Should I (a PC gamer) get a controller? And if so, which one?

The Game Room
1

I look to the experts for advice.

I’m a low-to-medium gamer; I tend to get really into a few games but am not very catholic in my tastes. My favorite genre is FPS / Action by far, though semi-hybrid FPS/RPGs STALKER and Fallout: New Vegas are also fantastic. For FPSes, there seems to be almost unanimous agreement that keyboard/mouse is the way to go, and I’m so comfortable with this combo I can’t imagine a gamepad would help.

But. Every now and then, there seems to be a FPS that is labeled a “bad port” and players seem to recommend a controller after all. And besides FPSes, I do enjoy racing games (Burnout:Paradise is an amazing time waster) and they aren’t nearly as easy to play with mouse/keyboard. And every now and then a platformer will catch my eye, and I suspect m/k isn’t optimal for them either.

Some games I’ve played, or tried to play, with little success on my setup:

Grand Theft Auto IV: I was dying to get into this game, because I loved GTA III and yes, I know it’s several years old but I’ve only recently upgraded my computer and have now been catching up on old games I couldn’t play before. Anyway, GTA4 seems basically unplayable with my keyboard/mouse combo, which disappoints the hell out of me because GTA III was a hoot and worked perfectly fine with M&K, as far as I can tell.

Arkham Asylum: This one I’m not sure about, whether it’s just my ineptitude at the game in general, or if it’s better on a gamepad. I played just the first ten minutes and felt as if all I could do was randomly mash the keys in order to kick or punch the baddies. There was no finesse, no real point to what I was doing. Just mash mash mash to bash bash bash the criminals, which usually worked but is just so unfulfilling. I don’t seem able to change the bindings on the game either. I know Batman:AA is lauded as one of the best games of whatever-year-it-came-out, and there’s obviously going to be more stuff to do than just pointless melee (maybe I’m too used to holding guns, that might be my problem), but … anyway, is this game better with a controller?

Psychonauts: Okay, this one is even older than the rest. But it’s gotten raves and I’ve always wanted to see what the big scoop is. I was able to play the first few levels, but controlling my character was so quirky I eventually lost interest, even though the writing was great and the world uniquely imaginative. Still, if I can’t get from point A to point B because my M/K don’t seem able to let me go where I want to, I can’t play it.

Anyway, all this said, with knowledge of the sorts of games I go for that might require a controller (racing, platform, perhaps some FPSes if they’re designed that way), is it worth it to grab one? And which one would you recommend?

If it makes a difference, my system runs on Win7 64, 8GB memory, a GT:460 NVIDIA card. (I doubt it does matter though, unless some controllers aren’t Win7 compatible.)

Help?

2

Yes, I would say you should get one for the platformers and action adventure style games. Obviously you’re not going to use it with (most) FPS and RTS or TBS games. No need to get anything fancy though. I have a couple old Saitek P990’s that come with programmable software, so you can bind buttons to keyboard presses and mouse clicks/movements, if your game doesn’t support controllers.

I use it quite a bit honestly and highly recommend it. You probably won’t find any P990’s anymore because they are so old, but anything like it would be great. And they are cheap too.

3

For racing games, nothing beats a wheel and pedals.

4

Xbox 360 controllers set up easily and are good controllers. Wired ones plug right in. For wireless controllers you’ll need one of these.. Most games will automatically configure the default xbox settings for that game, for others you’ll have to manually configure the controls, but it’s smooth and easy.

5

Yeah, an Xbox 360 controller is going to be your best bet. It works very well with Windows and most games that have both a console and PC version will incorporate it flawlessly on the PC version.

In Just Cause 2, for instance, contextual command instructions will swap seamlessly between keyboard and controller based on the last device the game received input from. I tend to use M&K when on foot in that game, then pick up the controller for more precise control when getting into a vehicle.

It’s also a very solid design ergonomically; just-for-PC controllers I’ve messed with recently have not been nearly as pleasant to use.

6

While this game is a better experience with a controller, I’ve also played it through with the m/k and it is perfectly playable. It sounds like you’re getting the concept wrong. For one thing, button mashing is the absolute worst way to go about combat in AA. You have to time your button clicks right and mix it up to keep your combo running and get maximum bang(or biff or pow) for your button press. Early or late button presses can interrupt your combo and make combat a lot more frustrating than it needs to be. I’d advise you try the combat tutorial again.

7

It seems like you’ve already pretty much answered your own first question - if you are playing games that would benefit from being played on a controller, then yes, you should get one. (And no, not all games that would benefit from being played on a controller are ‘bad ports’. Platform games are ASS on a keyboard, and the mouse is totally useless. In fact, most games that involve maneuvering an onscreen avatar with fixed movement limitations is going to work better on a controller. FPS games don’t work well here because they’re designed to let you turn as fast as you can spin the mouse.)

Throwing in another vote for the 360 controller as well. I got a wireless receiver and I use one of mine for the games that benefit from it. Works great.

8

Maybe, it depends on the game. More importantly, though, it depends on the player. I have yet to encounter a game that plays better on a gamepad (steering wheels and joysticks are a different story), even after trying some that several people have told me did. It is, however, ultimately subjective. I’d advise trying some out with friends of yours that have gamepads first, to see how you like it. You can generally find gamepads pretty cheap, if you know where to look, but still, better to try before you buy.

And as a note to anyone: I highly recommend XPadder, a program that lets you emulate mouse and keyboard functions on a joystick or gamepad- very useful in games that don’t support them.

9

Another vote for the 360 controller. I have an old Logitech dual-shock clone that worked for a while, but more and more I ran into compatibility problems. Some PC games assume you have a 360 controller, so they’ll give you on-screen prompts that refer to the 360 controller, and it’s a bit of a pain to remember which button corresponds to what. Other games simply don’t support any other sort of controller. So I bought a wired 360 controller, and I’m quite happy with it.

10

I found Assassin’s Creed unplayable with keyboard and mouse. With an XBox 360 controller, it turned into one of my favorite games - I put nearly 200 hours into AC2, for example.

The key is that some games are designed for that control scheme - AC, for example, has this head/feet, left hand/right hand control element that works really well with the buttons on a controller, but poorly on a keyboard. I just could not get the association straight in my head with a keyboard; with a controller, it was easy.

I recommend the wired controller - I got a wireless one, and it turned out to be kind of a pain in the ass to set up. Plus, swapping out batteries gets old.

11

Yup. I found the same to be true of Arkham Asylum & Arkham City. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the combat while playing on my keyboard+mouse, but once I started playing it on an xbox pad it all clicked neatly into place. Cue uninterrupted POW KRACK SNAP BIFF :slight_smile:

12

I’m on the side of hates-the-ergonomics of the Xbox 360 controller, but it’s really hard to argue with the compatibility. Pretty much anything recent that came out on consoles as well as the PC will have built in support that just works.

I also have a Logitech dual shock clone (Playstation controller, basically) that I much prefer when I can use it, but more and more I’m just using the 360 controller because there are no setup issues.

13

Just wanted to add that if you don’t like the X360 ergonomics, many 3rd party controllers will work just fine with the PC. My daughter has this one, and it works fine with both the Xbox and the PC. It is smaller than a normal controller.

14

I personally like the N64 controller’s ergonomics, but there’s the problem of only analog stick. So I usually say to go with the PlayStation clones.

15

If you don’t mind spending about 10 minutes setting a profile up for each game (or even less than that, since most games’ control scheme is quite similar) then you might want to look into Xpadder. It’s an app that maps keyboard inputs to your pad’s buttons, and it supports pretty much every last gamepad out there.

16

The razer Xbox 360 pads are also fully compatible with both PC and xbox 360, and they have a ton of features like programmable buttons, remap-able buttons, and better d-pads.

17

If you like the Dualshock 3, a PS3 controller can work with the PC with a program called MotionJoy. It even has a mode to make the computer think it’s an XBox 360 controller for the applications that really care. The application even comes with XPadder-like key mapping functionality.

18

Ooh thanks for all the help, folks. I might as well go for it, and it looks like the general consensus is for the 360. Now to decide, wireless or non. Probably might as well go with wireless, though if it’s going to cause stalling now and then (heaven knows my wireless keyboard sometimes flakes out on me) I might as well suffer the indiginty of a wire.

Quartz, I’d looove a steering wheel/pedal, but I almost fear that’s going too far down the road (pun not intended) of embracing my inner gaming geek for me. (Also they seem hella expensive.)

bldysabba, you’re probably right that I’m doing Arkham Asylum wrong. I don’t even know if I’m on the tutorial or not – I didn’t even see one specifically listed, and I’m usually all about tutorials. I’ll go back and give it another try.

Thanks again!

19

Well, I don’t think there was an explicit tutorial, the first few fights come with trainer wheels and directions. However, because they’re so easy it’s entirely possible to miss the importance of combos. Basically, as long as you can keep chaining your attacks together without missing one or getting hit, they remain powerful and allow you to do one hit take-downs as well. And it’s really easy to miss a hit. Pointing in the wrong direction while clicking the attack button or clicking the button too early was how my combos usually ended. That said, I loved the combat implementation in the game. Pulling off a long and varied combo to take down 20 goons is some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming, and I mostly played the game on m/k. If you’re getting the controller, my advice would be to play AA only after you’ve got it. Definitely a better experience.

20

I’ve never had the 360 wireless controller have any sort of stalling or jitter or radio interference of any kind. I’d have bought a wired controller though since it’s cheaper and you don’t need a receiver, except I already had wireless controllers from my xbox.