Great game bad controls (old games)

[mohit9206]

ok since am fairly young and just recently had got into gaming in 2008 i know i had missed a lot of the great classic games of late 90's and early 2000's. so i decided to play as many older games as i could which were very highly regarded and almost universally praised by critcs and people alike. i wanted to get in on the most beloved classic games of ps1 and ps2 era.
but when i started playing these games there was always this one thing which felt like it not letting me enjoy the game and prove to be a big hurdle and nuisance and that was poor controls.
for example i had recently downloaded the first 3 tomb raider games from gog and was very excited to play them. but the controls are just bad. i mean i can get over the poor graphics coz graphics are not that imp to me but those archaic dated controls just put me off. the way you have to first align lara in the direction you want using d-pad is just not fun.
another example is dino crisis for ps1 and resident evil code veronica x, onimusha warlords etc for ps2.
again such dated archaic controls that its impossible to enjoy the game coz you are always wrestling the controls and its so frustrating. mostly the fixed camera, weird and frustrating d-pad movement controls, no analog control etc are the issue.
i know in those days this is how it used to be but for someone who is only used to the current control scheme but wants to enjoy those older games then its a problem.
i mean when the publishers re-release older games shouldn't they overhaul the controls and make it more modern rather than just making the game HD graphics ?
i really want to play silent hill 2,3,final fantasy 7, but again i fear the controls might ruin it for me
has a game ever put you off because of poor controls even though the game itself is amazing has great story good gameplay etc but the controls ruin it for you ?

 

[Username Redacted]

i mean when the publishers re-release older games shouldn't they overhaul the controls and make it more modern rather than just making the game HD graphics?

Considering that the re-release of most older titles is nothing but a cash grab by the publisher I can't imagine why they'd put more work into the game than is absolutely necessary. Also while FF7 has somewhat suspect controls there isn't much of anything in the game that depends on reflexes so to me it get's a pass. Ye Olde School action games (such as Tomb Raider) are where bad control implementation really "shines". To that list I would also add the entire Metal Gear and Resident Evil series.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Whats wrong with the controls in Final Fantasy 7? You move with the d pad or sticks and pick options from a menu.

 

[daveman247]

snip

Not really, i just learn and adapt. I have played and still play many old games though

So maybe avoid silent hill then - similar controls to resident evil, maybe a little better but still not ideal.

Also, go find timesplitters 2-3. They have aged quite well i think.

 

[The Nossa]

If it counts.... Duke Nukem 3D's iOS remake. The controls are just horrible.

 

[Fat Hippo]

The original Dune. It may be the mother of the RTS genre, but good god. It's practically unplayable these days.

 

[aXFireXHeartXa]

The first Silent Hill game. Playing was like trying to drive a tank.

 

[Beautiful End]

I don't know about everyone else but I found navigating through FF7 difficult, not the controls. The controls were pretty easy. The world map wasn't always clear on where you could go and what was off limits. So I spent hours lost looking for the next place to go. But then again, I played it when I was much younger.
I know someone's gonna probably want to ague this by saying "OMFG FF7 ROCKS U N00B!" but just lay off, okay? *I* found them confusing.

*Ahem*
A game I reaaaaally want to play but the controls throw me off is Mario 64. The camera is just horrible; it's all over the place and it's really hard to nail some platforms when the camera literally starts spinning all over the place or it justy won't let you move the camera where its more useful to you. Other than that, the game is awesome and I know it was very innovative back then. I should cut it more slack but...I really can't when I can't play it because of the camera controls.

 

[shrekfan246]

*Ahem*
A game I reaaaaally want to play but the controls throw me off is Mario 64. The camera is just horrible; it's all over the place and it's really hard to nail some platforms when the camera literally starts spinning all over the place or it justy won't let you move the camera where its more useful to you. Other than that, the game is awesome and I know it was very innovative back then. I should cut it more slack but...I really can't when I can't play it because of the camera controls.

Banjo-Kazooie was awesome for that, because you could hold down a button and it would just center the camera right behind you.

Of course, Banjo was a slippery bear, and getting some of the jumps was a pain every now and then (particularly in "Clanker's Cavern"), but baby steps.

And yeah, the world maps for the older Final Fantasy games can be confusing, since there's no indication that you might be in a high-level area and there's little indication you're going the right way unless you pull the map up to full-screen (I'm not sure if that was a feature present in VII, it's been a while).

As for slightly more on-topic: The tank controls in Silent Hill 2 and 3 are just abysmal. Tank controls combined with a fixed camera just makes everything so awkward.

Also, Ecco the Dolphin and Earthworm Jim. Ecco I can understand; You're underwater after all. Doesn't mean it's not awkward to control.

And Earthworm Jim is so floaty, with extremely weird hit detection and obnoxiously placed enemies/hazards.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I believe the only games that did that, from what I can remember anyways, was Katamari Damacy and Kings Field: The Ancient City. Both of those games had really poor controls, from what I remember. Beyond those two, and I am usually not turned off by controls. There are many other things that turn me off (poor level design, stupidly punishing gameplay, abysmal UI, and lack of explanation of the mechanics/controls, to name a few), but controls are generally not one of them.

 

[Esotera]

Fable's port to the Xbox 360 was fucking awful for controls, as key functionality like drawing your bow and arrow relied on a button from the old xbox controllers. The game was practically unplayable.

 

[felbot]

well in gog's case they really are just making sure the game works on newer systems, thats kind of their thing, everything else is just like the originals.

although the controls on old faux 3d shooters really are bad though, not sure how anybody could do anything back then with those controls, i can only assume they rebinded everything which must have been a pain.

2 games in particular that have this is duke nukem 3d and redneck rampage both of which have awful controls, although with duke nukem you can sort of fix this by down loading eduke which sort of remakes the game with a proper modern control scheme. theres also a mod which gives you actual 3d models throughout the game which is cool.

 

[Vhite]

Kingdoms of Amalur.

It's ok when you get used to it but when I tried to get back into it while ago I couldnt dodge or block a single enemy attack.

 

[Yopaz]

Kingdoms of Amalur.

It's ok when you get used to it but when I tried to get back into it while ago I couldnt dodge or block a single enemy attack.

I think we've got a very different view on what an old game is. Personally, I don't consider a game released less than a year ago is old, but that might just be me.

OT: As have been said before, the original Resident Evil games is a great example of clunky controllers. This doesn't ruin the game since it gives you a feeling of being powerless, which is good in a survival horror game.

 

[Kotaro]

I really liked Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, and to a lesser extent Other M (yes I said it, and yes I mean it).
Got Super Metroid on Virtual Console and just couldn't get very far in it, due to the controls feeling very odd and floaty. It was just uncomfortable.

 

[thejackyl]

Most early games on any system prior to the most recent generation?

A very good example of a good game, with horrid controls, the mother of all Survival Horrors, Alone in the Dark. It had the tanky Resident Evil controls, but it put them on a keyboard. From what I remember the arrow keys allowed to to move forward, back and strafe, and I think Z and X would turn you.

I'll have to replay it to make sure, but I think it was something like that. Had it been ported to consoles, it might have been a little more well known, but the stationary camera added with the hard to control movements... And yes, I love the original Resident Evil (2 and 3 as well), Thing is, you got used to the control scheme on a controller, but I couldn't wrap my head around how to get it to work on a keyboard. Oh, and Alone in the Dark 2... They added enemies with guns... That can shoot you from off screen, and no aim assist... Also it got incredibly silly really quick.

It one thing not being able to get to the police station in Resident Evil 2, it's a whole other story when you can't even leave the first room.

EDIT: Another one, The console port of Command and Conquer(N64). Just imagine playing any RTS, using a controller instead of a mouse, and not being able to use any of the keybinds. (I think it used a grand total of 4 buttons. A issued commands (RMB in most RTS), B allowed you to select units (LMB), The Stick controlled the cursor, C-Buttons controlled the camera (Though scrolling to the side using the stick moved it as well). Oh, I forgot about the D-Pad, it was used to scroll through buildings and units (But you still had to click on the image and where to place it(for a building))

Most missions I played in the console version were a single unit vs. a small army, and the split screen multiplayer... Split-screen multiplayer... in a RTS, one of the few games where screen watching can completely break the game.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

The controls for the older Tomb Raider games is pretty much the reason I never beat any of them. It was only when Legends came about, I played it to the end.

 

[Snownine]

I really liked Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, and to a lesser extent Other M (yes I said it, and yes I mean it).
Got Super Metroid on Virtual Console and just couldn't get very far in it, due to the controls feeling very odd and floaty. It was just uncomfortable.

Do you use the classic controller for Super Metroid? I have the game for the SNES and I can tell you the controls are very tight. I have no idea how it plays on the Wii though.

OT: For me it would be the old Resident Evil games. I loved those games but the controls for the first few always seemed kinda weird to me.

 

[DovaChiief]

KOTOR 1/2 all the way. The movement was pretty twitchy and unresponsive, and all the characters acted like they were on ice skates.