Great game bad controls (old games)

[Rabish Bini]

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

Sorry, but I'm fairly certain you're thinking of Dune II.

And I still quite enjoy it...

 

[Zanderinfal]

Soul Reaver 1. Brilliant game apart from the controls and block puzzles which in some places can turn the game unplayable. On the PS1 you can only use the directional buttons to move, and you character has a terrible flow of momentum, meaning he can just stop on a dime and start hauling ass at the speed of sound.

This is mostly in specific places where the game tries to pull off things the controls just can't handle. As an example just after the second boss is littered with shitty puzzles and TERRIBLE, GOD AWFUL PLATFORMING.

Otherwise brilliant game, but the controls and bad puzzle design ruins alot of the fun in places.

 

[Squilookle]

The original Driver! My god the controls were clunky! It really did make the game hard to play, even though free roam was good fun.

You played it with the analogue joystick, didn't you?

Yeah, the oversensitive nature of the joysticks on that game were legendary. Play only using the D-pad, however, and the game is a diamond-encrusted chocolate-coated massive slice of gaming control perfection... er... cake. Perfection cake. Yeah.

 

[Pink Gregory]

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.

Ah, those days when looking up was really a secondary option...

The default keys for Redneck Rampage are bloody weird, luckily with the GOG version y'can reconfigure them through dosbox.

 

[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.

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.

Oh, I didn't notice that. KoM is probably newest game I played so far.

 

[Squilookle]

Actually I've got one- Body Harvest. Think a time travelling GTA with enough vehicles to make San Andreas proud and enough firepower to give Mercenaries a serious brofist and you're looking at a crazy fun game... if only the controls weren't so unbelievably stiff.

Still, they can't be all that bad if someone still managed to create this...

 

[Tropicaz]

My housemate brought a PS2 to out Student house today and we spend about 40 quid between us on a ton of games from our childhoods, and most of them stack up OK for controls.
The massive exception to this is Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. Looking back I have utterly no idea how I completed it at 4 years old, the controls are unbelievably creaky. It just about broke me and my housemates, it's currently sitting on the shelf about 40% complete. We cant take anymore of it.

 

[Fat Hippo]

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

Sorry, but I'm fairly certain you're thinking of Dune II.

And I still quite enjoy it...

Ah, you're completely right of course.

I just can't get used to selecting a single unit, clicking a command on the side of the screen, and then repeating this for every single unit in my entire army.

 

[Eddie the head]

The camera controls for the old spyro games suck. Mind you I know why, but they still aren't good. The game as a whole controls fine, but the camera doesn't.

 

[Rodrigo Santos de Oliveira]

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

Yeah. Not only that, but the controls are completely counterintuitive if you are used to modern games like I was when I played those. But the story and characters are pretty great, they managed to keep me interested long enough to learn the controls.

The same can't be said of Deus Ex. Could not bring myself to play more than one hour of that game. The horrible controls, graphics and general gameplay put me off.

 

[Bad Jim]

There's an ancient classic called Exile by Audiogenic. Originally written for the BBC and later ported to the Commodore 64, Amiga and I think a few others. You fly around a massive cave system, shooting things and solving puzzles. The controls are:

up = p
down = l
left = q
right = w

space = shoot
turn aim upwards = o
turn aim downwards = k
aim straight = i

and a few other keys.

Honorable mention goes to Battle Isle. A turn based strategy game that had joystick oriented controls, released only on systems that had mice. Saved by the fact that since it is turn based, the awkward controls won't actually kill you.

 

[josemlopes]

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

Timesplitters 2 control wise didnt really aged all that well comparing to the controls of modern games. That zoom mechanic was terrible to get used to and the game does rely a lot on auto-aim for new comers. Timesplitters 3 on the other hand is more user-friendly for the current generation.

Either way TS2 doesnt have bad controls, just not exactly good ones either.

OT: GTA 2, its a fun game to play but if it allowed you to use guns like a twin stick shooter it would be a lot better.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

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 ?

Where did you played these games ?
On their original hardware ? Or did you used an emulator to play on them on your PC ?
And if you used an emulator,did you used a keyboard,or maybe a controller,and which controller ?
There are so many possible reasons that might be making it harder for you to play these games with good controls.
Now I know what you are saying about Capcom's games. Yeah most Capcom's games where like that,but to me this control scheme seemed weird even back then. And the awful camera system most of Capcom's games had in ps1 made it even worse. That's why I skipped most premier games and the first Resident Evil game I ever bought was Code Veronica. The only thing holding me from playing a Resident Evil was that awful camera system RE1,2,and 3 had.

The most easy to get used controls in old games are founded mostly on platformers and somewhat FPSs. Most of these kind of games were very straight forward,if you pushed the stick to the right you would move right,if you pushed it forward,you would move forward.

 

[laggyteabag]

Im pretty sure that Turok for the N64 was pretty bad, I think it used the D-pad to aim and the analogue stick to move which was pretty weird, that and that god-awful controller.

Pretty much any FPS game on an iOS device, 'nuff said.

 

[krazykidd]

Im pretty sure that Turok for the N64 was pretty bad, I think it used the D-pad to aim and the analogue stick to move which was pretty weird, that and that god-awful controller.

Pretty much any FPS game on an iOS device, 'nuff said.

The turok had pretty good control schemes i find . I used the analogue stick to look/aim , and the c butons to straft and move foward and back . The Z button was to shoot , A/B to cycle weapons . R was to jump. It was pretty good if you ask me.

OT : never has a game's control prevent me from playing / beating a game . But a game i remember that had TERIIBLE controlls was fear effect . Man that game was clunky .

 

[daveman247]

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

Timesplitters 2 control wise didnt really aged all that well comparing to the controls of modern games. That zoom mechanic was terrible to get used to and the game does rely a lot on auto-aim for new comers. Timesplitters 3 on the other hand is more user-friendly for the current generation.

Either way TS2 doesnt have bad controls, just not exactly good ones either.

OT: GTA 2, its a fun game to play but if it allowed you to use guns like a twin stick shooter it would be a lot better.

true, the last time me and my mate played ts2 it took us a little while to adjust to the goldeneye-like aiming

Retro city rampage is basically GTA 2. It lets you use twin sticks as well!

 

[dolgion]

Grim Fandango. I am a fan of the old Lucas Arts adventures. After hearing a lot of praise for Grim Fandango, I got it and was in for a shock. The shift to 3D meant that all of a sudden, the controls were keyboard only. I tried to get used to it, but after an hour of running into walls thanks to the retarded early Resident Evil style control scheme I gave up. I repeated that process of trying to get into the game and eventually giving up for about 2 more times. Then I left the game gathering dust for about a year.

When I played it for the last time, I promised myself to not give up. And eventually, as humans do, one gets used to anything. It was worth it. It's the best Lucas Arts adventure I ever played, beating even Day of the Tentacle.


Another game coming to mind is the first Gothic. Obnoxious combat control scheme, but once you accept it for what it is, you get into the rhythm of the game, and it was one of the best RPG experiences I ever had. It evokes real nostalgia...

 

[mohit9206]

Where did you played these games ?
On their original hardware ? Or did you used an emulator to play on them on your PC ?
And if you used an emulator,did you used a keyboard,or maybe a controller,and which controller ?
There are so many possible reasons that might be making it harder for you to play these games with good controls.
Now I know what you are saying about Capcom's games. Yeah most Capcom's games where like that,but to me this control scheme seemed weird even back then. And the awful camera system most of Capcom's games had in ps1 made it even worse. That's why I skipped most premier games and the first Resident Evil game I ever bought was Code Veronica. The only thing holding me from playing a Resident Evil was that awful camera system RE1,2,and 3 had.

The most easy to get used controls in old games are founded mostly on platformers and somewhat FPSs. Most of these kind of games were very straight forward,if you pushed the stick to the right you would move right,if you pushed it forward,you would move forward.

i played the old tomb raiders on pc with keyboard controls while i played onimusha and code veronicaX on ps2.
mostly its the fixed camera and the "first face the direction in which you want to move using d-pad and then press d-pad up to move" that freaks me out

 

[Tohuvabohu]

The PS1 Tenchu games had horrendous controls.

Where your character doesn't handle like a normal human being, but more like a Forklift or an Air Boat. Playing the game felt like a simulation in drunk driving than controlling a person.

I remember quite a few games used this questionable method of movement back in the day, but I remember Tenchu the most.