Discussion - Are modern controllers to complex, are kinect/move the next evolution. !!Continued!!

[Meggiepants]

It's interesting that this topic comes up just as Rock Band is about to release yet another game that doesn't decrease the complexity of controllers, but increases it with the inclusion of the keyboard.

I think if people thought the controller was getting too complicated, that games like Rock Band and DJ Hero wouldn't exist. We would never have left this bad boy behind us either.

A lot of people are talking about Yahtzee's take on this, but the discusion that pops up in my head when thinking about this issue is Tycho's blog on Penny Arcade a few weeks back:

"Look at the racing experiences shown: by comparison, Mario Kart is more hardcore. These Kinect racers are games without brakes or acceleration, for Chrissakes. There have been demos in the past that featured acceleration and braking by shifting your foot forward and backward on the floor, but such demos were not in evidence at E3 this year, and they're not important for this discussion anyway. These are heavily abstracted experiences, by the standards of those who love this medium, and abstractions are generally seen (again, by us) as dilutions of purpose. Is that notion true for the people they want to buy this thing? If you identify the fun part of an interaction, and distill it, is that enough? Do those people - them, the usurpers - care that they are not being given an accurate simulation, so long as they may drive a Ferrari?"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/6/21/

He doesn't exactly address the issue head on, but he does bring up an interesting point. Are the motion games distillations of the games we currently play with our controllers that have 8 buttons, two joysticks and a direction pad? I don't think I'd enjoy playing a game that was just steering.

I also don't know that motion controls are necessarily going to be simpler. Let's just say we don't want to distill our games down to simply steering. I don't even want to imagine how much of a pain in the ass it would be to play a shooter. Imagine having to come up with unique movements to reload your weapon, change your weapon, throw a grenade, crouch, put on your night vision goggles, put on your heat vision goggles, use a health pack, heal your teammate... I don't think I need to go on.

I don't think the controller is going anywhere until games like Modern Warfare are successfully ported over into the controller free zone of Kinect. And I don't really see that happening anytime soon.

 

[I forgot]

Honestly I think the motion controls are a huge step in the wrong direction. By removing force feedback and what not you're basically killing immersion, instead of motion controls Sony and Microsoft should be going for something like this
<youtube=0PS_vu-WBb0>
That thing kicks ass.

Wow that looks really interesting. My jaw dropped when I saw the shotgun recoil, very cool. I'd be very interested to give that a shot. It's gotta be expensive though, and I feel like I would pull the arms right off if I wasn't being careful.

That thing is pretty cool but why would not feeling the recoil kill "immersion" (Man I hate that word). Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller. That thing would be considered just as much a gimmick because it's just replacing what both the mouse and control stick already did just fine at.

 

[Gasaraki]

Honestly I think the motion controls are a huge step in the wrong direction. By removing force feedback and what not you're basically killing immersion, instead of motion controls Sony and Microsoft should be going for something like this
<youtube=0PS_vu-WBb0>
That thing kicks ass.

Wow that looks really interesting. My jaw dropped when I saw the shotgun recoil, very cool. I'd be very interested to give that a shot. It's gotta be expensive though, and I feel like I would pull the arms right off if I wasn't being careful.

Yeah it's about 250$, I think it'd be a bit hard to pull off it's arms though considering it's strong enough to move a grown man's arm.

That thing is pretty cool but why would not feeling the recoil kill "immersion" (Man I hate that word). Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller. That thing would be considered just as much a gimmick because it's just replacing what both the mouse and control stick already did just fine at.

Notice how I didn't specifically say recoil in my original post, I said force feedback. And I didn't say not having it kills immersion but having more of it does help with making you feel like you're in the game which is never a bad thing.

It's as much of a gimmick as Surround Sound is because Surround sound just replaces what stereo does just fine.
EDIT:
Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.

 

[Quorothorn]

Personally, I think the PS2 controller was/is absolute perfection as a gaming control device, and the Xbox/PS3 controllers aren't much worse (why did they change the shoulder buttons? Why?): enough buttons (16, plus two analog sticks: the 4 face buttons, the 4 directional buttons, the 4 shoulder buttons, R3/L3, Start/Select) to handle everything that doesn't need to be on a computer anyway (as in RTSes and especially complicated RPGs), all nicely laid out. My experience with the Wii's system, albeit just one day long, was less positive, and it looks like Move won't be better; I suspect that I would loathe Kinect, though I obviously cannot know for sure without actually using it (which I am not going to do, so there we are).

How it would be for a non-gamer? I'unno: not to be rude (is about to be somewhat rude), but why do we care how non-gamers view games? They're non-gamers. (Oh, right, their gimmick-attracted money. Nevermind.)

 

[Savagezion]

Personally, I think the PS2 controller was/is absolute perfection as a gaming control device, and the Xbox/PS3 controllers aren't much worse (why did they change the shoulder buttons? Why?):

I will agree with you about the shoulder buttons. I have accidentally thrown grenades and fired my special weapon too many times to count. However, I think that overall the PS3 controller is better due to button sensitivity. The fact that it can register how light or how hard you push the button. The previous problem is that many games set them too sensitive.

How it would be for a non-gamer? I'unno: not to be rude (is about to be somewhat rude), but why do we care how non-gamers view games? They're non-gamers. (Oh, right, their gimmick-attracted money. Nevermind.)

You can see it as how hard is the controller to pick up and enjoy the game and know what you are doing as someone stepping into gaming. Explaining what every button does to someone new to a game takes about 2-5 minutes. That is just you talking about it. Now, if they have never played a game similar to that particular button layout yet, they are going to remember about 20% of everything you just explained. Probably movement/steering, and 1 or 2 actions. Then, they are going to have to get a "feel" for the movement/steering/pacing and won't really have time to learn another button you already explained for a few minutes.
If you ever wanted to get your girlfriend/wife/loved one to play a game, the controller is the first hurdle. People don't like to be made to feel stupid over a remote control someone else makes look easy.

There is a lot of Yahtzee references here. And while he does make some silly metaphors and a couple good "ribbings" toward motion controls. He is wrong that the industry will not get rid of them. Thought>Action is close enough for more than enough people to support a market even with mostly shovelware supporting it. That should speak for itself and seem obvious but I guess it doesn't. Finally, motion controls have an audience willing to pay for the 'research' while most of us sit back and wait for it to improve. And then tell Microsoft that we never doubted it in 10 years. XD

Motion controls are going to stay. Wether you like it or not this industry is built from the ground up on "gimicks". Video games are always aspiring to be virtual reality. The industry is not going to evolve into motionless virtual reality** without motion influenced virtual reality first. We must crawl before we learn to walk. We are merely looking at the first stage of evolution of virtual gaming.

**something I doubt we will achieve, we still gotta figure out how our brains fully function first and we aren't even close.

 

[Laughing Man]

Discussion - Are modern controllers to complex, are kinect/move the next evolution. !!Continued!!

Blunt and simple

No modern controllers are not to complex, if you think or have even had the slightest suspicion that this controller you are using is to complex then you are a moron and it really is as simple as that.

No motion sensor is not the new technology, and it is the same resurgence garbage that is driving the 3D nonsense in cinemas. It's old school tech that was crap when it first appeared and shockingly is crap even with the application of modern technology to it.

 

[migo]

Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.

And it's incredibly lame when they do it too.

 

[Gasaraki]

Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.

And it's incredibly lame when they do it too.

I don't really see how this contributes to the conversation...

 

[McNinja]

I find that modern controllers are the right choice. As Yathzee has said "without force feedback motion controls are unimersive". The xbox 360 controller has, what i feel, is one of the most perfect layouts ive ever seen. The buttons are even and equally spaced the control sticks are in just such spaced out that i feels natural, and the bumpers are only a few centimeters away from the triggers as opposed to the white and black buttons in the bottom righthand coner of the controller.

The PS3 never felt natural to me but that is proably because i started with the 360 controller, but it never felt like a hindernace so the games were harder to complete.

The problem with motion controls is that for it to be effective the range has to be large enough for the person to be able to freely move, while being small enough so that other movements dont interfere. This is hard to pull off.

I never thought motion controls were any better than normal controllers, because they lack the ability to make games fun. You can't very well play Prototype with motion controls, now can you? (Well, you obviously can't, if you could it wouldn't work all that well).

I've always felt that Xbox controllers are more suited to shooters, and PS3/PS2 controllers are better for platformers/games that don't require the use of triggers as such. But I do feel that the 360 controller layout is the best layout of any controller.

 

[Tony2077]

i hope normal controllers stick around till i lose interest in gaming

 

[migo]

Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.

And it's incredibly lame when they do it too.

I don't really see how this contributes to the conversation...

Force feedback isn't everything.

 

[I forgot]

That thing is pretty cool but why would not feeling the recoil kill "immersion" (Man I hate that word). Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller. That thing would be considered just as much a gimmick because it's just replacing what both the mouse and control stick already did just fine at.

Notice how I didn't specifically say recoil in my original post, I said force feedback. And I didn't say not having it kills immersion but having more of it does help with making you feel like you're in the game which is never a bad thing.

It's as much of a gimmick as Surround Sound is because Surround sound just replaces what stereo does just fine.
EDIT:
Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.[/quote]

Controllers before the rumble and the light gun in arcades didn't have force feedback, nobody cared then or even now for that matter. But, I see we're in agreement that it's just as much a gimmick and not having it doesn't kill "immersion". Actually, I think immersion is the real gimmick. That novint thing is still kind of cool, though.

 

[Gasaraki]

Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.

And it's incredibly lame when they do it too.

I don't really see how this contributes to the conversation...

Force feedback isn't everything.

I never said it was, I just said that it's more important that motion controls.

 

[Quorothorn]

I will agree with you about the shoulder buttons. I have accidentally thrown grenades and fired my special weapon too many times to count. However, I think that overall the PS3 controller is better due to button sensitivity. The fact that it can register how light or how hard you push the button. The previous problem is that many games set them too sensitive.

Thanks for telling me about that (I hadn't noticed anything about the sensitivity): it makes me feel much better. I'm glad it's more of a trade-off and not just a slight-but-annoying downgrade the way I initially thought.

You can see it as how hard is the controller to pick up and enjoy the game and know what you are doing as someone stepping into gaming. Explaining what every button does to someone new to a game takes about 2-5 minutes. That is just you talking about it. Now, if they have never played a game similar to that particular button layout yet, they are going to remember about 20% of everything you just explained. Probably movement/steering, and 1 or 2 actions. Then, they are going to have to get a "feel" for the movement/steering/pacing and won't really have time to learn another button you already explained for a few minutes.
If you ever wanted to get your girlfriend/wife/loved one to play a game, the controller is the first hurdle. People don't like to be made to feel stupid over a remote control someone else makes look easy.

I agree with that point, but on the other hand, once mastered (which doesn't take particularly long on an objective scale: a tennis racket is harder to really learn IMO), the standard modern controller just plain works in a way that motion controls won't for years and years, if they ever do. Honestly, I've never been interested in the idea of videogames as full VR, so the idea that the industry is going to obsess over taking motion controls and running with them for the next decade annoys me. But then, I also prefer paper books to electronics (though I'm not actively opposed to electronic books like some of my fellows), so perhaps I'm just going to remain in the late 20th/start of 21st century all my life or somesuch, eh?

Also, the majority of games I've played have a tutorial section of some kind, often one that even explained how to move around (Kingdom Hearts springs to mind), so, at least theoretically, you don't HAVE to verbally explain it to a newcomer: just give them a new file and stand by as they go through the tutorial. As long as it's not a game like Resident Evil 2 they ought to get a decent grasp that way.

 

[Gasaraki]

Controllers before the rumble and the light gun in arcades didn't have force feedback, nobody cared then.
Well of course no one cared back then, that's like saying people in the SNES days didn't care about not having HDTVs, of course they didn't because it wasn't there yet.

or even now for that matter.
Well of course people aren't gonna go OMG THAT GAME HAS CONTROLLER VIBRATION! YAY! Because at the moment it's just controller vibration. But I'm not specifically talking about controller vibration now am I? I'm talking about force feedback in general, and how when it comes to actually playing games, things like the Novint Falcon are more practical than motion controllers for delivering a better game experience.

But, I see we're in agreement that it's just as much a gimmick
I never said that Force Feedback is a gimmick, I compared it to surround sound.

and not having it doesn't kill "immersion". Neither did I say that, I said it contributes to it but it's not necessary.

Actually, I think immersion is the real gimmick. I don't agree with your opinion but if that's what you think then I'm not going to try to shove mine down your throat.

 

[Miles Tormani]

Nobody has a problem not feeling it when playing with a regular controller.
What are you talking about? Most console FPSes attempt to replicate weapon recoil with controller vibration already.

And it's incredibly lame when they do it too.

I don't really see how this contributes to the conversation...

Force feedback isn't everything.

I never said it was, I just said that it's more important that motion controls.

The guy's got his head in the wrong direction. You're better off not trying to argue with him.

That said, here's an interesting experiment for people who think rumble's mainly a gimmick. Go play Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox 360. Play it just long enough for you to get the hang of everything. Done with that? Good. Now play it on the PS3.

One feature missing, and the whole game feels completely different.

 

[I forgot]

Controllers before the rumble and the light gun in arcades didn't have force feedback, nobody cared then.
Well of course no one cared back then, that's like saying people in the SNES days didn't care about not having HDTVs, of course they didn't because it wasn't there yet.

or even now for that matter.
Well of course people aren't gonna go OMG THAT GAME HAS CONTROLLER VIBRATION! YAY! Because at the moment it's just controller vibration. But I'm not specifically talking about controller vibration now am I? I'm talking about force feedback in general, and how when it comes to actually playing games, things like the Novint Falcon are more practical than motion controllers for delivering a better game experience.

But, I see we're in agreement that it's just as much a gimmick
I never said that Force Feedback is a gimmick, I compared it to surround sound.

and not having it doesn't kill "immersion". Neither did I say that, I said it contributes to it but it's not necessary.

Actually, I think immersion is the real gimmick. I don't agree with your opinion but if that's what you think then I'm not going to try to shove mine down your throat.

Don't worry about that shoving opinions into throats thing, we're not doing that here and I'm honestly sick of that cliche. Anyways I'd like to hear how force feedback changes the way the game plays and why it's not a gimmick. Being able to tilt your hand to aim changes the way the game plays but that force feedback doesn't. It's just like the rumble in controllers, yeah it's neat but I'm mashing buttons like I always did.

 

[Miles Tormani]

Don't worry about that shoving opinions into throats thing, we're not doing that here and I'm honestly sick of that cliche. Anyways I'd like to hear how force feedback changes the way the game plays and why it's not a gimmick. Being able to tilt your hand to aim changes the way the game plays but that force feedback doesn't. It's just like the rumble in controllers, yeah it's neat but I'm mashing buttons like I always did.

I really don't want to sound like a dick, but in the post right before yours, I did bring up something to try if you don't think rumble's that important to a game. Just a simple experiment. The use of Call of Duty 4 in particular is because, unlike a lot of early big-name PS3 games, CoD4 didn't get an update for DualShock compatibility. At least, to the best of my knowledge.

 

[I forgot]

Don't worry about that shoving opinions into throats thing, we're not doing that here and I'm honestly sick of that cliche. Anyways I'd like to hear how force feedback changes the way the game plays and why it's not a gimmick. Being able to tilt your hand to aim changes the way the game plays but that force feedback doesn't. It's just like the rumble in controllers, yeah it's neat but I'm mashing buttons like I always did.

I really don't want to sound like a dick, but in the post right before yours, I did bring up something to try if you don't think rumble's that important to a game. Just a simple experiment. The use of Call of Duty 4 in particular is because, unlike a lot of early big-name PS3 games, CoD4 didn't get an update for DualShock compatibility. At least, to the best of my knowledge.

It's okay, dude, you're not. Unfortunately, I don't have Call of Duty for my PS3 nor am I enthusiastic about getting the same game just to test an experiment so I can't make the comparison. However, from what I gather the argument is that it feels different. But playing with rumble vs without is not like playing with a controller versus playing with a pc.

 

[Last Bullet]

i hope normal controllers stick around till i lose interest in gaming

You mean when you die, right? ...

OT: PS3 controller = PS1 controller + rear-triggers and a PS-button (exaggerated a bit, but you get the point), and PS1 was not complex. My sixty year old uncle can use it flawlessly, and it's the only gaming system he's ever owned. Actual evolution: direct feed. God, I want that to happen so bad.