BrotherRool said:
I did see (on consoles): I was remembering back to the good FFVII'ish times where you're character walked unless you held a button to run =D Mad design
EDIT: I also think the sprint button works well as a tactical thing. If they're genuinely slowing players down for it, then naturally thats less cool
EDIT EDIT: Actually that raises a question, if consoles have been making successful console exclusive/dominant games since before Mario, how come stuff like lack of sensitivity of analogue sticks/poor memory is only being brought up now? Was there a divide between PC and console games which has closed and so the PC games are suffering by the union. I never really thought about it before. I guess that must be it, Infinity Engine RPGs and Thief were a world apart from the majority of playstation games and the JRPGs
Fair point on the Final Fantasy bit. Though, that was essentially an anomaly compared to the normal control mechanics of the day; where the norm was "always run" and extra buttons were used to slow down.
Unlike today, wherein the norm is to have the player character move
incredibly slow, and only allow quick movement with the press of a "sprint" button.
That's what I was getting at.
As for edit 1, many game designers are genuinely slowing down player characters. The reasons why will vary, but there's no denying that characters just simply move slower today, on average, than they did in the past.
Now for edit 2.
Poor memory and other system-spec-related issues have been a point of contention between console and PC gamers since there were PCs and consoles to argue over. I.E. essentially since gaming began.
These arguments have become far more prevalent now-a-days for two reasons:
1 - The gap between console tech advancement and PC tech advancement has widened significantly.
2 - Gaming; console or PC; has become far more "main-stream" today, meaning more people are playing. And, as we all know, people like to argue. Especially when it's over which "thing" is "better".
However, the control issues arose when consoles biggest advancement in control inputs was, in effect, joystick technology; only shrunken.
This was essentially the same tech PCs had had for years and years. Hell, even older consoles like the Atari had these kinds of inputs.
(sort of)
Add to that console developers attempting to recreate gaming experiences that relied very heavily on PC-centric control mechanisms
(first person shooters, for example), and the issues of analog-stick "lag" become more pronounced.
This is not to say, of course, that analog sticks "don't work" for first-person games. On the contrary, they work just fine. And, plenty of players prefer it to a mouse setup.
Still, it's hard to argue, objectively, that analog sticks aren't inherently worse than a mouse; in regards to speed, accuracy, and responsiveness.
[sub]Though, analog sticks are
significantly superior to most of todays motion controls.[/sub]
