A lot of people seem to have a debate whether PC or Consoles have it better when controlling games. For this debate people tend to be of the mindset that the controller beats the mouse and keyboard in the FPS genre, or visa verso. For this debate, we'll pretend that controllers CAN'T be used for the computer, even though all the controllers that are being used in this experiment are plugged into PCs so we can use steam. Okay then!
In the name of science, and getting to know people in my dorm, we've done an experiment about this whole controlling the game issue...
Being a PC Gamer by the definitions of raving fanboys who claim I can't be a fan of any other system, and indeed that I can't be a gamer at all because I have loans to pay off before I buy a bunch of overpriced hardware... I use a mouse and keyboard. I use a mouse and keyboard, because I've been playing PC games for quite a while, and developed the skills to use a mouse and keyboard. Okay.
I also have been console gaming for quite some time. I still have my 2600 in a box around here somewhere. I have used controllers. I have used these controllers mostly for games I wanted to play, which didn't tend to be shooters... As mentioned before, I have a PC. I didn't need console shooters.
We have a few of those 'lol halo' types up in the dorm, so... This is how I access consoles for my alternate 'pulling-my-hair-out' gaming. I fully admit that when I sit down to play with them, I tend to get rocked. I get my shit blown out, and that's all fine and good. I'm not a console gamer, so I can't expect to be a living legend when I pick up a controller after a long day. I do however, hold my own. I don't finish last, and that makes me plenty enough happy. By this same right, the 'lol halo' gamers down the hall have sat down to a good ol' fashioned CS 1.6 game or two, and have quit almost immediately because it's "too hard" and such. They've tried source, and has similar reactions. They played TF2 a bit longer, because they were too busy trying to figure out how to use their secondary skills to figure out that they didn't know what they were doing.
It took some doing, but we mapped some gamepads for play with a few of my choice games... Namely, DoD:S, CS:S, TF2, and just for kicks, X3. I'm an asshole, and of course whipped out my joystick for X3, pissing them off, and they refused to play,EDIT: They refused to play any further with me, but as I mention later, one of them played to 'show me up' on my own system even though it's legitamate pc gaming hardware. ANYWAY!
The results:
CS:S - I didn't play for a bit, we obviously did this on the local network. We had eight computers on our floor that already had all the games in question... Except X3, which the gamers owning the rigs were more than happy to buy.
When they felt good enough about their control schemes that they were blasting one another just like they would be in matchmaking, I joined the fray. I'm no prodigy or anything, but I'm a PC Gamer... It's kind of a defining factor of a PC Gamer that plays FPSes more than once a year that we can aim our guns. In fact, we tend to; in the words of my generation; "Boom Headshot" the "Nublets", as it were. I went five rounds without a death, and switched teams. The terrorists did a bit better, and I died twice in five rounds before switching again. We put in maybe twenty five rounds, and I saw the end of vaguely twenty.
Next trial, DoD:S - We moved on the day of defeat because they decided that counter strike was just a 'stupid game' anyway. Fair enough. I gave them their warmup times, and went around making sure they knew how to do a few things that would help them survive like proning, scoping, etc.
It was a massacre. I have a rather spiffy DoD bot that I run in dedicated servers. I let them loose on the halo types, and they tore through the bots like paper. I joined the bots, and the living breathing individuals in the other rooms started cursing violently. It was actually quite entertaining as one right after another came up over a hill and lost their gray matter, then one would come through the sewer, and need a new torso... So on.
This obviously didn't go over well, and they decided I was cheating for using the bots. I got rid of the bots, and actually started dieing a bit. A vague ratio of 1 death to six kills. That's almost killing their entire team without dieing. Needless to say, they never took that bridge, and decided that DoD wasn't their game either. I was cool with that, because to be fair... Day of Defeat IS a ***** to play.
We now moved on to team fortress. They were cocky here, because they'd played this one before. This was going to be cake, right? Yeah. This was going to be cake...
Being TEAM fortress, I had to have other players. Instead of hosting our own here, I decided to let them go into some of those dustbowl servers they'd gotten so pissed at using the mouse and keyboard. They actually did quite well! I was genuinely scared, and began to worry that they'd have me here, being better gamers than I.
Well, turns out my fears were well founded. I collected a few people in the game through steam's friending services, and we drug them into a dedicated server we'd set up. PC gamers on blue, halo fanboys on red. Dustbowl was our battlefield, and battle we did. Blue took first point with no problems, and I just kind of laughed victoriously as people down the hall told me not to get cocky. So I didn't. I switched to sniper, and moved on to the next point... I picked off their sentries, with the backup of a kritzkrieg and a heavy to take a couple hits. We pushed forward, and sat on the point until the first area was ours. Cocky, I became. Yes.
Next batch of points. I went AFK to grab some snacks downstairs in the vending machines since we'd made so much time on the first point. I came back to the third pair of points starting, and my AFK self sitting in the spawn. I just kind of laughed, and assumed this was all but over. There was no defense on the first point, which struck me as odd... No balcony camp of sentries, no heavy medics sitting about waiting to kritz us off the point.
We just walked right through the buildings looking for them, and found nothing...
Until we reached the last point. The defense that they put up held us there for fifteen minutes, trying to get to their point. The final push was eventually made by myself, as a spy. Tactics were clearly all that won the day in this test of our infiltration versus their resilience.
Round two, they were now blue and we red. One of our fellas had to drop, so we were playing a man down. Fair enough was my response, and the game started. I didn't expect too much coordination, but our defense was pretty solid for so few resources. Seven to Six is pretty good. They took first point nearly five minutes in, and came to second point where fresh defenses awaited. The final push left them with no time on the clock, their medic, demo, and heavy on the point after our defenses were busted, and time went up as the round ended. The second push, I found out that apparently I'm not as good at defensive sniping, as we lost this one with two minutes to spare in the end. The final two points, they lost to us before getting the first point. Their team was pyro, medic, demoman, heavy... I don't know what the other three were, but they were each one of those four. They were relentless, but superior experience seemed to be what decided this one.
In the end, I concluded that it wasn't the controls that mattered here, but instead the experience of the players. It played just like a dustbowl game anywhere else, and there was no clear advantage or disadvantage to controls. Could be the siginificantly different recoil system? Who knows.
We bid our new friends goodbye as we left the game to try our final test. X3. X3 isn't really a multiplayer kind of experience, so instead it was to be a race through the first mission of the campaign. I cheated, and used my joystick, as I mentioned before. Pissiness happened, so I decided the fairest way would be for me, myself, to try it with all three controllers, as well as their best player. I'd now done it with the joystick, so I went to mapping controls for the gamepad... Yeah, NOT fun. If you've played X3, you know this one's kind of a joke. I managed to finish the mission though, but it took nearly an hour AFTER the thirty minutes of fiddling with controls. The mouse and keyboard, I'd never used before. I went with defaults, and started up. The controls were pretty much what you'd come to expect from ANY pc game that involved manual movement. Yes, I do mean a WASD centric scheme. I finished relatively painlessly.
Now, this is definitely an experience issue, but the other guy just kind of quit, with all three controllers. He just quit. I suppose this says more for X3 than the control debate. He did stop dead cold with the controller, because he couldn't map everything to it. There's just too much to do. I told him to just use mine, because it had all the controls he'd need for the mission going for it, but he never even started. Pretty funny I'd say.
To be fair after all of this, I played quite a bit of halo that night, letting them rock me repeatedly for the thorough ass whooping I'd just bestowed upon them. Fact remains I suck with controllers, but I beat the controllers with my mouse and keyboard.
ANYWAY!
This big TL;DR was supposed to be a response to 'why buy game for the pc?' but after having typed it up, I think it deserves its own thread and own question. Has anyone else done any major 'scientific research' (I realize this was neither scientific, or research. Just an excuse to play games) like this in the name of gaming or senseless debates? Also, I'd appreciate some input on the control schemes you guys like best. Not a debate on which is best, but which you tend to prefer for the express purpose of FPS, though you can gladly through in other genres.
In the name of science, and getting to know people in my dorm, we've done an experiment about this whole controlling the game issue...
Being a PC Gamer by the definitions of raving fanboys who claim I can't be a fan of any other system, and indeed that I can't be a gamer at all because I have loans to pay off before I buy a bunch of overpriced hardware... I use a mouse and keyboard. I use a mouse and keyboard, because I've been playing PC games for quite a while, and developed the skills to use a mouse and keyboard. Okay.
I also have been console gaming for quite some time. I still have my 2600 in a box around here somewhere. I have used controllers. I have used these controllers mostly for games I wanted to play, which didn't tend to be shooters... As mentioned before, I have a PC. I didn't need console shooters.
We have a few of those 'lol halo' types up in the dorm, so... This is how I access consoles for my alternate 'pulling-my-hair-out' gaming. I fully admit that when I sit down to play with them, I tend to get rocked. I get my shit blown out, and that's all fine and good. I'm not a console gamer, so I can't expect to be a living legend when I pick up a controller after a long day. I do however, hold my own. I don't finish last, and that makes me plenty enough happy. By this same right, the 'lol halo' gamers down the hall have sat down to a good ol' fashioned CS 1.6 game or two, and have quit almost immediately because it's "too hard" and such. They've tried source, and has similar reactions. They played TF2 a bit longer, because they were too busy trying to figure out how to use their secondary skills to figure out that they didn't know what they were doing.
It took some doing, but we mapped some gamepads for play with a few of my choice games... Namely, DoD:S, CS:S, TF2, and just for kicks, X3. I'm an asshole, and of course whipped out my joystick for X3, pissing them off, and they refused to play,EDIT: They refused to play any further with me, but as I mention later, one of them played to 'show me up' on my own system even though it's legitamate pc gaming hardware. ANYWAY!
The results:
CS:S - I didn't play for a bit, we obviously did this on the local network. We had eight computers on our floor that already had all the games in question... Except X3, which the gamers owning the rigs were more than happy to buy.
When they felt good enough about their control schemes that they were blasting one another just like they would be in matchmaking, I joined the fray. I'm no prodigy or anything, but I'm a PC Gamer... It's kind of a defining factor of a PC Gamer that plays FPSes more than once a year that we can aim our guns. In fact, we tend to; in the words of my generation; "Boom Headshot" the "Nublets", as it were. I went five rounds without a death, and switched teams. The terrorists did a bit better, and I died twice in five rounds before switching again. We put in maybe twenty five rounds, and I saw the end of vaguely twenty.
Next trial, DoD:S - We moved on the day of defeat because they decided that counter strike was just a 'stupid game' anyway. Fair enough. I gave them their warmup times, and went around making sure they knew how to do a few things that would help them survive like proning, scoping, etc.
It was a massacre. I have a rather spiffy DoD bot that I run in dedicated servers. I let them loose on the halo types, and they tore through the bots like paper. I joined the bots, and the living breathing individuals in the other rooms started cursing violently. It was actually quite entertaining as one right after another came up over a hill and lost their gray matter, then one would come through the sewer, and need a new torso... So on.
This obviously didn't go over well, and they decided I was cheating for using the bots. I got rid of the bots, and actually started dieing a bit. A vague ratio of 1 death to six kills. That's almost killing their entire team without dieing. Needless to say, they never took that bridge, and decided that DoD wasn't their game either. I was cool with that, because to be fair... Day of Defeat IS a ***** to play.
We now moved on to team fortress. They were cocky here, because they'd played this one before. This was going to be cake, right? Yeah. This was going to be cake...
Being TEAM fortress, I had to have other players. Instead of hosting our own here, I decided to let them go into some of those dustbowl servers they'd gotten so pissed at using the mouse and keyboard. They actually did quite well! I was genuinely scared, and began to worry that they'd have me here, being better gamers than I.
Well, turns out my fears were well founded. I collected a few people in the game through steam's friending services, and we drug them into a dedicated server we'd set up. PC gamers on blue, halo fanboys on red. Dustbowl was our battlefield, and battle we did. Blue took first point with no problems, and I just kind of laughed victoriously as people down the hall told me not to get cocky. So I didn't. I switched to sniper, and moved on to the next point... I picked off their sentries, with the backup of a kritzkrieg and a heavy to take a couple hits. We pushed forward, and sat on the point until the first area was ours. Cocky, I became. Yes.
Next batch of points. I went AFK to grab some snacks downstairs in the vending machines since we'd made so much time on the first point. I came back to the third pair of points starting, and my AFK self sitting in the spawn. I just kind of laughed, and assumed this was all but over. There was no defense on the first point, which struck me as odd... No balcony camp of sentries, no heavy medics sitting about waiting to kritz us off the point.
We just walked right through the buildings looking for them, and found nothing...
Until we reached the last point. The defense that they put up held us there for fifteen minutes, trying to get to their point. The final push was eventually made by myself, as a spy. Tactics were clearly all that won the day in this test of our infiltration versus their resilience.
Round two, they were now blue and we red. One of our fellas had to drop, so we were playing a man down. Fair enough was my response, and the game started. I didn't expect too much coordination, but our defense was pretty solid for so few resources. Seven to Six is pretty good. They took first point nearly five minutes in, and came to second point where fresh defenses awaited. The final push left them with no time on the clock, their medic, demo, and heavy on the point after our defenses were busted, and time went up as the round ended. The second push, I found out that apparently I'm not as good at defensive sniping, as we lost this one with two minutes to spare in the end. The final two points, they lost to us before getting the first point. Their team was pyro, medic, demoman, heavy... I don't know what the other three were, but they were each one of those four. They were relentless, but superior experience seemed to be what decided this one.
In the end, I concluded that it wasn't the controls that mattered here, but instead the experience of the players. It played just like a dustbowl game anywhere else, and there was no clear advantage or disadvantage to controls. Could be the siginificantly different recoil system? Who knows.
We bid our new friends goodbye as we left the game to try our final test. X3. X3 isn't really a multiplayer kind of experience, so instead it was to be a race through the first mission of the campaign. I cheated, and used my joystick, as I mentioned before. Pissiness happened, so I decided the fairest way would be for me, myself, to try it with all three controllers, as well as their best player. I'd now done it with the joystick, so I went to mapping controls for the gamepad... Yeah, NOT fun. If you've played X3, you know this one's kind of a joke. I managed to finish the mission though, but it took nearly an hour AFTER the thirty minutes of fiddling with controls. The mouse and keyboard, I'd never used before. I went with defaults, and started up. The controls were pretty much what you'd come to expect from ANY pc game that involved manual movement. Yes, I do mean a WASD centric scheme. I finished relatively painlessly.
Now, this is definitely an experience issue, but the other guy just kind of quit, with all three controllers. He just quit. I suppose this says more for X3 than the control debate. He did stop dead cold with the controller, because he couldn't map everything to it. There's just too much to do. I told him to just use mine, because it had all the controls he'd need for the mission going for it, but he never even started. Pretty funny I'd say.
To be fair after all of this, I played quite a bit of halo that night, letting them rock me repeatedly for the thorough ass whooping I'd just bestowed upon them. Fact remains I suck with controllers, but I beat the controllers with my mouse and keyboard.
ANYWAY!
This big TL;DR was supposed to be a response to 'why buy game for the pc?' but after having typed it up, I think it deserves its own thread and own question. Has anyone else done any major 'scientific research' (I realize this was neither scientific, or research. Just an excuse to play games) like this in the name of gaming or senseless debates? Also, I'd appreciate some input on the control schemes you guys like best. Not a debate on which is best, but which you tend to prefer for the express purpose of FPS, though you can gladly through in other genres.
