so just look at the bigger picture, and try not to rant against this post. (but sadly, some of you will)

  25. One of the awesome bits of the Wii is that it gives you what is, in essence, a mouse for the TV. It isn’t quite as perfect as a computer’s mouse, but it comes _awfully_ close.

    Also: am I the only person to hate the Dual Shock controller? It seems crowded and uncomfortable– 16 whole buttons! 4 buttons on the shoulders! No, just… no.

    Of course, as a lefty who uses a trackball (which does not have a scroll-wheel) I have to remap literally every PC game I play…

  26. @Shamus: Actually, I think theckhd is arguing with your claim that there are fewer buttons within convenient reach on a keyboard compared to a controller. You cite 16 buttons on the dual-shock controller, but that requires both hands.

    When I’m using a mouse-and-keyboard interface, I’ve got 3 buttons in my right-hand. Meanwhile, if I drop my left hand into a standard typing configuration my fingers are resting on 4 buttons, 11 more letter buttons are just one key away, and my thumb is on the spacebar. So that’s (3 + 4 + 11 + 1) 19 buttons right there.

    But many of the number keys (1-6) are within easy reach, too. And with the easy proximity of the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys all of those buttons quadruple their potential functions.

    So when my left hand rests on the keyboard, I’ve got (25 x 4) 100 unique inputs within easy reach.

    Very few games actually require anything even remotely like that kind of input power, of course. Which is why I usually end up re-binding my keys to the numeric keypad. My numeric keypad has 17 keys on it, which still outperforms the 16 keys on the dual-shock controller. Once I add in the 3 buttons on my mouse, I’ve got 20 inputs while barely moving my fingers at all. I’ll also typically bind less-used functions to the Page Up and Page Down keys, which are within reach but require a bit of a stretch.

  27. Oleyo says:

    I personally enjoy how configurable the PC control scheme can be. For instance, since Warcraft (WoW) doesn’t require rapid precise rotation/targeting, I can almost eliminate the mouse, using WASD and its neighbors for movement and targeting. This frees up a huge amount of buttons for my right hand via the keypad.

    I can use and easily hit every key on the keypad save numlock (for the obvious reason) and Delete (a bit awkward to reach) In fact, in that position my thumb can easily strike the inverted “T” arrow keys as well.

    Throw in the numbers keys above WASD for abilities that aren’t used while moving, and you have quite a few rapid access keys; 15 on the keypad, 4 more arrow keys, and as many numbers as you can reach comfortably.

    Additionally, I use the Pageup/pagedown block of keys as a sort of “secondary-mode” keypad. When I am in a mode (like healing) that requires a different set of non-overlapping skills, I just slide my right hand over from the numpad and leave it there.

    I actually really enjoy tweaking my control schemes (probably more than is healthy) and love the speed and control of having two hands on the keyboard. Yay PC!

  28. ccesarano says:

    I think people really do ignore the “preference” argument. I can see why the mouse is technically more precise than a thumbstick, but I just don’t feel comfortable with the mouse. Most notably, no matter what sensitivity I set the mouse to, I find myself having to readjust its position when turning around. This is an especially horrid experience for any game that has flight and I lack a joystick (UT2K4’s space assault level irritates me). With a thumbstick, I can just press down and the character keeps turning.

    I’ve also noticed some of my PC gamer friends tend to be used to how on/off the keyboard is, so when they play a shooter they tend to push the thumbstick all the way one direction or not push it at all. Maybe it is because I grew up a console gamer, but as soon as I first used thumbsticks I used its pressure sensitivity to my advantage. So sometimes it could simply be what one person is used to.

    I genuinely feel that the whole “argument” is moot and it is based on comfort. A keyboard and mouse is not comfortable for me, but a controller is. So, I don’t even consider buying a shooter on PC. I’ve done fine enough beating Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty 2 and 4 on their highest difficulty settings (aim assist off or on lowest setting), and had little trouble aiming. I’m sure people that grew up with PC gaming did the exact same feats with a keyboard and mouse.

    On Oblivion, I honestly don’t understand how any HUD or control adjustments were considered since Morrowind played fine on the original Xbox. I think a lot of companies underestimate their audience. Of course, there is also the big difference between “dumbing down” a game for a platform, and dumbing down a game for an audience. I feel that, if a game is dumbed down, then it is so it can sell to the mainstream audience, who, in all forms of entertainment media, are primarily idiots. This is simply something you have to accept when companies want to make money. You may be important, but the mainstream is important to since that is where profits come from.

  29. guy says:

    “There are four “shoulder” buttons, which are operated by the index and middle fingers. Each of these buttons has a dedicated finger, which means you can have the player hold the button down without depriving them of the ability to press other buttons. The shoulder buttons are often used as a modifier, to change the behavior of other buttons, like shift keys. Four shift keys – each with their very own dedicated finger. Try that on a PC!”

    they’re called Shift, Control, Alt, and whatever else the designer of the game feels like mapping to be the modifier. that’s the PC’s other advantage, no key needs to be dedicated to any one function because of design. i have seen games where they use the spacebar for the same task as the shift key.

    on a completely unrelated note, can you reveiw GalCiv2: Twilight of the Anor sometime soonish?

  30. Amstrad says:

    It might be interesting to note, any PC titles releases with the ‘Games for Windows’ logo on them are required to have full support for the Xbox360 gamepad built in. That is, I can plug my standard corded 360 controller into my PC and simply switch to the built in controller scheme for all the gamepad benefits. Works to great effect for action/platformer styled titles that just don’t play well on the PC, Lego Indiana Jones for instance.

  31. Shalkis says:

    Punning Pundit: Using the Wiimote as a mouse for TV is just the start. The Wiimote + Nuchaku combo was probably built for Metroid Prime 3, and it did successfully resurrect one of the great PC control setups: Analog joystick + mouse. Analog joystick is great for precision of movement and the mouse is great for aiming. I loved playing the Mechwarrior games with that setup.

  32. Bob says:

    Here is a question… Why can’t these console makers make a mouse that works with their system??? Wouldn’t this put an end to all this crap? give the gamers a dang choice. I can plug a d-pad into a PC, why the hell can’t I plug a keyboard and a mouse into a console? I can’t beleive that it would be that hard.

  33. Shamus says:

    Hey guy: What I was talking about is that you can’t hold down Shft, CTRL, alt, AND Right shift, all at the same time, and still operate the WASD. Easy on a console, but finger-twisting on a keyboard.

    On Twilight of the Arnor: It’s on The List. :)

  34. Shamus says:

    And for getting a pointing device on the console. I’ve heard you can get a mouse / keyboard for the PS3, although I don’t know of anyone who has tried it or how well it works or what games support it.

    I think putting a trackball where the right analog stick is would solve the lack of a precise aiming tool on the console (Although it would break every game made in the last decade.) I like mice better than trackballs, but they’re technically capable of the same level of precision input and I could probably learn to use one in time. Or I could, if I wasn’t so old and set in my ways.

  35. Deoxy says:

    Let me just say that, while your mouse-worship is a good thing, the track ball is superior… you need no extra desk space (or particularly flat surface, even, as long as it is stable), and the “pick up mouse and readjust” problem involves moving your thumb instead of the whole control object.

    I’ve just recently retired my original Trackman Marble after 12 years of hard use, and the new one is just not the same (weep)! It’s close, and it does have a scroll-wheel (which is nice), but still… Sigh. Why can’t they just keep making the old one?!? There were later versions of it that were USB with scroll-wheel – why didn’t I buy one at the time? :-(

    OK, that was a bit of a tangent.

    Back on topic, I think the only real advantage of the default console controller (dual-shock style) over the default PC keyboard/mouse is the “pressure sensitive” buttons and one extra analog stick. Unless those are integral to gameplay, the PC has everything covered, in spades.

    That said, there are some very good gameplay mechanics that DO depend on those…

    Edit: heh – this looks like a reply to Shamus’ trackball comment, but his comment wasn’t there when I started typing, honest! :-)

  36. Delta Force Leader says:

    I agree with you on the mouse being better than a thumbstick for PC games.

    I use the Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2 controller for my PC. If you use any Logitech controller you know that it comes with a very good profiler to allow you to set up button combos with. It can also be used to set up a thumbstick to control your mouse and use buttons to emulate a mouse click.

    I tried setting the controller up to use in StarCraft. It took me about an hour to realize that nothing I could do with it would make it work anywhere near as good as my mouse would. I could never get it to stop in the right place. Selecting units was a pain. Scrolling the screen was even worse. You just don’t have the control using a thumbstick that you have when you use a mouse.

  37. Joe says:

    It is an interesting subject to ponder… I have quite a few PC games that I love and cherish, but I also have an xbox and 360 (which were bought for the sole express purpose of playing Halo and Halo3, respectively…

    Let me go off on a tangent here. I was perfectly happy to pay $600 for a game my wife and I really liked. It’s much less than the approximately six to seven thousand dollars I paid so that we could play NWN {that includes 2 new computers that I either wouldn’t have bought, or would have been much less expensive if their primary purpose hadn’t been NWN}. Rockstar games made something like $500 million selling around 10 million copies of GTAIV at around $50 a pop. If a game publisher made a game that was perfect in all the ways that I want a game to be good, I’d be happy to buy it for $500, and the publisher would only have to sell 1 million copies to be Rockstars. I have to think about the math and the statistics some more, but my gut feeling is that it’s *got* to be harder to make a GTAIV that 10 million people think is good enough to plop down $50 for than to make a game that’s so absolutely perfect for a significantly smaller population that 1 million people think it’s worth plopping down $500 for it. It seems to work OK for UI enhancements, and by that I mean funky console controllers. Guitar Hero and Rock Band seem to be doing fairly well. Steel Batallion was a $200 xbox controller that also came with a game, and from what I understand it sold OK. If it works for hardware, why not for soft enhancements? But, enough of this…)

    I think my favorite FPS games are Quake II and Halo. I’ve never played Quake on a console, and never played Halo on a PC, but I do notice what bugs me between the two, when it comes to the analog controls. When I’m playing Halo, I do miss the sharp, quick, precision targeting I can get with a mouse. However, the other side of that is that when I’m playing Quake, I do sometimes get annoyed that I can’t spin in circles. If I want to turn more than around 30 degrees, I have to slide the mouse over, then pick it up and move it back to slide it over again. A trackball is somewhere in between. I haven’t used a tablet as an input dev for a game, but I’m guessing it would be similar to a mouse. I have faith that, somewhere out there, there is a nigh-perfect input device for FPS games (and a different, but also nigh-perfect input dev for other types of games. A multi-touch screen for an RTS might be *fantastic*, or maybe not) I just hope that someday it gets to market and I can get one.

  38. Shamus says:

    Deoxy makes a good point. Console games are played on the couch, where you don’t usually have a nice flat area suitable for a mouse. I think a trackball is the better solution – not that console gamers are looking for one.

  39. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I agree with ccesarano completelly here.I remember way back when I had amiga and a joystick,my brother and I would sometimes play mortal combat,and he would usually bring his sega gamepad with him.There really is no difference between using a joystick with one button for hitting and gamepads four buttons for movement and just one of the others for hitting,but he always performed way better with his controler as it suited him better.

    There really arent that many games that require a specific controler to be played well and without hassle if properly designed.

  40. qrter says:

    I stopped playing Fahrenheit on the PC because of what I thought were awful controls.

    I should get some form of D-pad and try again.

  41. WWWebb says:

    Just out of curiosity, why do people insist on using WASD instead of the numberpad? The nice, big, vertically aligned buttons with plenty of space around them (curse you Caps Lock!) seem to be the perfect setup for 15-16 buttons that can easily be used with one hand. Is is really that much harder to mouse with your left hand than your right?

  42. itches says:

    But the PC also has one of the finest pointing instruments ever devised: The mouse. Console gamers often claim that the thumbstick is “just as good as the mouse” once you “get used to it”. They're wrong.

    Precision control doesn’t mean it is inherently superior (as strange as that sounds). Using a mouse allows you to do things that a gamepad can’t do, you have a lot more control then a gamepad does but it’s also more difficult to learn. I went a long time without playing video games and when I came back it didn’t take me long to make the transition on the gamepad from “thinking about the controls” to “playing the game”.

    Despite the fact – or even maybe because of it – that I had been using a PC constantly in my non-gaming period (really bad PC + no console = no games) I found it more difficult to get the mouse to do what I wanted it to do, gamewise.

    Maybe it is only me but the gamepad was just more accessible. I think of it as a comparison between performing surgery and swinging an axe. You can do things with surgery you can’t even dream of with an axe, but you become proficient with an axe faster and you end up with blood (representing fun) either way.

    One day I’ll test whether it was just me or not, but that was how I found it.

  43. Daemian Lucifer says:

    About “picking the mouse up”,the only time I ever do this is when I use a mouse other than my own.I dont remember the last time I picked the mouse up in order to rescroll it.Its primed so that I can cover my whole monitor without picking it up,and have a bit more space,so even when playing a FPS I can do a full 360 turn,though its usually not needed.

    @WWWebb

    Well the numpad is a bit too close to the mouse for my taste,and Im used to having my arms being on the sides of my body instead of in front of it.But again,thats just prefference.

    Oh,and on numpad you can accidentally hit the numlock,which would end up doing more damage than just hitting the dreaded caps lock.

  44. Mark says:

    No, I mean it. Why do people specifically use the phrase “to dumb down” in reference to PC-to-console ports? The only material difference is that precision input is cumbersome and there are no hotkeys, and in exchange you get analog input, force feedback, and physical comfort. Is this some strange new meaning of “dumb” that I’ve never heard before?

  45. Rick says:

    Reading this thread, I’m amazed at how nicely Knights of the Old Republic was translated to the computer. That game felt absolutely perfect on the keyboard/mouse and I can’t imagine using a gamepad to play it. (I wish I could say BioWare has done well at this, but Jade Empire was… I don’t like using the mouse to look around, so I just mapped everything onto my gamepad and never looked back.)

    By far the most annoying keyboard setup I’ve encountered was Madden 2005, where a bunch of stuff that had been mapped to the right analog stick of the gamepad was completely ignored for the keyboard. Not coincidentally, that’s the game that finally made me break down and buy a gamepad.

    As for the Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy name, it was changed in the US because Atari was afraid people would associate it with Fahrenheit 9/11. That’s got to be the dumbest reason for a name change I’ve heard since Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Sorcerer’s Stone.

  46. Rick says:

    For the reason behind why Fahrenheit was renamed Indigo Prophecy in the US, Here you go. Prepare for eye-rolling and/or bashing your head against the nearest wall and/or desk.

  47. Nazgul says:

    I think an interesting example of the conversion from keyboard/mouse to console controller was going from Marathon (Bungie’s Mac precursor to Halo) to Halo on Xbox. I was extremely fast and precise using just the keyboard (no mouse) in Marathon and I never felt as totally in control with Halo on Xbox. It wasn’t bad or a problem, but it took getting used to and I lost a little precision.

    I strongly suspect that a lot of console controller vs. keyboard vs. mouse not only depends on the game, but as to how each individual user is wired. (Just like in most shooters you can select your preference for normal or “inverse aim” settings.)

  48. Shamus says:

    WWWeb: I know. I prefer the numpad as well. I have to push my keyboard to the left to do it, but the rectangular region makes it easier for me to play without accidentally “losing” my spot by moving my hand 1 key to the right or left. It also avoids the problem of inadvertently hitting the #@%$ windows key.

    I use WASD in the example above because that seems to be what 99% of the gamers out there use.

  49. Shamus says:

    Mark: That’s not the only difference. As just one example: In UT3 they removed a LOT of options from the menus. That’s fine if all you played was the default game, but in previous versions players like me would set up games that ran on a particular custom list of maps, with custom bots randomly chosen from a customized roster, with very specific time limits and frag limits and mutator configurations, etc etc etc.

    A lot of those options are gone. Of the ones that remain, many are more shallow.

    The other thing that makes it dumb is the small number of things shown onscreen, in huge text – like a book for a child who is learning to read. Again, in UT3 you have to hit the “next” buton a half dozen times to start the game. There is no reason you couldn’t put ALL of those pages of options onto one screen if you’re working with the PC.

    So the game is “dumb” in that it has less options. But it’s also “dumb” in that it feels insultingly like something designed for kids who can barely read. It’s also “dumb” in the sense that it’s a hassle to use with the mouse, and so it feels like an interface designed by an idiot.

    Thus “dumb”.

  50. Mark says:

    So it’s a matter of “large, flat menus” versus “small, deeply nested menus” and “small text” versus “large text.”

    Yeah, I guess that makes us console gamers idiots.

  51. Sauron says:

    @Mark:
    It’s not just about making things more or less cumbersome. Consoles have to worry about screen real estate more due to fewer pixels so HUDs and menus are forced to have less information and options than a PC can have. Some things that may be easy to do on a PC can too cumbersome to do on the console, leading to a good feature being missing. The fact that the thumbstick is less precise can cause dumbing down of levels or adding of silly things like autoaim. Dumbing down, while not always the best wording, can still apply in many cases.

  52. Rick says:

    ::sigh::

    I didn’t mean to doublepost above. It didn’t go through the first time, so I resubmitted. Sorry for that.

  53. Hawkstrike says:

    Much of this is individual taste and experience, but I thikn the better control depends on the type of game. I finally picked up my first console since the NES (a 360) because I was unhappy with the shooter experience on my PC. Halo’s controls on the 360 are fantastic — an experience I couldn’t match with mouse & keyboard. In fact, to get reasonable competence with the shooters I liked on my PC, I was using my Thrustmaster joystick, with its moveable thumb hat and four fingertip buttons plus trigger. I think it may be superior to the dual thumbstick controller for pure control (and this from a guy who flies RC airplanes, so both my thumbs are pretty competent), but it lacks the numebr of acessory buttons.

    CRPGs and strategy games need the greater flexibility of the keyboard+ mouse, IMO (though Oblivion on my 360 has been pretty good overall). I’ll save the trackball for Centipedde, though …

    And then there are racing games … which are a waste without a wheel.

    Now here’s a question: when did push forward/look up become standard? Somewhere along the line my standard control setup (back = look up) became the “inverted” setup. Am I the only one here wired backwards? Or did I just spend too much time playing flight simulators when I was younger?

  54. Arthur says:

    Shamus, a warning: stop playing Indigo Prophecy now. I ain’t kidding: the sooner you stop playing, the higher your opinion and fonder your memories of the game will be. I won’t spoil you here, but suffice to say it turns to ass in a dozen different ways by game end.

    Oh, and on the main subject of the post: have you seen those little keyboards you can get for the IM function on the XBox 360? They are a little too fiddly and small to be the main interface for a game, but I could definitely see ways that games can incorporate them for added functionality (say, using the main controller for the main game and the keyboard for fiddling with options and in menu screens). I suspect that as PC gaming continues to decline there will be an increased demand for PC-like gaming experiences on consoles, and sheer economic necessity will ensure that suitable control mechanisms are devised.

  55. Stormcaller says:

    Im left handed, and i use either a full remap centred on the arrow keys or on numpad.
    The only problem is finding a mouse that is comfortable in the left hand… Too many nowadays are form fitted for right hand use… :(

  56. McNutcase says:

    Hawkstrike/53: Quake. Duke Nukem 3D had an “invert mouselook” option, which actually did invert mouselook, to what Quake made into the standard. I have met some games which default to using the “correct” push down/pull up setting, but do it by defaulting to the “invert” option being checked. The thing is, the standard desktop pointer behaviour is for push to mean up, and for some people it does make sense for push up to remain the standard in games, but it’s a matter of taste. The thing that should really bake your noodle is what Halo does… it, using a stick for look, defaults to push up/pull down. That breaks my brain. Anyway, the push up as standard is down to id software’s decision to have it that way on Quake. The other crazy thing is I’ve met games that allow you to invert the x-axis as well… so left is right and vice versa. And now, my original comment…

    Gamepads and mouse/keys do well at different things. I find mouse and keys far better for first-person and for the classic Worms gameplay (not the rather broken 3D version, the classic side-on stuff that made Worms 2’s engine the canonical Worms engine), while gamepads are good for flightsim, driving and in most cases giving me agonising hand cramps.

    I realise that my hands are somewhat larger than average, but the only gamepad I’ve found even remotely close to comfortable is the original xbox controller. Every playstation-type controller I ever tried was so small my hands cramped up within minutes. Oddly, the old 3DO controllers I have for the old 3DO I have (and still play Need for Speed on) don’t have that issue, possibly because they’re not trying so hard to be ergonomic as the PSfoo controllers.

    What I really ought to do is take to hacking overly small controllers with some kind of foam padding to enlarge them…

    And finally, on the precision control question: auto-aim is very common on console shooters. It’s very UNcommon on PC shooters. Coincidence? I think not.

  57. Allan says:

    The thing that really annoyed me about Oblivions interface wasn’t so much that it was obviously for the console version but that it was obviously for the console version and bethesda didn’t care. Oblivion’s interface isn’t an integral part of the game play, changing it doesn’t affect anything to do with the actual playing of it like it might in your example of the indigo prophecy/farenheit things, and once I got the game and saw that interface I remembered comments Bethesda had made during development, “We sold more xbox copies of Morrowind than PC copies, so we’re developping both versions concurrently this time” which at the time I’d considered neither here nor there. Now I know that that statement basicly translates as “Screw you, PC players, you’re now an afterthought”. Making the interface suitable for keyboard and mouse is nothing, a consumation of resources that must be incredable small, as within days of release better UI mods were already out.

    Also, perhaps it would be best to avoid using the ‘dumbed-down’ terminology, although I know you don’t mean it, it is literrally saying console users are dumb. And a percieved insult is never going to lead to a reasoned debate.

    P.S Has anyone noticed the D-pad on the 360 controller is 8-directional? You press inbetween the arrows and the pad moves in that direction aswell, although I haven’t noticed any game using the other 4 directions.

  58. Stu says:

    Hawkstrike: Interestingly, I find thumbstick’s to be a different beast to joysticks in that forward->look_up feels more natural.

    Although I may be weird because I use forward->up in FPS and back->up in third person games. I guess the brain wires itself up as it needs to. :-)

  59. ehlijen says:

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t they (or at least didn’t they) make game pads for the PC?

  60. McNutcase says:

    Regarding the Windows key: there are ways around it. Some games disable it (yay them), there are mini-apps that are there to disable it (again, yay), at least one game uses it as a modifier (no kidding; for one of the hidden features of Myth II, you need to use the Windows key (it’s part of the chord needed to target ambient life, or select ambient life, which is “impossible”; the only other way to read the flavour text is to go tag-diving, and the only other way to kill ambient life is with area-effect weaponry)) or there’s the old, low-tech solution I use of prying the keycap off on that side, since I never did use that side’s splat anyway, and there’s always another splat on the other side where it’s not going to get in the game’s way.

    One game that had real fun driving me nuts early on was Splinter Cell. On Windows XP, it kept causing the “accessibility” dialogue to come up. Turns out, even when you’ve turned off the “feature” of having shift be a sticky key, bashing it repeatedly (as was needed for walljumps and splitjumps) still causes to suggestion of turning it on to come up. Took me rather too long to find the frob to stop THAT…

  61. Shamus says:

    Mark: I never, NEVER said console USERS were dumb, much less idiots, much less implied…

    Oh forget it. I spent ten paragraphs trying to tiptoe around all the ways people could POSSIBLY misunderstand what I’d written and get bent out of shape over it, but it happened anyway. I guess if you really need to have your feelings hurt you’ll find a way.

    Fine. Consoles are great. At everything. All the time. They are better than all other computers for any purpose, anywhere, ever, and people who use consoles are happier and smarter and more talented than people who don’t. Group hug.

    Sheesh.

  62. Patrick says:

    Shamus, GET OUT OF FAHRENHEIT OR INDIGO PROPHCY NOW!!!(!!11oneone)

    Please, for the love of all that is divine, play no further. You will only regret it. Ideally, you stop playing this game after 1 hour, because it starst running downhill exactly then. They plot spirals off into crazy-land, and it’s clear the developers had no clue how to end it. Please stop now. Just stop. Do yourself a favor, and stop.

    However, if you don’t stop, you’ll probably get between 1 and 3 posts out of it, along with some funny comics.

  63. Zereth says:

    I don’t think people complain about games being “dumbed down” much except in things like the Elder Scrolls or Unreal Tournament series where previous games were built for the PC first.

    And now the next version is harder to deal with and has fewer options. (I miss being able to see my stats, my inventory, a minimap, my spell list, and every spell effect on me, all at the same time, like I could in Morrowind.) Some of us prefer later games in a series to get better.

  64. kh_hawkes says:

    Actually Rob Conely. Try a 360 controller on your PC sometime. They sell them now for the PC if you really need one. I know a few people who play games with them on their PC. Sorry this was late in coming.

  65. Cybron says:

    Shamus: I understand your aggravation, but to be fair I can easily understand where the upset console gamers are coming from… the problem is the argument you make is inherently pejorative.

    But it's also “dumb” in that it feels insultingly like something designed for kids who can barely read.

    No matter how you meant, that sounds pretty insulting when applied to someone’s hobby of choice.

  66. Bryan says:

    > Four shift keys – each with their very own dedicated finger. Try that on a PC!

    Hey, leave emacs out of this! I *like* how it requires figuring out how to hit quadruple-bucky-cokebottle on your particular keyboard, just to exit! Of course, I only like that because I use vim…

    :-P

    (Yeah, yeah, I know, none of that really applies to PCs, just old terminal keyboards like MIT’s space-cadet. Still, I thought it was funny. ;-) )

  67. Jeff says:

    Ya know, regarding Oblivion, it’s not just that the game was optimized for consoles, but that it did get dumber. The basic stuff, like rearranging the eye bleed interfaces and fixing the game was done, but certain game mechanics…

    Why the heck can’t we delete spells without having to use the console? In a game where we can make custom spells! One accidental incorrect input and you’ll have your mistake glaring at you every time you open your spell list… taunting you…

    Regarding auto-leveling monsters, no, there’s no good side, ever.
    If the idea that you can go to the capital and wipe out the entire elite division of the emperor’s personal bodyguards because they happen to be level 1 because you’re level 1 sounds good, you’re playing the wrong genre of game. Every person who plays an RPG ought to expect the emperor’s personal bad-asses to be, you know, bad asses.
    …and that every last random bandit you see wandering around aren’t wearing sets of the uber-armor you spent ages putting together. These bandits are wearing enough to buy castles, and they wander the countryside to mug random people? The entire game world only has the PC in this armor – in character, there’s nobody else to mug that’ll give them more than what they already have.

  68. Shamus says:

    Cybron: I guess I can see that angle. I suppose I could be more explicit:

    But it's also “dumb” in that it feels insultingly like something designed for kids who can barely read… when shown on a monitor instead of a television.

  69. DanK says:

    Shamus, regarding your comment on the right analog stick being replaced by a trackball:

    Brilliant, simply brilliant. I would buy two of these instantly, if they were available for my console of choice.

    Aiming in console games using thumbstick is ridiculous in the best of times (sure, you hardcore halo zealots might be used to it, but I miss my mouse precision – these arguments date back to kb vs kb+mouse days in DOOM and the mouse zealots won…)

    I imagine there are a few reasons they haven’t done it:

    a) they haven’t thought of it
    b) wear and tear with the trackball
    c) prohibitively expensive cost / low uptake?

    I would buy them at double cost if they let me play games designed for pc (mouse) control on my HD plasma tv. Aiming the sniper rifle in GTA IV would become joyous rather than a chore.

  70. K says:

    I’ve recently seen the “Yatzhee goes to Epic” Video (Zero Punctuation is well worth watching), and thought: Woooow, this game (the next Gears of War) looks aaawwweeesome! And then I thought: But it’s so obvious it’s played on a console, his aim is awful, jagged, slow and inaccurate.
    One of the reasons I liked Red Steel on the Wii (bad game, stil fun): Because it was not as easy as with a mouse and near-perfect aim, but still not as clunky as dual-analog. I love PC-gaming for the single reason that my preferred genres suck on consoles. Starcraft? Impossible to do. 3D-Shooters? Work, but aweful. RPGs? Yeah, possible, but being able to display a lot of text and easy to navigate menues helps a lot. I loved Disgaea, I hated it’s interface. Thousands of buttonpresses for simple tasks.

  71. folo4 says:

    this again?

    it’s simple; consoles are specialized ( towards gaming ), while PCs are general purpose.

    why does the input device brings so much flak?

    remember; programmers are humans; they will do less work if they think it is not necessary. Thus they use console-based menus instead of making a new one for the PC.

    Porting’s a very grey line. And I try to avoid ports like the plague

  72. Mark says:

    Shamus, I apologize for insinuating that you were insulting me. It was more a general expression of disapproval for the specific terminology associated with the phenomenon.

  73. Dihydrogen says:

    Hey Samus and other people who are irritated by the windows key:
    There is a simple way to fix the problem. Just load up task manager, go to the process tab and end task explorer.exe. The windows key will no longer function, but you will have no desktop. To load your games go to the file menu and select new task run then press browse. You know have a file explorer window to select your game and load it.

    To revert back to normal load up task manager (ctrl shift esc) go file, new task, and type in explorer. The windows key will now function as normal and you will have a desktop again.

    Tip: if you are running XP you can press ctrl shift alt while selecting cancel to the shutdown dialog box to safely end explorer.exe and not have to use the task manager.

  74. Zerotime says:

    …because even the average PC has more pixels than the best HDTV, and the user is sitting just inches away.

    Well, technically speaking the best HDTVs have a resolution of 3840×2160, but even discounting those for a more realistic 1920×1080 set, the HDTV has about 60% more pixels than an “average” PC monitor (assuming 1280×1024 here). A 1366×768 WXGA TV won’t have as many pixels, but it’s not really a high-def set either.

  75. MaxEd says:

    Gamepads get weirder and weirder by the year. I want my four buttons back – no sane game would need more :) I own a gamepad for PC for the sole purpose of playing soccer/hockey titles. It has 8 main buttons + 3 additional buttons and it’s NOT ENOUGH for modern soccer game. Sigh. Can I have my simplicity back, please?

    Anyway, back to the theme of “dumbing down”. Let ’em dumb down arcades, fighting games, shooters… There is not much to dumb down there, in my opinion. But RPGs have a long way to fall from the pinnacle of Fallout/Arcanum/Baldur’s Gate/Torment.

  76. Freykin says:

    I grew up playing on both the PC and consoles (thank you gamer dad!), so I’ve always been accustomed to both control sets. It is kind of ridiculous though to port a game from one to the other and not change the control scheme much, since the default input devices are so very different.

    For example, I’d never try to play Diablo II on a console, it just wouldn’t work for aiming skills or picking up loot properly. On the same hand though, I wouldn’t want to play Guilty Gear on the PC, or any other fighting game for that matter.

  77. Viktor says:

    I’m one of those console gamers who literally cannot make a keyboard work. WASD alone just feels wrong for me, let alone memorizing what every one of the 101 keys does. I’m too used to the standardization of gamepads, in that other than the specifics, the same buttons do the same things in most games out there, so I can “pick up and play”. Partly that comes from the fact that keyboards are essentially typewriter interfaces adapted to gaming, while gamepads were made for the purpose, and are much more ergonomic than the keyboard(which really has no reason for it’s current condition other than inertia).

    And there’s the fact that my hands are way too big for a keyboard. The only controller that I liked, size-wise, was the original X-Box controller, and my fingers were still a bit long for it. Keyboards are right out. Even typing doesn’t work right, really. Between half-pushes not being enough to activate buttons, and my pinkie feeling far more comfortable on caps-lock than A, I’d have to re-map everything just to make a keyboard come close to working for me.

    As to mouse v. dual-analog, well, I’d like to see you circle-strafe with a keyboard. Mouses either have to a)cut back on sensitivity, b)lift and drop, or c) have a 3ft pad.
    Not saying the computer interface is worse, just saying that there is so much about it that doesn’t work for me, I’d stop gaming rather than use it.

  78. Vendrin says:

    Indigo Prophecy was good until it got to the whole born with super power thing. I preferred the mystery aspect of it.

  79. Shamus says:

    Zerotime: I stand corrected. I had no idea they had gotten that high!

  80. Simplex says:

    FullHD TVs indeed have 1920×1080 resolution (as opposed to 1280×720 HD Ready sets) but you have to factor in the distance from the screen. You you usually sit quite close to a PC monitor (less then a meter?) while for TV/couch combo the distance is usually few meters. Despite (or rather because of) Full HD resolution, small letters would be unreadable from such distance – so consequently they would still need to be bigger.

  81. Yggur says:

    Viktor:
    Ha and I’m a PC gamer who can’t get WASD to work properly! It just feels an unnatural position to me, and to the person far above who mentioned all the crouch, jump, grenade etc buttons near the WASD keys, i tend to have difficulty using them properly and then finding my direction keys again! It could be that i’m just not very dextrous, or that my years of RPG/strategy playing have atrophied my skills, but i by far prefer keypads for their key layout and ease of use. Saying that, i can’t aim for shit with thumbsticks and i agree that the mouse is far better in this regard. I remember playing Deus Ex 2 on whichever console it was and not being able to hit a damn thing and thinking “this would be so much easier with a mouse”.

    Due to the recent talk my soft-willed mind has succumbed and i re-installed Morrowind (with a couple of extra mods) and i’d forgotten how gorgeous it was! While Oblivion improved some things (magicka regen and coating weapons with poison being my faves) there were definite steps backwards (wait, so my Valkyrie-type with absolutely NO rogue skills has just become the head of the Thieves Guild in a couple of weeks???)

  82. DaveMc says:

    Something I’m genuinely curious about (but like Shamus, I fear this will just fan the flames): Do people *really* find the WASD keys to be a good way to move yourself around in a game? After years of playing nothing but turn-based games, I recently tried a third-person action game on the PC, and my reaction was: “*This* is the way you move around? Seriously? Forward-forward-forward, turn-turn-turn, forward-forward, strafe-strafe . . . Are you kidding me?” It seems like an incredibly cumbersome way to control an object in 3D space. The only other action games I’d played were on a console, and by comparison, moving yourself around with an analog stick seemed really fluid: after all, your position and motion is an analog thing, and using the WASD keys felt like artificially digitizing it. I get that the mouse is vastly more precise, and it can sweep across the screen far faster than a thumbstick would allow . . . What I don’t get is why the control scheme is called “mouse and keyboard” rather than “mouse and, unfortunately, keyboard”.

    People really *love* the mouse-and-keyboard system, which makes me wonder if I’m doing it wrong. Do you somehow use the mouse to move as well, thus avoiding the cumbersome keyboard interface? Or do you just get used to it? I mean, I can move around OK, but it still strikes me as a strangely primitive way to try to control motion.

  83. Zukhramm says:

    Stormcaller,

    I’m left handed too, but I did the only thing I felt was on option, getting used to ussing the mouse in my right hand. Simply, because that’s the way computers are everywhere, at home I could do what i want, but when somewhere else it feel better be used to working with it that way.

    And well, using the mouse in my left hand has allwayse seemed to me like trying to find a mirrored game pad for my consoles to use my left hand for the buttons or something like that.

    And on the keyboards, yes you do have more buttons. But it will probably never, to me at least, feel as good using them as using the buttons on a gamepad. It just feels clumsy to me.

  84. Spellingmistx says:

    To DaveMc

    “Do people *really* find the WASD keys to be a good way to move yourself around in a game?”

    You get use to it. I use to only play RTSs on a pc untill my brother ‘forced’ me to play battlefeild. I hated the controls using the key baord for quite some time, then one day i found it working, now i think it is very realistic and better for suited for that game, it just took time. This is however my own veiw and experance, others will have there own.

  85. Daemian Lucifer says:

    @Yggur

    Funny,but it was RTS games that made me so proficient with the keyboard and not FPS games.Early FPS games used just the movement keyes(and maybe a flashlight now and then),and the rest you did with the mouse,while even the early RTS games had a plethora of shortcuts that I started using regularly.After a while I didnt have to look for the right shortcut and it just became an instinct.

    @DaveMc

    I do find WASD mouse the best currenty available way of moving.Sure,an analog stick mouse would be better,but there isnt one.Two analog sticks to me seems just like an upgraded equivalend of WASD numpad which I used only to drive planes and helis in GTA,and nothing more.And yes,you do use the mouse for moving as well:You turn with your mouse,and you move in a straight line with the keyboard(sure,it is only 8 directions,but thats why you have the mouse,to fine tune it).

  86. GamerCow says:

    Designers can either cater to one platform at the expense of another, or they can write two different games. Guess which one is more likely?

    If Shamus could get over the “I HATE SECUREROM” thing, he’d see that the developers of Mass Effect did change the experience for PC gamers. From videogamer.com: “Control wise, with the PC having a keyboard and mouse, things have been opened up considerably, allowing for faster gameplay. A quick slot menu allows you to access your biotic talents (Barrier, Stasis, etc) instantly without first entering a menu and weapons can be switched by pressing the F keys or by scrolling through with the square bracket keys.” and “On the other hand, the addition of individual squad control adds an extra level of depth and tactical play. Although the grouped squad commands in the Xbox 360 game didn’t cause us too many problems, the PC game will allow you to direct each of your squad members individually. We’ll have to get some hands-on time to figure out how much this will really add to the experience, but if you’re the kind of gamer that wants to go into every battle with a tactical formation, you’re in luck.” and “The Mako controls have been redesigned allowing for independent camera control, a new decryption mini-game based on the Omni Decryption Tool used in the game has been added (although we didn’t get a chance to see this in action), the inventory system has been enhanced and the number of save slots has been increased.”

    So yes, its more likely that developers will NOT do this, and will NOT take the time, effort, and care to adapt their games for the PC, but there’s at least one out there that did bother to do this.

  87. theckhd says:

    Didn’t get a chance to check back here until today, sorry for the late reply.

    What I was talking about is that you can't hold down Shft, CTRL, alt, AND Right shift, all at the same time, and still operate the WASD. Easy on a console, but finger-twisting on a keyboard.

    Maybe I wasn’t being clear. There’s no need to press all the modifier keys at the same time. You can get over 100 combinations just using a single modifier at a time, i.e. a, shift-a, ctrl-a, alt-a. None of those are difficult to do with one hand in a standard typing configuration. Multiple-modifier combos on the keyboard do get unwieldy, and probably shouldn’t be considered in such an analysis, as you accurately noted.

    I’ll agree that using multiple modifier keys is much easier on the console controller though, since it’s designed for that. I can imagine using L1-R1-button for example, but trying to replicate that on the keyboard with shift-alt-key does get prohibitively difficult. If you allow L1-R1-button-like combinations for the console, you can have over 100 different combinations with a console controller (10 buttons on the face x 10 different modifier choices, plus the 4 modifier buttons themselves), which is on par with what the keyboard can handle with single-modifier combinations.

    I don’t mean for either of my posts to come off argumentative; I’m not trying to make an argument that either option is a better gaming platform. Justin hit the nail on the head in post 26, I was just pointing out that the button combination disparity isn’t really a valid criticism in the debate. I agree with the rest of your post completely. Since you asked though, I’ll drop the issue.

  88. Zerotime says:

    Simplex: Yeah, and that’s another reason that the UI is designed for the controls and not the raw pixels. :p

  89. Phlux says:

    On the subject of PC controls.

    At first I noticed the same thing…older games were wired for “push up = look down” which later became the “invert” standard.

    I do think it has to do with how your brain is wired…sort of like whether you can roll your tongue or have a widow’s peak in your hair.

    For me, I have to use the standard controls, push up = look up for FPS games. The reason I think is the crosshair. It’s like a mouse cursor. If I push my mouse up, I expect it to move up on the monitor.

    For flight games, however, I absolutely MUST have my joystick inverted. It needs to be “pull back = nose up”. Is this opposite for people who use the “pull down = look up” FPS controls?

    For me it’s a frame of reference issue. In an FPS game my frame of reference is perpendicular to the ground, whereas in a flight sim I’m operating parallel to the ground.

  90. theckhd says:

    Do people *really* find the WASD keys to be a good way to move yourself around in a game?

    It depends. For a 3rd-person RPG-like game (Final Fantasy being the first example I can think of), I think the console analog sticks provide much better movement and camera control.

    For an FPS game, the mouse keyboard feels more natural to me. Though from your comment, it seems you think that the keyboard is used for turning — it shouldn’t be. Ideally, the keyboard is for moving forward and backward, and strafe left-right. Using the mouse to turn is quite intuitive, especially since you’re already using it to aim.

    This is actually one of the toughest things about going between WoW and FPS games on the computer. In WoW, I use the keyboard to move, strafe, and turn. When I switch to an FPS game, I often have to force myself to not press my turning keys for the first few minutes to break the habit.

    Also, I’d love to know why developers decide that WASD has to remain the default movement scheme. I absolutely hate it. It made sense back in the early days, a-la Wolf3D and DOOM, when the game was often played with keyboard-only, using ctrl to shoot. But few, if any, play FPS games that way nowadays. I always re-bind movement to ESDF, because a) it’s the natural typing configuration, b) it increases the amount of keyboard coverage your left hand has, allowing you access to more buttons for key-bindings, and c) it causes less cramping and fatigue in my left hand during extended play sessions.

  91. Mark says:

    Well, with a mouse that has a lot of buttons, it may be viable to play with the left hand on a gamepad’s analog stick and the right hand on a mouse. I think that’s something like the best of both worlds.

  92. Viktor says:

    That actually might work. I’m thinking of a Joystick for the left hand and a mouse on the right. With the right key design for the joystick, and 7 interfaces on the mouse, you should be good (2 buttons, scroll up/down, back, forwards, click scroll). If they can’t make the interface work with that, they need to re-think the game.

  93. Miral says:

    I meant to post this yesterday, but forgot. In Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy), I thought the default controls sucked and I could never get through the reaction/”simon says” sequences.

    But after a little remapping I found a control scheme that really works well: map the left-hand keys to WASD and the right-hand keys to the arrowpad. This way the layout of the keys matches and it’s harder to confuse your brain about which key you need to push when switching from left to right hand quickly, which happens a lot.

    For normal playing use WASD and mouse, and then move the right hand to the arrow keys when you enter a reaction sequence. Works brilliantly. (Or at least it did for me.)

    Of course, this assumes you’re using a regular full-size keyboard, not a laptop one ;)

  94. Jeff says:

    As to mouse v. dual-analog, well, I'd like to see you circle-strafe with a keyboard.

    …er, the problem really is on your side. Circle-strafe is a standard of FPSes from ye olden days and extremely simple.

    Hold A or D, point mouse at target. In fact, with a mouse, when circle strafing I tend to have at least 90% accuracy. The movement is inconsequential while using the mouse to aim.

  95. Dave says:

    You know, this whole huge discussion is reminding me of Quake 3 on the Dreamcast. You could get a special “Quake 3 Controller” for the Dreamcast (it was literally sold as a “Quake 3 controller”)–a keyboard and a mouse.

  96. Daemian Lucifer says:

    @theckhd

    ESFD wouldnt work for me since I use alt sometimes,and Im pressing it with mu thumb.Funny thing though,I dont remember a single FPS that uses alt,but I do use it a lot in strategies that have camera movement bound to WASD and in some RPGs like NWN.

  97. Thomas says:

    “These buttons are referred to as “touch-sensitive”. To me, it feels like they have two levels – you can push them gently or hard. Perhaps they're more sensitive than that and I'm not experienced enough to discern it.”
    If I remember correctly, all the buttons except possibly start and select (and the two joystick buttons) are pressure-sensitive, and with a reasonable resolution as well. They behave rather like the little mousestick on some laptops, or like a pressure-sensitive tablet pen (i.e. there’s very little physical movement when pressing them).

    Speaking of mousesticks, I’ve always rather liked them. They can be good for some games as well (for Hamsterball it’s a lot better than a mouse, as you can apply constant pressure to hold the ball on a slope), and since there’s less movement involved than with joysticks I find them responsive enough for Unreal Tournament. It does depend a lot on the implementation though, and some are a lot better than others.

    (isn’t Prophecy spelt with a ‘c’?)

  98. smIsle says:

    I think the main worry is that the console will determine what games are developed for the PC, negating their strong points, making it even less worthwhile to get the PC game, making companies more likely to not spend to time to optimize their game for both systems, and so on in a huge spiral until there aren’t any great games for PCs, even in the categories where the PC is obviously superior.

    The ways the games are different on a console aren’t dumb in general, just dumb for people on a PC. Kind of like how a semi-truck is dumb for racing in, and a race car is dumb for moving goods across the country (there are no implied correlations between those types of cars and PCs and Consoles). Having lots of menu items and small text is dumb in a console, and no designer would do it, but having huge text and few menu items (when there should be, or used to be more) is dumb on a PC. If PCs were winning the battle right now, console gamers would be complaining that PCs were causing the games to become cluttered or just plain unusable.

    I use ASDF for actions and the arrow keys (I’ll have to try the numpad, I never thought of it) or the mouse for movement, opposite of the old nintendo controllers. I use Z and X for pause and start. I also have the G, QWERT, shift and space keys that I can easily access. This is about the equivalent of an older controller, and this works fine for older games, even better than the controller in some cases. In other games, trying to use the keyboard results in finger acrobatics, unless you remap to new keys, which you then have to learn. In those cases, I get out my controller, and have at it. When I’m on a PC, I can switch between the two, using the controller for most of a game, then during certain battle sequences, switch to the keyboard so that I can push more specific keys at a time.

    Of course, this is all about games that were made for the console, whether I’m playing on a emulator, or a ported game. When I’m playing a RTS or RPG or other mouse intensive games where the PC really shines, I use the keyboard with one hand and the mouse with the other. I’ve tried even the original lemmings game on a console .. wow, that was horrid. It’s all about clicking on little moving characters at exactly the right moment.

  99. Jonny says:

    i agree with all of the points you made in that, was a great read

  100. Rojola says:

    Mass Effect and Fallout 3 are much more enjoyable on PC than on any console. Both have dumbed down interfaces, catering the console dudes but luckily FO3 mod scene is active for making decent interface mods.

  101. Blue_Pie_Ninja says:

    Sorry for the necro-post:

    I play on both consoles and PC, and the thing I dislike about KBaM use is for games where there is a lot of options to choose in game, for example, Just Cause 2 has an insane amount of buttons for it that forces me to do keyboard acrobatics to evade enemies, in fact, tab is evade/roll, shift is sprint WASD for movement, Q for melee E for activate/interact, R for reload, T for PDA, F for grappling hook, G for grenade switching, C for fine-aim, Z or X for walking (I’m not sure which it is) alt for stunt-jumping, Space for jump/parachute and left-ctrl for crouch, not to mention the 1,2,3,4 buttons for weapons and the black-market, and for it to work properly you really need to have 2 thumbs, 3 pinkies, 4 pointers etc. to use it properly while on consoles, the controls are much more streamlined and easier to use all at once. I also find that on consoles it is easier to use the left analog stick to walk slowly or to sneak, something that needs to take an extra key on a keyboard to use. I do find the mouse to be better in some places (Why does GTA need to have L2 for targeting?) but for some of the games I play I use a controller.

    And I also think that Halo on the PC is way easier to use than on a console, as it is easier to target and kill grunts without putting the right analog stick on high sensitivity, and it is easier to melee, put on the flashlight etc. and even fly/drive (because it is mouse controlled) and makes for a much better experience. It also makes it easier to jump-spin over enemies bullets and take them out.

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