Ok so most people who have already played Witcher 2 know a few things. They know that combat is finicky due to the targeting system. It's based around your camera view, which happens to be twitchy, so you often end up accidentally switching targets if you don't lock on. There's also the wierd loot system, where the item box pops up and you hit Space to loot. But then in menues, like when you're upgrading or making potions, sometimes you use Space to use, sometimes it's enter. That's not ergonomic useage of keyboard space. It's also a bit wierd that the mouse doesn't get centered on things, like when you open a conversation I find it's faster to just use the arrow keys to select items instead of the mouse because I never know where the mouse pointer will be. And finally, in your inventory if you use the keyboard, TAB is used to scroll through the different menus (weapons, ranged weapons, armour, bombs, etc) and only goes in one direction. Oh, and the mouse scroll wheel doesn't work (AFAIK).
Ok so why does this mean it was developed for consoles??
Well, last night I plugged in my gamepad. And was blown away by how much better it is than mouse and keyboard in this game.
First off, combat. No longer does the direction of the camera matter for targetting opponents!!! It's now dependant on your movment joystick. Push RIGHT and attack, and you attack the target to your right. Then push LEFT and attack, and you go attack one on the left! It's so much smoother, it feels almost like Batman Arkham Asylum in that way. How did they not bother to implement this with WASD???
Secondly, looting. Once you're using a gamepad, a loot box actually appears in the corner of the screen, without clicking anything! You can SEE what you might get, and then you hit ONE BUTTON and it automatically loots it. Compared to having to highlight the loot container, click the mouse to open the loot box, and then hit Space to loot it... so much simpler! I can quickly look over many garbage loots in seconds due to it automatically showing what will be looted, rather than going highlight->click->escape, highlight->click->escape, highlight->click->escape, etc.
When it comes to menus, well there's still the 2 button system. On PC it's Space and Enter. On gamepad it's A and Y (or X and triangle if you use a PS3 controller like me). At least they're both under your thumb, not on the other side of a keyboard.
And the last thing is the inventory. Now, it's a little wierd with the gamepad because it auto selects your equipment so you need to hit LEFT a couple times to get to the item menus, but aside from that to scroll through your menu lists you use L1 and R1, so you can actually go both ways through the items. And then simply up/down to scroll through the lists. I think a mouse is slightly faster for selecting the top menu item, but in terms of going through the lists of items themselves the gamepad and arrows are best IMO.
So basically, I find the game is a lot easier to use with a gamepad, which is odd considering all the RPGs I've played on PC that have no problem with mouse and keyboard, including the first Witcher. But there's some distinct changes (combat and loot) that really give the gamepad an edge in my opinion.
I did notice a few game design elements that favor consoles but I don't mind them, because it looks and plays great anyway. The main thing I noticed though is loading zones - whenever you go through a double door system. So, for example, in Flotsam you might notice ever single exit out of the city has 2 doors you need to go through. Yeah, it makes some sense for defense but it's actually a loading zone. I've also noticed when the camera changes position a lot in cutscenes I can often catch models/textures getting reloaded - so for example a character will be very blurry for a split second and then the textures pop in. This is something devs do on consoles due to the low amount of RAM, so they stream in the high res textures only as needed and use low res when things are off camera. I also notice a bit of this sort of thing when moving outdoors, textures kind of pop into higher res as you get closer, but sometimes it changes the face of the rocks or whatever so at times it's noticeable. Still, I'm not complaining because like I said it looks great and plays very well, I'm just pointing out that they used techniques that aren't really needed in gaming PCs with 4+ gigs of RAM. Oh and I also noticed that shadows on character models are wierd. They look like crosshatching. I don't know what that's about.
Last thing. I'm guessing here (actually, I'm betting) that people are going to come in and be all upset like I'm trying to showcase PC superiority. That is NOT THE CASE. If you read my arguments, I'm meerly stating that the controls - you know, what makes the game actually playable and can easily ruin the experience if done poorly - work not just better, but WAY better and quite differently, with a gamepad.
EDIT I forgot one more thing, arm wrestling!! It's the biggest pain in the ass on PC. You have to move the mouse left and right to keep the icon centered on the bar, but it's extremely non responsive and vague. Using the thumbstick on a gamepad is ridiculously easy in comparison.
Ok so why does this mean it was developed for consoles??
Well, last night I plugged in my gamepad. And was blown away by how much better it is than mouse and keyboard in this game.
First off, combat. No longer does the direction of the camera matter for targetting opponents!!! It's now dependant on your movment joystick. Push RIGHT and attack, and you attack the target to your right. Then push LEFT and attack, and you go attack one on the left! It's so much smoother, it feels almost like Batman Arkham Asylum in that way. How did they not bother to implement this with WASD???
Secondly, looting. Once you're using a gamepad, a loot box actually appears in the corner of the screen, without clicking anything! You can SEE what you might get, and then you hit ONE BUTTON and it automatically loots it. Compared to having to highlight the loot container, click the mouse to open the loot box, and then hit Space to loot it... so much simpler! I can quickly look over many garbage loots in seconds due to it automatically showing what will be looted, rather than going highlight->click->escape, highlight->click->escape, highlight->click->escape, etc.
When it comes to menus, well there's still the 2 button system. On PC it's Space and Enter. On gamepad it's A and Y (or X and triangle if you use a PS3 controller like me). At least they're both under your thumb, not on the other side of a keyboard.
And the last thing is the inventory. Now, it's a little wierd with the gamepad because it auto selects your equipment so you need to hit LEFT a couple times to get to the item menus, but aside from that to scroll through your menu lists you use L1 and R1, so you can actually go both ways through the items. And then simply up/down to scroll through the lists. I think a mouse is slightly faster for selecting the top menu item, but in terms of going through the lists of items themselves the gamepad and arrows are best IMO.
So basically, I find the game is a lot easier to use with a gamepad, which is odd considering all the RPGs I've played on PC that have no problem with mouse and keyboard, including the first Witcher. But there's some distinct changes (combat and loot) that really give the gamepad an edge in my opinion.
I did notice a few game design elements that favor consoles but I don't mind them, because it looks and plays great anyway. The main thing I noticed though is loading zones - whenever you go through a double door system. So, for example, in Flotsam you might notice ever single exit out of the city has 2 doors you need to go through. Yeah, it makes some sense for defense but it's actually a loading zone. I've also noticed when the camera changes position a lot in cutscenes I can often catch models/textures getting reloaded - so for example a character will be very blurry for a split second and then the textures pop in. This is something devs do on consoles due to the low amount of RAM, so they stream in the high res textures only as needed and use low res when things are off camera. I also notice a bit of this sort of thing when moving outdoors, textures kind of pop into higher res as you get closer, but sometimes it changes the face of the rocks or whatever so at times it's noticeable. Still, I'm not complaining because like I said it looks great and plays very well, I'm just pointing out that they used techniques that aren't really needed in gaming PCs with 4+ gigs of RAM. Oh and I also noticed that shadows on character models are wierd. They look like crosshatching. I don't know what that's about.
Last thing. I'm guessing here (actually, I'm betting) that people are going to come in and be all upset like I'm trying to showcase PC superiority. That is NOT THE CASE. If you read my arguments, I'm meerly stating that the controls - you know, what makes the game actually playable and can easily ruin the experience if done poorly - work not just better, but WAY better and quite differently, with a gamepad.
EDIT I forgot one more thing, arm wrestling!! It's the biggest pain in the ass on PC. You have to move the mouse left and right to keep the icon centered on the bar, but it's extremely non responsive and vague. Using the thumbstick on a gamepad is ridiculously easy in comparison.
