Controller Evolution

[snowman6251]

Spoiler: Giant Quote I'm too lazy to cut down

I want to share two opinions on the things they discussed.

1. Motion controls. I think they, or at least the wii, was an absolutely worthwhile experiment. It might have ended up being the best thing that happened to gaming. It wasn't. Far from it. Motion controls, frankly, suck and BADLY. We need to drop them. They're a waste of time as far as I'm concerned.

I don't think you can justly dismiss an entire classification of control when the technology is still in its infancy, especially when said technology, while imperfect, is an overwhelming financial success. What exists of motion controls are, by no means, the pinnacle of what motion controls are capable of; to abandon a technology before it's fully developed is to waste was was learned from it.

2. Cloud Gaming. I'm not huge on this either. I've used digital distribution services like steam and frankly I much prefer having a physical copy of my games. It's not just me liking "having" things either. Valve goes out of business, steam's servers go down, and I lose access to my games that I paid for. The same could be said for Onlive or any other similar service. I don't like that idea. I understand many game's online multiplayer will go down in the future but to lose access to the game entirely for similar reasons is a scary thought. I don't like that. I'd much rather just get a disk.

A physical copy is at least as, if not more, vulnerable than a cloud copy. Physical copies (be they disc, cartridge, card, etc.) can be lost, damaged, or otherwise rendered unplayable; it's still lost access to a game that you paid for. Granted, it is still, in most cases, something that the player has some degree of control over. You might say that's a fair risk.

However, physical publication comes with its own costs: manufacture and shipping. This cost accounts for a significant portion of the price passed on to the consumers. To cling to an old idea with significant problems, rather than seek a new solution, is, again, quite shortsighted.

For example: an independent validation source. Perhaps some sort of platform-specific (or even platform independent, if we could swing that degree of cooperation) "key" -- a physical or digital item that would store verification of ownership for all an individual's digital acquisitions, not in the possession of the publisher or platform, but in the possession of the end user or a third party (perhaps a dedicated validation firm). Of course, redundancy is the best insurance against losing data, so the software distribution platform should keep record of this, as well; both are insurance against a loss of the other.

With regards to your second comment, the problem however is that while that could work for a steam like service, that wouldn't work for Onlive, or other cloud gaming services. With a steam like service you could buy and download the game, install it, and permanently have it in theory. With cloud gaming however you never actually download the game. You stream it off the host's servers. Therefore if those servers were to go down you'd lose all your games and never have a way to access them again.

Physical copies do come with a risk of breaking but I personally take VERY good care of both my software and hardware, because they are expensive and I don't want to screw them up. Anything short of a fire or natural disaster will do no harm to my games as I keep them in pristine condition. That might not be true of everyone but at least in those cases it's their fault, not the company they bought the game from going under.

 

[Ferisar]

Wait. Wait wait.

Silent Hill 2 and Wii Tennis aren't on the same level of immersion because of controls?

Yeah, no.
Not buying that. That's a really -really- baseless comment.

 

[The Long Road]

This new feature is really a sight to behold. It's like gaming's Brain Trust is pitching little nuggets of their wisdom every week. There's only been two and I'm already hooked. Keep this up.

 

[dragonburner]

James at the end with the killer point about virtual console. I think that motion and buttons should coexist. Just as there are many flavors of ice cream there could be many ways to control games. It isn't just chocolate or vanilla, but a swirl with sprinkles.

 

[Zer0Saber]

And it's not like Nintendo has been adding any new NES games lately...I't been at like 88 for a year or so. Virtual console was one of the reasons I bought the Wii, and I got screwed on that deal.

 

[Fappy]

I don't know if I would go as far as to say gaming continuity is easier to get into than comic book continuity. Although this may be the case for some games, generally its not very hard to say, track down and play the entirety of the Halo franchise (sorry Bob!) than it is to understand every nuance and character arch associated with the current members of the Avengers (oh yeah, and which team?) without research the characters' pasts and recent universe events.

But you said it is easier to get into game continuity with this post. What the hell are you trying to say?

As it turns out I accidentally swapped the two subjects of the first sentence thus making my entire post nonsensical.... oops. D:

 

[Thorvan]

Oh dear...

Console gamers already see PC games being brought over to their platform being 'dumbed down' because of the constraints of the controllers. If the industry tries to cater to the novice to expand the market, won't they be simplifying the controllers even further if the current ones appear 'daunting' to a rookie?

My only answer to this is... so? Just because we get simplified controllers does not mean that A; we lose the more complex ones, or B; it will result in necessarily worse experiences. There are significant markets for both the simplified and the complex input devices, for a smattering of reasons; and if we pressure game developers to provide a conduit for both of these in their games, what exactly is the downside?

 

[RandV80]

Man, I wish people would stop looking at the Wii-mote+nunchuk control scheme (and now Sony Move) as a device for gimicky motion controls, and see it as a tool for enhanced control and precision. Metroid Prime 3 being the best example of those, and hopefully Skyward Sword can follow that up.

Starting from the NES console generation, enhanced controllers and controls came standard with a console upgrade. So who decided that the PS2 and Xbox controllers were perfect and we should stop there? Yes waggle sucks and is usually just a gimick, but upgrading your dual analogue input from XY to XYZ should be considered a good thing and embraced.

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

lot of topics good discussion tho.

1:as far as i'm concerned motion controls are hit or miss. certain games don't take it well and shouldn't try. i do feel that some genres actually use it well. for instance, resident evil 4 was much more entertaining (and less infuriating)when i could point at said baddy and hit him most of the time. it was also better for the quick time controls i know yahtzee so hates =D. the control schemes of the gc and ps2 were much harder to master. the same could be said for the metroid prime shooters. things like no more heroes could take or leave it, but it is nice doing that finishing slash. i dont feel it breaks gameplay. besides, who hasn't found a place where they can sit while playing wii? is it law that you stand?

2:downloadable content. i think it is the best and cheapest way currently to play older games that aren't compatible with current generation consoles.damn to the lack of backwards compatability, that destroys we who still cling to older games and hope our old systems don't break or become infinitely difficult to find. that said, i am wary of using credit cards and such to pay for things, but game point cards, much like prepaid time cards, lessen that worry. transitioning things over to dlc would mean they would need to find ways to fill out the development costs, but im sure it wouldn't be earthshattering.

3: skipping tutorials. yes and no. keep tutorials, but don't tie them to the early part of the game, explain how to exit it, and explain how to find it again if needed FIRST!!!!!
while we are on skipping things, plase make an option to pause cutscenes, and put the option to skip it one or two choices down that list. too long has a wrong button press skipped a scene i may have wanted to see. and pausing in games is just good sense.

 

[Sovereignty]

Point: Movie Bob.


Seriously why isn't there a voting for who won this discussion!?

Great points though. I feel like a secret window into the gaming world was just opened.

 

[Tele-screen]

This column gave me two connected thoughts afterward:

First, I thought back to the first time I picked up a game with a thumbstick. It was Mario 64 on the first level at a Toys R Us. There's that tilty bridge that leads up to where the cannon and Chain Chomp are and I had no ability to get across it. I tried 15 times and only managed to fall off, lose health from the nearby Goombas, and ultimately give up. Now I can spin two joysticks at the same time to strafe around a corner in a FPS and drop a bomb on somebody. Thinking back, it was a crazy long road over the course of a decade to get the middling level of skill I have. Trying to learn video games from scratch would be like asking someone to learn a new language.

My second thought is related and is in regards to Virtual Console and other classic game download services. I work at a one of the major console companies in customer service and help older people who have no interest in the modern games hook up their kids' consoles online. While I'm in the process, they are usually bored and indifferent to the actual gaming aspect of the console until I tell them that they can download the games they actually know, like Pac Man, etc. They get pretty excited, especially when they hear that they won't have to drop 50 bucks to play these games. A lot of our parents played the hell out of these games in college at their local pizza joints and are basically just lapsed gamers. The idea of conforming to an "adult" life made them leave gaming behind. I've found that the best way to ease them back into playing games with their kids is not necessarily motion controls, but familiarity, simplicity, purity. I'm with Movie Bob that access to gaming's past is what will help bring the medium into its future. If I was going to give my 5 year old nephew a console, I'd give him a GBA and a stack of my old Game Boy and Advance games. That's real training wheels.

 

[soundoflights]

I would love to hear you guys get together on a VoIP for an hour a week and just discuss stuff like this. I think it would be pretty epic. I know I would listen to it, wouldn't even need a video.

 

[STE3L]

there'll be no reason for companies NOT to put their back-catalogues online and rake in the microtransaction cash.

... except "they" may start having lower new sales * OH NO *

but it is still true that new players can't play the "REALLY GOOD OLDIES" without doing something illegal (Piracy), so we can only hope.

Keep it up guys, I'm starting to enjoy this.

 

[Rassmusseum]

Love this column! I'm hoping the conversation will swing to more of the topics discussed in Extra Credits as this goes on. I'd love to hear what Yahtzee and Bob have to say about some of those things

 

[Rassmusseum]

Seriously why isn't there a voting for who won this discussion!?

...Because its not a competition, dude.

 

[Twilight_guy]

The best part: gaming heritage. The fact that someone said that without using air quotes and without being called out on it is a victory for gaming as a an art form.

 

[Retsam19]

As to the tutorial discussion, it's a difficult place for games. The comparison to different reading levels is very apt. On the one hand, you don't want to publish everything in the world at a high level that many people can't read at and just expect them to immediately jump the gap. If everything were written in Shakespearian English, we as a society would have some problems, especially in the short run, but if I went into a bookstore to purchase a copy of Hamlet, and they handed me a 15 minute examination on how to properly read a book and wouldn't let me purchase it 'till I was done, I'd be rightfully ticked off.

The key to this analogy is that it's not the job of each and every book to introduce you to the English language. It's the job of the book to introduce you to its own unique details and quirks, but it assumes you're already competent enough to read it. We already have an external infrastructure designed to deal with this problem. Now, I don't expect controlling a video game to be a core part of elementary school curriculum any time soon (though if those sort of controls are integrated more into our society, they could be), but perhaps the consoles or developers themselves should put out resources to do so? A free downloadable "Intro to FPS" tutorial could serve this function, allowing FPS games to streamline their tutorials.

Wait. Wait wait.

Silent Hill 2 and Wii Tennis aren't on the same level of immersion because of controls?

Yeah, no.
Not buying that. That's a really -really- baseless comment.

Baseless? I thought Yathzee justified it pretty well. To be immersed in a game, you have to feel connected directly with the action on screen. The game should be about thinking "move left, move right, jump" (or insert other genre-appropriate paradigm here), rather than thinking "push the left thumbstick to the left". But Wii Tennis, fun as it is, is all about the motion. It's not a fun game because the game itself is the best tennis game out there. If you somehow played with a classic controller, Wii Tennis would be destroyed easily by other tennis games, as it would mostly come down to single button presses. (With perhaps tilting a stick to indicate swing angle)
The game is fun because the physical experience is fun. But that's not very immersive, by most definitions.

 

[RA92]

My only answer to this is... so? Just because we get simplified controllers does not mean that A; we lose the more complex ones, or B; it will result in necessarily worse experiences. There are significant markets for both the simplified and the complex input devices, for a smattering of reasons; and if we pressure game developers to provide a conduit for both of these in their games, what exactly is the downside?

Start a new gamer onto S.T.A.L.K.E.R SOC and just wait a few hours.

Heck, even I get flustered by the number of hotkeys sometimes. Can't remember what's bandages and what's medkits.

In Dragon Age II, you can either take the whole hack-and-slash route (which is more oriented towards console gamers) or the whole finely-tuned micromanaging tactical route (which is suited better for the K&M setup). Then again, it's Bioware we're talking about, who's not known for shitty ports and actually makes proper multiplatform games. But what's to say that other devs will go through the trouble to cater to two entirely different fighting mechanisms?

Take a look at Tiberium Twilight. The game was trying to cater to both PC and console (though everyone was fired before they could finish a port) through radical changes in gameplay. The result of the more console-oriented gameplay was that it destroyed the C&C series for the PC community.

For all you know, the next Ace Combat iteration might just have QTEs for performing kulbits and pugachevs to make it more 'accessible' and to become the next 'CoD-killer'... '-_-

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I think that the problem that people tend to overlook (or gloss over when they do mention it) is simply that managing an avatar in 3d space is a non-intuitive process. It doesn't matter what apparatus you use to do this. With a mouse and keyboard, the accepted standard is that I use the mouse to control the camera (that is, I look up and down and rotate my character about their z-axis) and the keys control my physical motion in the world space (forward, backward, left and right). Consoles simply replace the keyboard and mouse with a pair of joysticks. The problem is, since the movement in 3d space is divorced from how we view 3d space (the spatial motion controls represent a spanning set of vectors for the record meaning you can traverse anywhere in a plane using only these inputs, in case you wanted to pick apart this argument on the basis that you use your camera control as part of motion), a person is suddenly required to manage these two features simultaneously in order to efficiently navigate and observe the game space.

Games that require movement in 3D space will be difficult for a non gamer for as long as this act is abstracted (i.e. there is a controller of any sort involved). If you look at the motion games that have reached a level of success that would depend upon a great many non-gamers participating, you find that they tend to have something in common: they do not expect the player to navigate their avatar through a world space. Wii Sports rarely asks the player to move their Mii at all and instead the controls are used to perform actions while the avatar maneuvers of it's own accord or, if they can move the avatar, they are never asked to manage both the movement of the avatar and a camera at the same time.

The large numbers of buttons and later complexities are all but irrelevant most of the time when a non gamer player could not, without significant effort, even manage to perform the most cursory feat required to interact with a game where they are expected to manage movement and camera. People are perfectly willing to play a complex game that takes ages to master if they individual steps they learn along the way are manageable but only someone dedicated to learning is going to take the time required to overcome that first enormous step

 

[daftnoize]

Bob brought up that GH might not even work if it didn't have the controller. I disagree with this. Harmonix had made 2 fantastic rhythm games before Guitar Hero using basically the same highway of notes (Frequency and Amplitude). Everyone that I have showed the games to have become immediatly hooked, since they are really fun games (just like Guitar Hero). What the guitar controller did was serve as a hook and took out the foreign nature of a video game controller (people kinda get the guitar motion).

Thank you so much for mentioning those games. I am a massive fan of pre guitar hero harmonix and actually completely disagree with bob. I play all the guitar HERO GAMES WITHOUT THE SILLY GUITAR!!!! Argghh I rage so much (probably cos i don't really like the music in the guitar hero games) but wish they'd make a true sequal to amplitude. I suppose i'll just have to stick with gitaroo man from now on....