Poll: Console sacrifice

[razing32]

OK , I can't take it anymore. I recently bought Broken Sword 3 from GOG and it's driving me mad with horrid controls , camera angels and quick time events. And the puzzles are just plain boring. Problem is , I know why it's like that , so it can work on consoles.

Same issue I had with Operation Flashpoint 2 , I loved Op Flash 1 , Arma 1 and Arma 2 , so when Op Fl 2 came along I bought it , only to see that the lovely menu of previous games that were intuitive to order an entire platoon around were replaced by a radial menu , best suited to consoles.

And recently I saw it in Skyrim. You remember Oblivion , and the lovely colored and easy to navigate menus. Well , then you can join me in my mourning because there's a radial menu here too.

What is it with games and console ports ? Can't they just create a different control scheme for consoles or something. It's very annoying to have a keyboard with dozens of buttons and be restricted to about 6 or so. And a mouse is not an analog stick , stop using it as such. I broke a mouse playing the Force Unleashed trying to crash TIE Fighters in that damned scrapyard mission when you have to collapse the Imperial Destroyer.

So , am I being a jerk about this ? Or is anyone else sick of seeing PC games butchered for consoles ? (PS : I bought Red Orchestra 2 just because it is PC exclusive)

And also , why can't they just make an interface API and adapt it to the machine the game is running on ? ( I suck at coding btw , so if this makes just as much sense as disabling Spanning Tree over redundant links then please say so)

 

[razing32]

Sorry , those 2 options were meant to be :

Haven't noticed (i.e neutral)
Doesn't affect me

I tried editing the poll 3 times with no result.

 

[FalloutJack]

This is a major case of your milage on the matter varying, as every person from every style of gaming has their own take on this, and there is likely no majority on one or the other. It is the reason that most any game-related compare-contrast discussions lead to horribleness. These become wars, and they literally go nowhere. Hey, I'm sorry you have problems with a PC game ported to console. There's probably a million people who are fine with it, and that's why these topics create problems.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

This is a major case of your milage on the matter varying, as every person from every style of gaming has their own take on this, and there is likely no majority on one or the other. It is the reason that most any game-related compare-contrast discussions lead to horribleness. These become wars, and they literally go nowhere. Hey, I'm sorry you have problems with a PC game ported to console. There's probably a million people who are fine with it, and that's why these topics create problems.

this.

also with the fact that i have a 360 controller wired to my computer for all/any games that don't work well with keyboard and mouse, and it's not a big deal for me. plus i've kind of come to expect it in alot of games..just by the way they look, so i tend to expect it going into alot of them.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

OK , I can't take it anymore. I recently bought Broken Sword 3 from GOG and it's driving me mad with horrid controls , camera angels and quick time events. And the puzzles are just plain boring. Problem is , I know why it's like that , so it can work on consoles.

Same issue I had with Operation Flashpoint 2 , I loved Op Flash 1 , Arma 1 and Arma 2 , so when Op Fl 2 came along I bought it , only to see that the lovely menu of previous games that were intuitive to order an entire platoon around were replaced by a radial menu , best suited to consoles.

And recently I saw it in Skyrim. You remember Oblivion , and the lovely colored and easy to navigate menus. Well , then you can join me in my mourning because there's a radial menu here too.

What is it with games and console ports ? Can't they just create a different control scheme for consoles or something. It's very annoying to have a keyboard with dozens of buttons and be restricted to about 6 or so. And a mouse is not an analog stick , stop using it as such. I broke a mouse playing the Force Unleashed trying to crash TIE Fighters in that damned scrapyard mission when you have to collapse the Imperial Destroyer.

So , am I being a jerk about this ? Or is anyone else sick of seeing PC games butchered for consoles ? (PS : I bought Red Orchestra 2 just because it is PC exclusive)

And also , why can't they just make an interface API and adapt it to the machine the game is running on ? ( I suck at coding btw , so if this makes just as much sense as disabling Spanning Tree over redundant links then please say so)

And recently I saw it in Skyrim. You remember Oblivion , and the lovely colored and easy to navigate menus. Well , then you can join me in my mourning because there's a radial menu here too.

and the lovely colored and easy to navigate menus

What..? I dont even?..

Okay so maybe that part was because Im a console gamer, I thought the Oblivion menu system was complete ass on a controller, Skyrim was a huge improvement for me.
Anyway it does seem like games are becoming more console centric, although its really hard for me to sympathize because it means that im getting the good end of the deal.

In Skyrims case I dont think it would have been too hard for the devs to put in a different menu option for the PC, but on the whole I think Skyrims menu is made that way to look nice which it does.

In your other example though its either a sign of laziness on the devs part or publishers pushing the game out too fast, there is another option though, you could always just plug a 360 controller into your PC

 

[Crazedc00k]

Well, it is a lot easier to bring a modified console control system to PC then vice-versa. That said, it doesn't bother me that PC controls are being minimized--we still get the best versions of games; until they take our mods, controller freedom, hardware, community, available classics, digital distribution, genre variety, and lan-friendliness (I could go on), that wont change.

 

[Tayh]

Game developers have long been dumbing down their games to accomodate the console gamers, leaving PC gamers with poor secondary-priority ports, if anything at all.

 

[Zhukov]

Oh look, it's this toxic little thread again.

Bottom line: Video games are a business and consoles are where the money is. You can all whine on the internet until you fingers bleed, but that's how things stand.

I would dearly like it if developers would put more effort into ports, especially in the area of controls and interface, but given the current market I'm just grateful that they're still releasing their games on PC at all.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Considering the only series I've ever found better on a PC was the Football Manager series, personally I'm glad interfaces for games are more "console-ised" and it makes sense for companies as well as it is where the money is as well.

 

[Fishyash]

(Oh, this is gonna be bad): Modern Warfare 3 is a lazy port where they just forgot that FoV options are quite essential on the PC, especially if you have such a narrow FoV from the start.

That and more.

On Topic now: Yes, bad PC ports annoy the hell out of me, but I think there is a threshold to pass.

For example in skyrim, I know that I can simply install a mod (SKYUI- get it now) to make inventory management easier, and that I can use the favourites menu to keybind my potions and weapons.

However, you are 100% right, there are too many bad PC ports, but most people either don't care or are too lenient...

And of course, games are not only easier to design, but they also sell better on consoles. Few genres are truly designed for PC nowdays.

 

[Carnagath]

Game developers have long been dumbing down their games to accomodate the console gamers, leaving PC gamers with poor secondary-priority ports, if anything at all.

I agree, whenever I boot Dark Souls I just feel dumb. I miss the complexity and sophistication of Diablo

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I would say a majority of games released on PC suffer from some kind of consolized control scheme that could be far more optimized. This is often true of fonts and menu sizes. I will usually let most things slide but the one thing that I simply cannot abide by in a PC game, is a lack of keybinding. Every so often I get a PC game that is a port in the ultimate sense, in that can't even rebind controls to take advantage of all the versatility of PC controls. That irks me.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Inb4 dumbed down for conso-

Game developers have long been dumbing down their games to accomodate the console gamers, leaving PC gamers with poor secondary-priority ports, if anything at all.

Nevermind.

I would comment, but I'm a dumb console peasant who's too thick to even comprehend the complex nuances of PC gaming.

 

[Funkysandwich]

At least Skyrim looks great on the PC. I've seen it on the xbox and the gap is quite jarring. The only way we are going to get proper PC games is if we get a new console generation soon, so that developers can take advantage of Direct X11 and new game systems in general.

And even then PC's will be a generation ahead two years after the new consoles come out.

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

Ok first on Skyrim, I'm a console gamer and I hate the UI/Menu system there, though Oblivions was much better, just needed a quick scroll function for consoles. Anyway as to your complaint, I am of the belief that all games should offer people the opportunity to pick their own control scheme. I can't be hard to offer that feature. In the end though I prefer to have a 360 controller in my hand for a long session than a keyboard and mouse, so I don't mind things being optimised for a controller.

 

[Joccaren]

I would comment, but I'm a dumb console peasant who's too thick to even comprehend the complex nuances of PC gaming.

That is about the only dumb thing you said. Simply because your point may be opposed by others is not reason not to post it.
It is, however, true that PC games have been increasingly 'dumbed down' for consoles due to the fact that the same game has to be released on both platforms, and for it to have the same features and not annoy console gamers because they can't afford a '$2000 gaming rig' (Complete and utter bullshit that whole argument), things will get cut from PC versions, and often the port will be a quick done job that has a lot of console-centric stuff still in it.

An example of a good port: Batman Arkham City. It took extra time to come out, which was annoying, but it was worth the wait for them to port it properly. Rather than just rebind keys, slap on AA and say go, the port was done properly. The controls worked the way PC controls should, the graphics were more than just AA added in, and the game supported many features of modern PCs that many games forget: 64 bit operating systems, DirectX 10 (sadly not 11, but oh well), PhysX and multi-core CPUs.

An example of a bad port: Skyrim. Yes, the graphics difference is large between the PC and the console, but honestly Skyrim's graphics aren't that stellar. The scale of them is. The textures are rather horrid, and some things I have to wonder why they bothered with them (Default reflection resolutions for armour. I bet you didn't even know armour reflects the nearby terrain and such, especially ebony. Why? Terribly low res maps). I will give points for high AA, AF and FXAA settings, as well as a great deal of customisation over the graphics on the whole. When combined with the largeness of Skyrim so that you are rarely focusing on a single texture, it doesn't make Skyrim look bad, and puts it ahead of many other games in terms of Aesthetic. However, that is where my positive stuff for the port ends.
2 Main Complaints:
-Interface and controls. For one, the interface is stupid and useless. It tells me very little about the item, has a tiny bar to the side for my items list, starts that list with half of it off the screen, and the top value in the middle of the screen, and spends 80% of the screen with some stupid picture of the object. Controls, especially in these menus, are clunky. Many menus do not respond well to mouse clicking, and sometimes will respond to mouse clicking but not the E button. moving the mouse up and down to scroll, using A and D to scroll, or using the mouse's scrollwheel to scroll all randomly decide not to work sometimes, often when you want to use that feature. When crafting or smithing or anything, you are stuck to one item at a time. This may be fine for consoles where you can spam one button and get through it, but on the PC you have to co-ordinate mouse position, and spamming 2 buttons in a rhythm you can't muck up to be able to do so, and sometimes the game will just throw a fit and refuse to let you even do that. You are limited to 8 hotkeys, not utilizing the potential 22 or so that are normally used (Both numbers discluding Alt-clicking as that swaps which hand you equip hotkeyed item to). Navigating the Perks screen is also sometimes just a nightmare in waiting.
-Limited PC options. A recent patch added 4Gb back to Skyrim. It had previously been LIMITED to 2Gb of use. That is stupid and pathetic when modern gaming computers often have a minimum of 4Gb, and anywhere up to 8Gb will be commonly found, with some reaching up to 16Gb for excessive overabuse of RAM. Dual core stability is also being added in a later patch (or maybe it was included with that one, I don't recall). Not only does Skyrim not exactly support some not-so-advanced PC hardware, but it also LIMITS what PC players can do.

Another example is Mass Effect 2, binding almost every function to the same one key, whilst also neglecting to include a journal and codex key. Stuff like this is what annoys us PC gamers, sacrifices being made to our games to accommodate console's inferior capabilities.


I do realise that each has its own place, and that consoles are where the money is right now, but that doesn't do a lot to help us PC gamers.

Ball's in your court now, and I would like you to respond with your views. However much people may disagree with you, and however much some people will simply bash consoles and their users saying they have no place in gaming, if there is something that you have to say, say it. There will always be reasonable users out there who will appreciate your opinion, whilst they whole 'But I'm a console gamer and therefore don't matter' statements put you on the same level as the people who say consoles don't matter.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

And recently I saw it in Skyrim. You remember Oblivion , and the lovely colored and easy to navigate menus. Well , then you can join me in my mourning because there's a radial menu here too.

Oblivion's menus were designed for the 360. Hence the huge text.