I’m looking forward to using emulators to force older games into something like modern dual analog. Megaman Legends works pretty okay like that so far. Armored Core works pretty amazingly for it as well.
I need to try it with Fur Fighters, which I always felt had a lot of potential as a platforming third person shooter. But it only has one built in dual analog control scheme that works backwards - right stick is movement, and left stick is aiming. Now I can switch it!
Yup, one of my first experiences with this was during a splitscreen multiplayer match of TimeSplitters 2 with a friend who was already clearly well-practiced and highly competitive. Sink or swim they say.
I wonder if that was actually just an attempt to sell more copies by describing the clearly better control scheme as scary as a challenge to anyone who thought it sounded ok. Like I don’t think it took me long to understand that the Halo control scheme was a game changer compared to the ones that preceded it (other than mouse and keyboard).
Developers themselves were often in the dark as to what the best control schemes were back then. For example, the default controls in Quake games were not originally wasd plus mouse, that innovation actually came from prominent Quake players which eventually became implemented as default in games after.
People mock the N64 controller, but it was designed to allow developers three different configurations to design their game around and let them decide what was best. It’s really not a bad shape overall.
It shows how smart nintendo’s designers were in that era. They knew the transition to 3D would be paradigm shift. The future of games was unpredictable, so they made flexible controller that would suit many possibilities.
They figured out that analog sticks would be important for 3D games from day 1. Unlike sony, nintendo’s foresight meant they didn’t have to hastily retrofit their controllers partway through the console’s life.
A few years back I was at a bar and they had golden eye on an N 64. Man the controls were hot garbage.
But because there wasn’t anything better to compare it to, it didn’t feel that bad.
Metroid Prime transcended its crappy controls. Like one of the worst control schemes but still one of my all time favorites.
As someone who didn’t have dualshock controllers back when I had the PS1, FPS games always felt awful. Most of the games had like L2/R2 for aiming up/down and L1/R1 for strafing, pretty sure Quake 2 was like that. I recall Medal of Honor had you hold R2 to fine aim with the d-pad
That first Medal of Honor game felt so epic though. The music, the ambiance. I’m playing the damn History Channel over here!
Ape Escape was peak dual stick gameplay.
Left stick to move. Right stick for gadgets.
My best friend still uses “Legacy” (goldeneye) controls and gets mad when games don’t have that option. He has even emailed developers about it. Half of them have no idea what he is talking about because they are not old enough to remember the before time.
We roast him for his special controls but he is better than all of us so I guess, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Did you know that GoldenEye actually has dualstick controls, you just had to use two controllers
That’s horrifying. Someone needs to tell the McElroy brothers. I bet they would have fun with that.
I remember Goldeneye but I played it on GameCube so have no idea how more traditional controllers handled input.
N64 only has 1 joystick so games had to work around that. The joystick makes you walk forward/backwards and look left/right. There are also the C buttons that act as a D-pad for your right hand. Up/down is look and left/right is strafe. There were considered advanced movements that the majority of casual players could ignore.
Goldeneye Rogue Agent is a very different game to 1997’s Goldeneye, tho.
Thats because he discovered the secret that we all eventually discover when playing with dual sticks:
You don’t actually aim with the right stick, you aim by strafing.
Think about it, when you’ve lined up the perfect shot in the distance but the enemy keeps moving, do you readjust your aim? Or do you duck walk in a little circle whilst prone until the crosshair lines up
No. I plug in my mouse
It’s hard to use a mouse while seated in the couch
Youtube thumbnail: Bearded guy pointing backwards at a mouse, title: “The one hack gamers don’t wan’t you to know!”
I grew up on n64 and I don’t recall having any issue with jumping to dual joy sticks. Like it was so natural… I probably had a week of adjustment that I just don’t remember.
nahh i remember the struggle going from armored core with the shoulder buttons to the 2nd joystick. it was real, and the struggle wasn’t all the players. the devs really didn’t seem to get it.
nothing to do with the n64 other than i was there in the trenches with ya
For me, the cherry on top of this little piece of embarrassing history is something that only a handful of people remember: The PS1 had an official mouse controller, and this was one of the few games that supported it.
I bought the mouse when it came out, and I got a copy of this game about 10 years ago, and I’ve gotta say it works very well. It was also how I played the single-player campaign of Quake 2 back in the day.
The super Nintendo had a mouse controller. You could use it to swat fly’s in Mario Paint https://youtu.be/L9oJRsw_Abs
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I bet you give em rim jobs too, you tail-lifter.
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Over time I completely lost the ability to play a shooter with the controller. I just can’t hit anything after close to a decade of playing with just mouse and keyboard. 15 years ago it was the other way round for me.
I do like the motion controls a lot of early PS5 games had. It’s a shame that devs seem to have forgotten how to implement it in just a few short years. For God of War Ragnarok and Days Gone it was a game changer. It just gives you that last few inches of accuracy that the stick doesn’t have.
Yeah. I spent an ungodly amount of time on halo 3 and ODST on the 360 back in the day. Then I eventually got a PC and in just a couple years trying to play a shooter with a controller gave the game feel equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
I played the original HALO when it came out and did awfully at it.
I recently bought the PC Master Chief collection and was surprised it was so easy since I’d had so much trouble with the original.
Then I realized the difference was controller vs. m+k. Controllers are good for some styles of games, but IMHO, shooters ain’t one of them.
I’ve never been able to aim and shoot (and hit anything) with a controller, glad to see I’m not the only one.
Controllers are best for platformers imo. I actually hook up a controller to my PC for most platform games.
My best experience with a shooter was Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii. Joystick to run / strafe and motion controls to aim, freeing up your right thumb and fingers for buttons.
I hate having to switch between aiming with my right thumb and pressing buttons with my right thumb. Like in Metroid Prime Remastered on Switch. Grr.
try the claw grip
nostalgic Monster Hunter on PSP noises
A lot of games now still have motion control aiming, you just tilt the controller. Sometimes it’s off by default though. I typically use the stick for big movements and tilt aiming for zeroing in.
Back paddles like the steamdeck or steam controller has are a godsend for any game where you have to run, jump, and shoot at the same time. Or any other combination of actions. I don’t think I could go back to not having access to those. I don’t remap them for every game but the times I have its made those games so much better.
I remember hating Metroid Prime’s controller scheme on the Gamecube. The controls felt so stiff. But I was so in love with the universe and gameplay that I just accepted it, kind of like every Rockstar game.
Now I wish I played it on the Wii.
First game I ever played that had that had an arena where you’re running around fighting enemies and the emcee bad guy was like the dude from The Running Man, and he would yell “TOTAL CARNAGE! IIIIIIIII LOVE IT!!!” damn what was that game called? SMASH TV!
“Good luck! You’ll need it!”
I’d buy that for a dollar!
For along time I preferred the Goldeneye control scheme and I learned it so well that I still revert back sometimes (left stick to forward/back and rotate and right stick [c buttons] to pitch snd strafe). Most games don’t offer this at all anymore, but it was seriously good for peeking around corners. Modern left-strafe/right-look inverts it.
I still need flightstick pitch for looking (inverted-Y camera)
I too only play with inverted viewing. My friends hate it lol
Inverted Y works for me in first-person games because I equate the tilt of the stick to tilting my head. If I want to look up, I have to lean my head back.
In 3rd-person platformers, it’s because I’m imagining moving the camera. It’s also why I have to invert the x-axis on third-person platformers.
3rd-person shooters I just treat as an fps because that’s how my brain works.
Yes, the y-axis must be inverted. Otherwise I spend the whole game staring at my feet or the sky.
Oddly, growing up my younger brother was the opposite. It was annoying to take turns playing games with him, because we have to adjust the settings between handoffs.
I’ve been trying to play it on switch and it’s basically impossible with 2 sticks. Also it’s really jarring after a few hundred hours in breath of the wild.
Gaming literacy is a real thing. Most people who didn’t grow up with 3D games don’t intuitively understand it. I’ve seen many boomers either stare at their feet or the ceiling & they have no clue how to solve their situation because they are disoriented. Same with young kids learning.
I’ve seen this happen with 20 and 30 year olds.
Its an entire learned skill that a large segment of the population never learned.
… unfortunately, much like reading and writing, these days.
But yeah, the idea that… you can move your position in 3d, with wasd or a dpad or a stick… and also orient your view angle with a mouse or stick … at the same time?
This is utterly baffling and disorienting to a lot of people who’ve never played a first person perspective game before.
Its … part of why AAA games are more often than not third person, in the last decade.
Its easier to pickup for a noobie, because you have a constant point of reference, you can always see the avatar of the player, camera movements are less sensitive and less drastic because you have a wider FOV.
But… people live their whole lives in first person view?
I’ve seen many boomers either stare at their feet or the ceiling & they have no clue how to solve their situation because they are disoriented. Same with young kids learning.
Any last words, Jim?
* turns around *
Huh?
I’ve always wondered what’s specifically going on their minds when that happens. I remember getting into shooters and pretty much immediately understanding the two separate axes in Duke Nukem 3D at like age 7-8 (yeah I played violent games when I was young my parents only restricted movies). Maybe that’s why? My brain was just better able to learn at that age? Or is it that I am autistic? Is neurology a factor?
EDIT: Just realized, even younger, I played and beat Star Fox SNES, which only had 1 axis, where aiming and moving were bound together. Maybe it was the baby step of playing a simpler 3D shooter game.
You can try emulating how they feel by finding a game that lets you bind side to side movement on the mouse, and rotation to A and D. Some old shooters were set up that way I think.
My dad always played Doom and Heretic by MOVING with the mouse and aiming with the arrows on the keyboard. It was so weird watching him play. And despite him playing Wolfenstein and Doom and Heretic and Rise of the Triad, he quit once we got Quake. I still played Quake using nothing but the keyboard, like I did the other games mentioned. I didn’t start using the modern wasd and mouse setup until Tribes 2, since it was fairly close to the defaults (IIRC, it used asdf instead of wasd but I rebound them so it was more like the arrow keys; just one set of keys to the right of wasd. I used R to go forward).
Yeah, it’s just wild to me, that we went full-force ahead with the whole 3D thing, when you lock out so many potential players with it.
With 2D games, you can chuck someone a controller and even if they’re just haphazardly pressing buttons, they can still participate in the game. With 3D, no chance.And even those who do have practice still struggle with it. Think of a difficult 3D game and I bet it’s a valid joke that the true end boss is the camera.
It’s even a thing in our generation - my now ex was pretty stumped playing skyrim. 2d games were no issue.
