Slashdot Mirror
When PC Ports of Console Games Go Wrong
A post up at Gamasutra complains about the lack of effort put into the PC ports of some console games. The author picks on the unimpressively-reviewed Ninja Blade in particular: "Just as a quick guide to what we're dealing with here: when you create a new save file at the start of Ninja Blade on the PC, it warns you not to 'turn off your console.' Yes, Ninja Blade is one of those conversions: not so much converted as made to perfunctorily run on a different machine. In-game, you're asked to press A, B, X and Y in various sequences as part of Ninja Blade's extraordinary abundance of quick-time events. Whether you have an Xbox 360 pad plugged in or not, the game captions these button icons with text describing the PC equivalent controls. Only it doesn't always do that. Sometimes, you're left staring at a giant, pulsating, green letter A, and no idea what to do with it." What awful ports have you had the misfortune to experience?
Most games I can think of that got ported from console to PC, suffers from a lot of issues.
They all have one or more in common:
- Lack of configuration
- Extremely high hardware requirements
- Bad mouse control (acceleration, non-configurable sensitivity etc) Example: Mass Effect 2 got THREE settings for mouse. And it's STILL very high on Low.
- Low FOV
- Difficulty setting too low for PC (it's easier when you actually have a mouse to aim with in FPS)
But these issues are usually something that can get patched eventually.
The most annoying thing about ports is this:
They usually make a direct port of the game. What works on console, DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK ON PC!
On PC, I got an entire keyboard of keys. Allow me to freaking bind actions to em, don't give me 3 "command wheels" or whatever.
Don't make me "tap" a button to perform a action. Who thought of that?
I can go on with numerous game design issues, but I think everyone gets my points here.
When porting a game to PC, there are certain elements you just have to redesign.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
Yes! Why on earth does it work like that? I try to plug a USB cable in, but it doesn't feel like it wants to go, so I invert it, and it still won't go. Then I frown and look down the end of the cable, decide once more upon the proper orientation, and whoosh, it fits.
Truly an engineering masterpiece.
only better engineering i can think of is the dell dimensions that have their front usb ports mounted vertically, facing the ground, under a cover. try getting that in on 3 tries.
Wrong.
Mass effect 1 had horrible inventory management on the PC (i.e. still had the 150 item limit, when it should have had effectively infinite) A small adjustment to the amount of items you could carry would have fixed that, oh and a stash/chest ala Diablo 2 (a 10 year old game almost now I think) could have at least gone a long way to prevent inventory hell.
Let's not also forget the convoluted shop interfaces when compared even against console many supremely old RPG's (we're talking 20 years here). It's sad when a game from 1992 (FF4) has better inventory then a game in 2007'ish (mass effect 1).
ME2 did also suffer from console-itis by REMOVING instead of fixing the item system from mass effect 1, they turned ME2 into gears of war now in teh mass effect universe, lets face this fact please.
It was so obvious the game was gears of war reskinned /w slight modifications. There ar etonnes of issues with ports, Mass effect 2 made up for their lack of deeper game options with a comitment to story, cinematics and simple shooter action because they weren't up to the job of a full RPG, and they wanted to hit the mass market of drooling first person/third person shooter fanboys.
>>>unblocking 200 ports
Stories like this and the Slashdot summary are why I made an attempt at PC gaming in the 90s, but then quit. Computer gaming was fun in the era of Atari 800s, Commodore 64s, Atari STs, and Commodore Amigas, because you had FIXED hardware that just worked (and worked extremely well - better than the PCs/Macs). No need to mess with drivers or cards or other nonsense. Gaming on those old 8/32 bit machines was plug-and-play easy.
Computers are no longer that easy to use, so I bought my first console ever with the PS2 and Gamecube. Where PC gaming had been a major headache, the consoles once again returned the simplicity that I experienced with my Commodores and Amigas. Plug and play. No headaches.
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