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In Defense of the Classic Controller
Kotaku has an opinion piece by Leigh Alexander singing the praises of classic, button-rich controllers for the level of precision and complexity they offer. While the Wii Remote and upcoming motion-control offerings from Microsoft and Sony are generating a lot of interest, there will always be games for which more traditional input devices are better suited. Quoting:
"With all this talk about new audiences — and the tech designed to serve them — it's easy to get excited. It's also easy to feel a little lost in the shuffle. For gamers who've been there since before anyone cared about making games 'for everyone,' having that object in our hands was more than a way to access the game world — it was half the appeal. Anyone who's ever pulled off a chain of combos in a console fighter can tell you about the joy of expertise and control. ... Gamers may suffer some kind of identity crisis as the familiar markers of their beloved niche evolve — or disappear entirely. The solution to that one's easy: Get over it. Like it or not, it's clear that gaming's not a 'niche' anymore, and its shape will change. The more pressing issue is whether or not controller-less gaming will truly make the medium richer. Making something 'more accessible' doesn't necessarily make it better."
I have always maintained that the original SNES controller is the best gaming controller ever developed. It has the right feel, just enough buttons, and great responsiveness. I haven't seen a better pad in 20+ years of gaming.
Anyone afraid that buttons are going to disappear is just getting upset for no good reason. There's bazillions of hours invested into buttons, programming buttons, and designing game interfaces around buttons. Everyone isn't going to just up and abandon all of that investment and knowledge just because something new has appeared.
You'll just have to live with the fact that your beloved button based games might have to sit next to some motion control games on the store shelves. But that's not really something worth whining about.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
For most non-simulator games, I'd stick with mouse and keyboard any day! Try to sniping someone in the head in a fast-paced game with a traditional controller without any auto aims, and then talk about "precision".
Punch Out for the Wii has both motion based and button based control schemes. Very few people use the motion based controls after the first few levels, because, let's face it, we're not real boxers and most of have no desire to be.
D-pad: SNES
Analog: Gamecube.
Why? Go play some SNES/Cube games. I'm not sure which guys in Nintendo are developing the controllers, but they used to do a very, very good job. Too bad they kind of screwed up the Classic Controller for the Wii. They should have gone with the SNES controller, without editing too much, just new start and select buttons.
Making something 'more accessible' doesn't necessarily make it better.
I said that when they paved over paradise and put up a parking lot.
For short : diversity is good, no one size fits all solution, to each his own, etc...
You just got troll'd!
The gamecube controller is the best ever, imo.
The stick is in the upper left and not in the odd uncomfortable position of the dual shock stick.
The right button placement is great. Large A button in the middle. Small B button to the left. X is above the A and Y is to the right of the A. The buttons all have different shapes so you can feel what button your thumb is on without having to look.
And of course, the *epic* analog shoulder buttons. The buttons have a huge range of motion; I'm pretty sure they depress over half an inch, and they 'lock' at the bottom. I've never seen another controller with such awesome analog buttons.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
You know, I always think it's great when people say this, but they always forget the alternative... I don't have to play video games if I don't think they are fun. There are tons of other things to do in this world. In fact, I'm actually not going to play video games if I don't think they are fun. I have something called a job for when I want to do things that aren't fun.
More importantly for the people who say, "Get over it," if I find that the new video games aren't fun, I'll stop buying them and wait until someone produces some that are worthy. Heck, since I'll likely fill my leisure time with alternative activities I might just forget that games exist entirely....
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Give me motion control on my portable systems. I want to look like a complete idiot in the waiting room. "Sir, Mental Health is down the hall."
If there is one thing I wish all consoles would adopt from the Wii it's not the motion controlls but the ability to hold your hands independently.
Playing Zelda on the Wii was the most relaxing way to play a game I've experienced to date. I could just sit back, put one hand behind my head while the other rests comfortably on the couch. I want to do that on the other consoles, too.
The alleged "greater precision" of button-mashers is imaginary; a side effect of someone afraid to learn a new skill. People said exactly the same thing about analog sticks, and D-pads before them, and both times they were wrong. They are wrong again.
As for gratuitous complexity, which the author (like many others) have mistaken for "depth," this is a harmful thing. It has driven far more people away from gaming than it ever attracted, creating shallow and unrewarding experiences for most with very little actual gain in game quality: a childish domination fantasy, nothing more. This is just someone who wants to keep people out of gaming, and like other kinesophobes he deserves exactly two options: take the plunge or don't play. His attitude is harmful to the industry and ultimately, it's unhealthy to himself. He doesn't need more games; he needs professional help.
Model M.
I've enjoyed Wii Sports, Warioware Smooth Moves and the likes. They are a lot of fun and burn calories. However, I find I spend more time on the couch playing games like Metroid Prime 3 or Resident Evil 4 which make great use of the Wii Remote, but don't require to turn a game session into aerobics. This is why I don't see classic controllers being replaced by the likes of Natal anytime soon.
There will be a lot of impressive tech demos with Natal and probably a couple of fun games with the Sony controller, but I'm of the opinion that Nintendo achieved the best balance of motion vs classic controller.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
That's not a chain of combos, it's a cheat code, and if putting it in takes any effort on your part (enough effort for you to "not miss it") then you've got no business talking about classic controllers.
Now get off my 30-liv^W lawn!
And did anyone else take it apart to press the "left" and "right" contact points simultaneously? Jiggling the joystick back and forth in the track events of Summer Games was for suckers.
Good times.
Gamepads, or the "classic" controllers he's whining about, actually suck quite a lot. They have terrible precision when compared to a mouse, don't work that well for things like Flight Sims when compared to a flightstick, and don't offer accessability over motion controls.
I've never understood the appeal. Playing console shooters is like steering a drunk camel compared to on the PC. Good RTS with large numbers of units is pretty much a joke. Trying to explain to a non gamer how to play is an exercise in futility compared to the thirty seconds it takes to understand the Wiimote.
The only real upside to the things is that they're generic. You can shoehorn a lot of game types to work on the thing, no matter how badly it works for most of them.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Motion control is useful in and of itself but more importantly, it has the potential to be a universal control system. Ideally any sort of control scheme could be emulated through a sufficiently sophisticated motion control system. Analog controllers, steering wheels, fishing poles, even d-pads and buttons. Are we there yet. Hell no. It's even still easier to use an old-fashioned controller than it is to use the steering wheel option in Mario Kart. But it's not exactly an impossible dream. Right now, there are several forms of control that can be successfully emulated by the Wiimote. I don't think the Wiimote will carry us to the end game of motion controls but it's not like the PS3 uses a one-button digital joystick made for left-handed people.
It's the interface. A controller is only half the story, and usually a lot less than that.
I'm not suggesting we go back to the Atari 2600/C64 era joystick, but it does have some lessons we should learn from. Some of the best interface design comes from embracing the limitations in the format. There were many C64 era games that, if they didn't use the keyboard at all, had to be somewhat creative on the control side. Four directions, one button, make it happen. Now, the trend seems to be that we need a discrete, separate button for every function a game has, and button combinations that are completely unobvious and arbitrary are a good thing.
As the Atari 2600 was my last console, after which I got on the 8-bit computer bandwagon, I say the following without any platform bias: The Sega Genesis system had it right in the first generation: stick and three buttons. http://www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/sega_genesis/fighter_stick_md-6_asciiware.JPG is similar, but is the 6 button version. I used this on the Amiga (which only supported one button, but very few games were programmed to use three, since the Atari and Sega joysticks had compatible connectors and pin layouts). It had heft, it was accurate, it was solid. With three buttons, you had to create a control mechanism, but you couldn't go down the road of arbitrary button hell. That's what the modern console controller feels like to me: hell, and inaccurate to boot.
It's a legitimate worry. People keep assuring gamers that the two control systems will exist side-by side. They have a right to be skeptical.
Once upon a time, all movies were silent, and then someone invented the talkie. Great, now we can have silent movies AND talking movies! No, the reality is we only have talking movies. Eventually nobody makes silent movies anymore.
Same thing with black and white. Someone invents color film, and people thing WOW, great more options! Now we will have black and white and color movies! But the reality is we only have color movies after all. If you want to see a black and white movie you have to watch on old one or an independently produced one. Nobody makes them because nobody thinks they will sell, and only weird hardcore artsy people would value such an obsolete aesthetic on purpose.
Same thing with 2D sprite-based games. 3D comes along, and people at first thing Great! This 3D stuff is neat, now we can have 3D and 2D games. And good thing, because entire genres of games and styles of art are built around 2D graphics. There's no way people will just stop making 2D games. But the reality is that they do. After a while we only have 3D games after all, and 2D games are not taken seriously anymore.
I think that gamers are entirely justified in worrying about losing button-based gameplay when they see the hoards of casual gamers and advertising hype around motion-based control. In technology as soon as something is viewed as old-fashioned the perception is that it won't sell, whether it's black-and-white film or 2D graphics or button-based gameplay.
Here's how it works. . .
The system you grew up with has a life span which will end at some point and you will be left feeling either bitter or so old you just don't care. --Either that, or evolution will reach a plateau of suitable perfect-ness in bio-feedback device and stay there for 20 million years. I doubt even the Mouse, Screen & Keyboard will manage this, though as of yet, nothing seems to match it for getting yourself from one end of an Operating System to the other.
For games. . . Any controller which has a limit to its usefulness in moving stuff around on screen, and all controllers seem to, will irritate some engineer/designer somewhere enough to spawn some new brand of tool. The kids new to video games will be more than willing to train themselves on whatever cool new system is offered so long as it activates all their happy circuits, and whatever solution you were content (ecstatic) with while growing up will have to shuffle over to make room, and will eventually find itself relegated to a niche market. And you won't understand what your kids are talking about half the time. Welcome to parenthood. You're not cool anymore. Laugh at it. The other option is to wear leather pants and buy a sports car and look really sad and desperate.
Best to age with a little grace. Let the Nintendo button thingy go. You don't want to be the old guy saying, "When I was young, we had to play our games with a STICK! In 8 bits! And we LIKED it!"
Hm. Actually, it might be kind of fun to be that guy.
-FL
Same thing with 2D sprite-based games. 3D comes along, and people at first thing Great! This 3D stuff is neat, now we can have 3D and 2D games. And good thing, because entire genres of games and styles of art are built around 2D graphics. There's no way people will just stop making 2D games. But the reality is that they do. After a while we only have 3D games after all, and 2D games are not taken seriously anymore.
Gotta disagree with you on the point of 2D vs. 3D games. Just off the top of my head...
I could go on and on, but the point is that there are still plenty of great 2D games being made in recent years. 2D games most certainly are "taken seriously" (whatever that means—I mean, we are talking about games here).
Do not read this sig.
To this day, I think of the buttons on my PlayStation or XBOX in terms of the SNES layout. "Hit the Y button! I mean the Square one!"
Some of my friends have played games on PlayStation, Xbox, GameCube, and Super NES. The X button is in a different place on every controller. In fact, it has shown up in all four positions. So when I tell them what button to hit, and it's not the one on the bottom, I tend to say triangle, square, or O because they're less ambiguous than A, B, and Y.
Have you really read what I wrote?
Console games are not dumbing down your PC games. The things you talk about are hybrids. They are also awfull from the point of view of old console gamers - they might just as well call them "PC games", because their awfullness stems directly from the fact that they are targeted for the simultaneus release on a PC. But you wouldn't agree that's an accurate description of reality, right?
Just so it will be more clear, let me rephrase what you wrote from the point of view of consoles:
Mind you, PC games are fine, but I wish more dev time were spent on true console games. I feel that gaming as a whole is suffering a bit right now, between the shift of focus to primarily PC-style games, casual games, Peggle, and (especially) the cancer that is DLC (//FFS, MAN, YOU REALLY THINK THAT CONSOLES BROUGHT MODS/DOWNLOADS/PATCHES TO GAMES?! REALLY?!?!). In the long run it'll probably be fine, but I'd love to see what would happen with more (not all, just more) titles being aimed at the platform that brought us so many amazing, deep games.
I know it's a futile wish, but it's what thing would be like in the world in my head where we all ride unicorns that fart rainbows and shit gold. Anyway, like I said, I'm not worried about PCs killing deeper gaming long-term (hell, my recent purchase of gaming PC has shown me first-hand that consoles and PCs aren't so different any more--I had to put the fucking DVD into the drive each time I wanted to play!)--DLC might do it, but PCs themselves won't.
...and it's still BS
Games have become less "hardcore" (whatever that means...) simply because they are not driven anymore by wishes of early adopters - they've become mainstream on both consoles and PCs (because the platforms themselves have become mainstream), so the gameplays is obviously also more mainstream...
Plus, thank MS for bringing development of games for both platforms much, much closer - PHBs running game publishing companies think it's "obvious" to target both platforms. When in reality it's a horrible idea. You end up with...hybrids that are a product of compromise, that loose strong points of both platforms.
Speaking as a long time gamer on both types of systems (I care about the game, not so much about on what it runs), so I might have a better grip on reality... (if you wonder - nowadays, on PC, mostly Galciv2 and Stalker, also constant addiction to Fallouts, Diablos, *shocks)
One that hath name thou can not otter
To quote Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation about motion controllers: "People plays games to unwind and no one unwinds by coming home and waving their arms like air traffic controllers covered in beetles." And that said it all
I think GP was referring to the period when 3D console games first reared their blocky heads (circa Playstation 1, IIRC). 2D graphics still hadn't reached their peak, but ugly, gimmicky 3D junk flooded the market and (a paltry few exceptions notwithstanding) 2D was relatively done.
And it wasn't as though it was just a graphical shift. Compare Street Fighter EX Plus alpha to contemporary 2D versions, for example. Whereas it took stunning graphics and tight gameplay to make a standout 2D game at the time, people seemed willing to suffer through awful looking and playing 3D games because their very 3D-ness was novel.
Moreover, 2D and 3D are suited to different types of games -- hence the popularity of simulators and then FPS over platformers and arcade style fighters (possible chicken v. egg there, but that's my opinion anyway).
If you think that 2D games are taken seriously, you probably weren't seriously gaming 15 years ago. Nothing wrong with that -- just sayin'.
3D games have more than come into their own at this point, but I have to agree that they came at the expense of 2D gaming.
There is room in the gaming market for both casual and hardcore players right now. It's probably not going to change anytime soon. The casual market is still being saturated, so there's plenty of room for growth. But that doesn't mean hardcore button gamers will be out of the loop. The game makers know that hardcore players simply buy more games on average than causal players. I would cite that but I can't remember the link I read it from.
Combo-memorization is the antithesis of my ideal gaming experience. To me, the ideal game is one where I never have to think about the control system, only about the content. The Myst games are probably the best example--they'd be wonderful if I could actually spend time solving puzzles, instead of rastering the mouse across the screen, checking for cursor changes, trying to find puzzles.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg