What is so great about the keyboard as a gaming tool?

[Dastardly]

Why, why on either would a keyboard ever be a "superior gaming device"? It's a device made specifically for typing, not gaming. The amount of games that are made better for a gamepad/joystick are far greater than ones made better for a keyboard.

It's about utility. A keyboard (with mouse) serves as a game controller. It also serves as a keyboard. I know I hate trying to type things (even character names) on consoles via the controller.

It's the same reason far more people play mobile phone games than 3DS games. For about the same money, this device plays games... and it is also a phone, mp3 player, camera, and tiny computer. No, it's not the best gaming platform out there, but it does well enough and does many other things.

 

[orangeban]

Hotkeys, hotkeys, hotkeys. I adore hotkeys, I would marry a hotkey if I could. Also, quicksave is a godsend, and it generally can't be done with a controller.

 

[Kalado]

Everything that has some kind of Coursor (RTS/Ego-shooter) or many Commands(RTS) can IMO only be played good with a keyboard and mouse.
Rest of the games are much more appealing with a controller.
But it's still much easier to play a fighter game with a keyboard than a shooter (without auto-aim etc.) with a controller.

And I mean be played GOOD! For the really casual player it might not matter.

But please show me someone who can do this with a controller:
Or this with a keyboard.

 

[Spitfire]

Watch a gameplay video of someone playing Halo.

Then watch a gameplay video of someone playing Half-Life.

For added hilarity, find a video of someone playing Halo without auto-aim.

Not too long ago, I was searching for championship matches of various shooters. The difference between Halo and Quake was incredibly dramatic. Shooters have gotten a whole lot slower in the last decade and I think the controller has a lot to do with it.

I hear ya. A couple of years ago I tried playing Halo: Combat Evolved on my PC, and I was dumbstruck to see how slow the game was. For a while, I thought that there was something wrong with my computer, or that my graphics card had went to shit. But no, that's how the game was intended to play all along.
Now, I understand why console FPS's use things like auto-aim in order to supplement for the controller's lack of precision, but what's the point of the slow movement speed? I don't see how it could have anything to do with the controller. There's no reason why the game couldn't play at full speed. I'm intrigued.

 

[Sewer Rat]

Personally I enjoy using a keyboard for gaming, did it take some time to get used to WASD controls? yes, but now that I am I find that I can bind a lot of controls to all the areas around those key... keys and am able to easily do what I need to do now that I am used to it. Is WASD as smooth as an analog stick even in the hands of a long time pc gamer? no. But I look at it this way, in every fps/rts, the mouse beats the analog stick easily. The keyboard takes some getting used to on the other hand, but once you are used to it you can do some amazing things with it.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

More buttons and better accuracy.

 

[Spitfire]

Watch a gameplay video of someone playing Halo.

Then watch a gameplay video of someone playing Half-Life.

For added hilarity, find a video of someone playing Halo without auto-aim.

Not too long ago, I was searching for championship matches of various shooters. The difference between Halo and Quake was incredibly dramatic. Shooters have gotten a whole lot slower in the last decade and I think the controller has a lot to do with it.

I hear ya. A couple of years ago I tried playing Halo: Combat Evolved on my PC, and I was dumbstruck to see how slow the game was. For a while, I thought that there was something wrong with my computer, or that my graphics card had went to shit. But no, that's how the game was intended to play all along.
Now, I understand why console FPS's use things like auto-aim in order to supplement for the controller's lack of precision, but what's the point of the slow movement speed? I don't see how it could have anything to do with the controller. There's no reason why the game couldn't play at full speed. I'm intrigued.

You can't aim fast, and you can't aim precisely. Slow aiming - slow game speed, imprecise aiming - auto-aim. Two things to counteract two problems.

I can see how that would be the case in games like Modern Warfare, where you fight in tight corners, and can get ambushed by a dozen attackers every minute, or have multiple grenades thrown at you. But in a game like Halo, the environments are huge, and the enemies are spread out, giving you plenty of time to pick them out, or so I imagined. Then again, I wouldn't know, as I've only played the game on PC, using a mouse and keyboard.

 

[Small Waves]

The only thing that a controller provides that a keyboard can't is motion sensitivity. While you can move a control stick slightly for slower movement, your keyboard isn't designed to sense how hard you are pressing WASD or any other keys. Aside from that, everything else is a massive upgrade. It's easier to turn and aim with a mouse than a control stick and hotkeys are a Godsend.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

For gaming I use a Gameboard. A small keyboard where the buttons are mappable, and are far more comfortable to use than my regular keyboard I use for typing. That way I get the best of both worlds: Easy to reach buttons, comfort, and flexibility.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

not the keyboard, the mouse. As a result, 3rd person shooters are usually superior on a gamepad due to the fine movement you can achieve with twinsticks, First person is best with a mouse due to the fine aiming and easy panning control. But my PC can hook a gamepad in, not as common to see mice into consoles.

 

[Korten12]

Watch a gameplay video of someone playing Halo.

Then watch a gameplay video of someone playing Half-Life.

For added hilarity, find a video of someone playing Halo without auto-aim.

Not too long ago, I was searching for championship matches of various shooters. The difference between Halo and Quake was incredibly dramatic. Shooters have gotten a whole lot slower in the last decade and I think the controller has a lot to do with it.

Well the main reason for Halo being slower is the fact that you can't sprint (in Reach you can with armor abilites, but then there is people who use all the other abilites, meaning they go much slower) and so your chaeracters natural movement is slow.

If Halo had natural sprint, the game would be much faster, not maybe as much as Quake, but faster.

 

[hardpixelrain]

This is gonna sound really weird, but I actually play Street Fighter IV better with a keyboard. Its a side effect of playing so many emulators. Of course doing full circle motions is impossible.

Its the closest I have to a six button arcade stick as well.

But I'll actually agree with you on this one, its not the best control method for a lot of other games.

 

[Supertegwyn]

I like the utility of a keyboard (being able to use the same device for playing games and surfing the internet), and I have become quite used to WASD.