As a lifelong fan of PC games and a strong believer in the absolute superiority of the mouse+keyboard method of controlling in FPS games I am noticing, and becoming frustrated by what seems to be a growing habit of game producers of not bothering to adjust their game for the PC environment.
The biggest thing they ‘forget’ to adjust is the mechanism for converting physical input into virtual aim movement. On a ‘correct’ PC game mouse movement corresponds precisely with virtual reticle movement, but on a game where they’ve failed to adjust this for PC, a small mouse movement produces NO movement on the screen, a medium mouse movement produces some movement, and a larger mouse movement produces a stupidly fast movement on the screen.
I hope this doesn’t become more common in time, but I fear it will.
I had to get used to this in Dead Space, and now Dead Rising 2.
Another laziness that both those games suffered - limited or ZERO control-remapping ability. Dead Space 2 I couldn’t map the direction keys to… directions. In Dead Rising 2 you have to edit a text file and go back into the game. If you’ve got it wrong by just one key or letter, you have to exit the entire stupid game. Make the change. go back into the game (through various load screens and unskippable logo sequences)
On a seperate note, and I’m not sure if I can directly blame the console/PC move for this one - Kane and Lynch 2 is completely unplayable as a PC game. If the on-screen action gets moderately ‘busy’ the control lag becomes HORRIBLE.
If it were possible to get my money back on a Steam game, that game would have been ‘sent back’ the same day I got it. What a piece of sh*t.
ETA: Before anyone says “You need to turn mouse acceleration off in windows”, please credit me with some intelligence before you put those words on the screen.
Neither of those games are FPSs and both were designed to be played with a controller. I’m sorry you got the shitty end of the development stick, but as someone who “believes in the absolute superiority of the mouse+keyboard method” you have to realize that some games aren’t designed that way.
Ok then FPS and TPS. Whether you’re inside or outside the person you are controlling is beside the point. The point being the horribly erratic way the mouse movement transalted to on-screen movement.
Don’t give me the “games weren’t designed that way”. What it really is is “The developers were too lazy to alter this for PC”.
And why should I fork out for a controller? Why should I limit myself to using something inferior to the mouse and keyboard for moving around and aiming?
What about getting a mouse with an adjustable DPI?
Don’t have any experience with those two games in question, but I agree with the lazy porting. Worst offender? Prince of Persia, which didn’t even bother to change the button prompts for the quick time events away from the Xbox 360 color scheme.
You want the cold, hard answer? Because you’re not ENTITLED to your superior control method.
The long answer is that, for whatever reason, the developers don’t think you’re worth the trouble. Either you’ll buy the game anyway, in which case, why should they bother, or you won’t, but your market is apparently a small enough part of their business plan that they don’t care. Laziness doesn’t enter into it. They made a decision not to spend time on the PC version.
Do bad ports (Porting from where to where is irrelevant. A badly done port sucks, regardless if it’s Arcade to Console, Console to PC, Console to Console, or whatever.) suck? Yes. Are you entitled to good ports? No. Complaining about a bad PC port is possibly even more excessively self righteous than complaining that a game didn’t come to your platform of choice at all.
I do have a mouse with an adjustable DPI. That would adjust the DPI uniformly. But the point I am trying to make is the movement translation isn’t uniform at all. If you had it set on a high DPI then the too fast bit would be even too faster. If you had it set on a lower DPI then the too fast would be more bearable, but the non-movement of the onscreen character when the mouse is moved slowly would become worse. In other words a no-win situation.
With Dead Space I had to just accept the fact that I can’t aim at the monsters with the accuracy usually afforded by using a mouse, so my shooting of them was somewhat haphazard and ammunition-wasteful.
Dead Rising 2 is much less of a problem. But DR2 has the lack of key-remapping.
Complaining about being sold a flawed game is self righteous???
And whether it’s laziness, or policy, the fact remains it’s something that pisses me off and that I’m entitled to complain about. It’s like I’m being discriminated against for owning a PC.
All I am doing is wishing they’d stop this policy, and hoping it doesn’t become more of a problem in future. I hate being forced to adapt to corporate policy.
OK I thought you were suggesting that an adjustable DPI eliminates the problem. It doesn’t but I appreciate the advice that it should help the situation. It does help.
Seriously, how are you supposed to know which games are like this before buying them? It’s not like there’s a bullet point on the back of the box that says “WE DIDN’T BOTHER TUNING THIS GAME FOR THE PC SO DON’T BUY IT IF THAT BOTHERS YOU.”
I don’t really recall having problems with mouse movement in Dead Space or Kane & Lynch 2 Maybe that mouse movement felt a bit “floaty” in the main menu of Dead Space, but the mouse movement in-game was like any other FPS/TPS.
I do… wait for it… have a controller. Better luck next time though!
But it doesn’t have red/green/blue/yellow buttons like the Xbox, so flashing nothing but a colored button icon during a quick time event does nothing for me, and I can’t see that that is the result of anything other than laziness. What’s so hard about changing that to “Press Jump” or “Press Attack?”
It occurs to me after the fact that it might seem like I’m suggesting that the game producers should be ‘taking advantage’ of the ‘superiority’ of the mouse.
I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m suggesting that the control method suits a thumb-stick controller. It is probably perfect for that. But for a mouse, which is fundementally different it is simply the wrong mechanism. For a mouse you need to take away any ‘accelerartion’ of movement that may suit a thumb-pad, and make it a direct correlation between movement on screen and movement of the mouse.
I’m not sure if you can appreciate how frustrating it can be at first - you see a monster who is near your reticle - you move your mouse, your reticle stays where it is. So you move your mouse a bit faster - your reticle JUMPS PAST the monster. THAT is ANNOYING. THAT is a flaw in the PC version of the game.
Designed to be played on a controller when using a console. The point of a port is to port the game to a different system with different control mechanism. If you leave in the bits of the game designed for console-play then you haven’t ported it properly.
ETA: I also have a controller. I prefer not to use it since I know the mouse and keyboard are better for aiming and shooting games. I don’t want to deliberately disadvantage myself in games like COD.
kane and Lynch is ok for the mouse acceleration problem It’s problem is when the screen is busy - a movement of the mouse has a delay. Maybe they’ve fixed it since I played it last. I’ll try it again tonight.
I do play it. But are its problems the fault of the port? If the game is flawed isn’t it flawed on PC and Console?
One thing I will say is that porting it to the PC would have allowed them to intrudice dedicated servers, but they didn’t. That hasn’t been a huge problem for me.
Well, I gave up playing MW2 a while back, so I’m going off memory here:
What I feel is a direct result of the game being designed for consoles
1)Peer to peer servers. Awful.
2)Cheaters running rampant
3)Bad map design that encourages campers and lone-wolves.
4)9v9. Really? Why is it that as technology improves, max players supported goes down?
5)MMS was designed by sadists.
6)No console.
7)Ping bars? Are numbers too tough these days?
8)Host advantage. Ever try to play competitively vs someone who has 0 ping while you’ve got 60ms?
What wasn’t a result of console design
1)Balance was awful. Akimbo 1887s? How did that get through their testers?
2)Respawning system was wonky as hell. Nothing like headshotting someone from across the map and then having them backstab you a few moments later.
While you’re right that there are some inherent problems with the game on consoles, I still think it’s fair to say most of its problems are due to it being a piece of shit port designed to milk the established fps community to the max.
Did it never occur to you that EVERY game isn’t supposed to be designed with the exact same controller input? Perhaps these games would be TOO EASY if the keyboard + mouse control scheme were made too deft and accurate relative to the controller. Games designed for console and controller were tested and conceived with those limitations in mind. By porting the game to the PC they are providing a fundamentally ill fit experience and they must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of different format. Perhaps leaving the control input untuned was a conscious choice intended to make the game play consistent and still challenging.
I really don’t have a horse in this race, but man the OPs rant is one of the whinier and more annoying I’ve heard on the Dope in a while.
Maybe that mouse movement felt a bit “floaty” in the main menu of Dead Space, but the mouse movement in-game was like any other FPS/TPS.