The controller discussion thread.

[Feba]

This is an thread about controllers. Not so much their use with FFXI, but just in general.

A controller is one of, if not the most important part of video gaming. It's how you interact, it's how you tell it what to do. A great controller can make a good game great (See Steel Batallion, Wii Sports); an awful controller can doom it.

Controllers are iconic-- If I start saying "NES, 2600, SNES, Genesis, N64, Dreamcast", one of the first thoughts in your mind is going to be about the controller. I have very vague memories of what a genesis looks like, but I know the controller well. If I had to sculpt a precise copy of an SNES, with all it's ridges and ports and such, I'd be clueless; but a game pad? That design is unforgettable.

So, back to being a discussion, a few starter questions. What is your favorite controller? This generation? What do you want to see more of? Less of? What's the freakiest controller you've seen?


Personally, my favorite controller (both this generation and in general) is the Wiimote. Having the two hands separated is genius-- it makes games so much more comfortable to play, not to mention the unexploited possibility of changing up part of the controller. Being able to flick a controller instead of having potentially annoying multiuse buttons or having too many buttons to deal with can be a great help-- and flicking a controller feels much more natural than pressing a button. It's greatest strength, though, is definitely the pointer function. This is just a giant improvement on shooters, and it's a sin that the Wii hasn't had a giant FPS hit yet. It also makes selecting items MUCH easier-- mostly this is only used on menus (*cough*except capcom. For as good as they are to the Wii, they need to make their goddamn menus pointer-capable), but it can also be used to select objects in a game world (Zack and Wiki would be my best example of this; it also applies somewhat to Trauma Center and Super Paper Mario)

It's biggest downfalls would definitely be the corded extensions-- I know Nyko has a wireless nunchuck, but it's not the same. Nintendo really needs to release a nunchuk that's nearly indistinguishable, except wireless. After that, the lack of a second joystick is sad. I'm not entirely sure I'd be willing to remove the dpad entirely, but a C-stick would fit so much better there, not to mention being easier to reach and use. That's another problem, buttons can occasionally be heard to reach (mainly the B button on wiimote-sideways games, and the 1/2 on Wiichuk games), although that's more a fault of game designers cramming in as many buttons as they can.

Honourable mentions go to the Dreamcast controller, for the VMU. Ever since I got my dreamcast, I've been hoping other consoles would move to implement similar systems. Use more than just the TV screen-- and give people a way to enjoy your game when they aren't at their console. The day when someone ships a controller that is also your memory card and a portable gaming console will be a very happy day for me. Nintendo and Sony have gotten close with the GBA (link cable) and PSP, but at their heart they are handheld systems, and not much good for playing console games, or at storing data and using it with someone else's console later. Also to the original "hueg Xbawks" controller, mainly because it had weight to it. When you held it, it was less like you were gingerly holding a little device that told things what to do, and more like you were holding on for dear life. I was very disappointed when MS pussied out of it and switched to those S-type things. I mean, they're not BAD, they're just nowhere near as good.

The biggest thing controllers need to lose, now that wireless is a standard and not a luxury, is all the extra buttons. If you can't make a controller work with 'only' a left trigger, a right trigger, four buttons, two joysticks, and a pause button, THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU. Pretty much every classic game before the mid 90s or so was able to deal with this, or less. The best games still manage to work great with few controls. All that extra baggage just makes games more intimidating, annoying, and hard to learn. Katamari, a game which is fairly deep for as simple as it is, uses two things for the control scheme. The joysticks. That's IT, your thumbs stay firmly on the joysticks. All the little tricks you can do are taught in a tutorial level that takes 2-5 minutes. Less can be far far more. Also, look at the DS-- it's quite probably the most flexible control system on the market, and many of it's games only require using a single method of interaction (poking the screen) which is much easier for most people to learn.

Another bit off this, although it's more of a pet peeve, I don't need three goddamn pause screens. I am not kidding; some games are getting that bad. First of all, there's the system screen, the "Go back to wii menu, mess with your controller, etc" stuff on the Wii that you get to with the Home button; I'm pretty sure the 360 and PS3 have this too. Secondly there's the menu we actually WANT to use. Thirdly there's a 'pause' screen, which does nothing but stop gameplay (and maybe provide some more options or such). The worst things is that games that are otherwise good are usually the worst offenders. I'm going to start off with the fact that all Wii games and probably PS3/360 have basically two pause screens, which is annoying; but not the fault of game developers and possibly the best system possible. But there are other games that do this, too. Shenmue on the DC, there was a "Menu" screen, which was basically an inventory with a few other options. There was also the 'pause' screen, which had 'HELP' information. There was also the notebook, which would be just fine in the inventory instead of getting it's own damn button and flashing light. Zelda TP (at least, for Wii) does this too, with it's item wheel. Okami, an options screen and the game's menu screen. RE4, kinda, in that there's a separate button to open up the inventory menu and the map menu, but you can navigate to each one from the other. The list goes on.

[Kailea]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

My favorite is the Super Nintendo Controller, and for looks the Japanese S-Famicom version, because its buttons are colored ^.^



Note: this is the European/Australasian version, but its pretty much the Japanese controller

[Lmnop]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

Favorite controller? It sounds fanboy-ish, but I really do enjoy the PS2 Dualshock design.
What would I like changed about it? You hit on it talking about the original Xbox controller... some more weight. But in the case of PS controllers, it's a bit of an ergonomic change.

The double shoulder buttons, while nice to have, are often hard for me to hold with all 4 fingers up there. I usually end up with my index fingers on the shoulder buttons with my middle fingers tucked under, supporting the shoulders. I actually think this is entirely in my brain and that I could function just fine with my middle fingers already on the L2/R2 buttons, but that's precisely the point. I shouldn't have to train myself to hold on like that and tell myself (it's all in your head). I always felt that if there was more weight in the grips of the controller. That space isn't really used for much... just a plastic handle. The biggest reason I like DualShock design more than the non-vibrating equivalents is actually the added weight. Not the vibration feature. However, even they do not have enough weight to satisfy mwuah.

So yah, basically I feel that if there was more weight in the grips at the far south end of the controller, it'd be much more conducive to keeping 4 fingers, instead of 2, up top.

---------------------------

As you can see by my dream changes, I have to respectfully disagree with you about buttons. Maybe I'm odd, but I like often like a complex game design. Not stupidly so. But enough to be interesting. The problem I always had with games that everyone considered "classics" was not enough features. Often times, there were games where on a 6-8 button controller, you were only ever using 2 of them. And worse! There were things that would have been a godsend to tie to those keys!

Your example of RE4's map button, for instance. I find that to be a good addition. You could call it superfluous but to me, it's better than the alternative: an empty button. If you've ever played the game Vagrant Story (original PS), it was plagued by menus with too many submenus. However, it had this neat little feature where holding down the L2 button would pause the game (very quickly and smoothly, I might add), darkening the screen while bringing up a little wireframe model of the PS controller and a button map. So with L2 held down, you press the corresponding button (L2 + Triangle, for instance, might take you to the magic menu). You didn't need to use this feature, but if you did, you found it better than looking through the menus and several times faster. Your speed improved even more as you learned to know what you were looking for -- Pressing L2 + Square simultaneously to jump straight to a menu that otherwise would've taken 4 steps to arrive at (with stupid menu animations artfully redrawing the menu every step of the way*).

*Asterisks are supposed to be at the end but this should be addressed here. This is actually one of my biggest problems in gaming. Having too many ways to pause doesn't bother me nearly as much as staying in menus far longer than you should be. For an example, I invite you to play Devil May Cry 3. Every page of every menu has so much flashing lights and effects that it takes over a minute just to go look up what items you have in your inventory. Menus must function as much as possible. And no matter how gloriously dazzling you make a video game menu, you're not trying to entice players to play your menu. You want them playing the game. To this end, I feel like all menus should be blazing fast, light overhead, probably card layout menus. But that's not about controllers.

Having probably not enough experience with the Wii, the experience I do have tells me it's a great design that falls short if you're not double-jointed. I absolutely hate the reach for... anything. I don't like that I have no idea what button 1 or button 2 means. And not like it matters - by the time my thumb works its way back down the controller to attempt to find a pause button, I'm toast.

But I really feel the biggest limitation I'm seeing with the Wii is still design limitations. I don't understand why people would make FPSs and make the look-access be based off of "box movement" or whatever they call it. The principle that if you want to look left, you move your crosshair to the left edge of the screen and "scroll" it. This is dumb when you have a D-pad and a control stick to work with, already. Control stick walk/strafe, D-pad look, wiimote IR aiming. Not only efficient use of a controller, but awesome for gameplay. Maybe designers found that when they tried this, they ran into my ergonomics issues? That it was too hard to navigate that D-pad while using the trigger underneath? I hope not.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's a single game out that works like that.

Also, I like the nunchuck being wired. Maybe because it wouldn't be a nunchuck if there wasn't some flaxen bit connecting the 2. Maybe because I know I'd lose track of which chuck goes with which wiimote.

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

the double shoulder buttons is one thing, it's not so much that you can't do it, so much as it just feels odd, especially for those of us that grew up with only having two triggers. If they have to have two shoulder buttons, it would be far better to have them on separate levels, so that your fingers are in a more natural position. also would make it easier to tell the difference and not accidentally hit the wrong one.

And I'm not decrying complex game design, I'm just saying that you shouldn't need an over the top complex controller to control your game; unless you're making something like Steel Batallion.

As to maps, I think we kinda agree there. Well, first of all, I'm not sure if you've ever actually played RE4, but you're hardly ever going to use the map screen (maybe two or three times if you buy the maps and you're a completionist). Secondly though, it would be much better to have the menu be quickier and easier to flip through (RE4's menu was fine if you were just managing your inventory, which is 99% of what you use it for, but the rest of it was kind of a pain) than waste a second button because you ADMIT you're slow.

that Vagrant Story system sounds rather nice. Which is another point, you can combine buttons to make gameplay systems which are both easier and more interesting. Smash Bros. would be another example of this; instead of having complex combo instructions or 40 buttons, your character's moves are mostly predictable. One button Jumps, another attacks, another uses special attacks, another uses shield.

As to the Wiimote, it's not that you have to be doublejointed so much as you have to move your hands out of the normal playing grip. For example, if I want to use the dpad (at least, anything other than the bottom or sides), I'm going to have to reach my thumb up and pull the rest of the controller back with the lower part of my hand to reach it comfortable. Most of the time I use 1/2, I just move my nunchuk hand over and hit it with one of them. That's another of the benefits of the Wiiremote, though, you can use your hands on the other part of teh controller, without moving them off the one they're on. This is useful when you need to button jam (digging in okami, some of RE4's QTEs), and works nicer than using your natural pose or moving your finger up and down like you would on a gamepad.

The whole issue with 1/2 is again on developers though-- those buttons are probably not meant to be used in gameplay unless the Wiimote is being held sideways (where they work just fine). You don't need to use all the buttons on the controller.

Also, what are you talking about with the FPS stuff? That you can't control looking left or right without moving the cursor around? I'd tend to agree, but the Dpad wouldn't be a huge improvement. I mean, C-sticks work, dpad camera control is absolute shit on any console; let alone with the aforementioned problems of the Wiichuck+dpad. I mean, there are points where you'd use a joystick + trigger buttons on an xbox (for example, throwing a grenade in Halo, or shooting on non default control configs) I have read a review of MOH2: Heroes 2 for Wii, that gave it's controls very high praise, and they use the scrolling system you speak of. They did mention that you'd need to fine tune the controls until you're used to it. But I think that's more a matter of you needing to get used to it, and it needing fine tuning, than it being bad by it's nature. I mean, heck, I once encountered an old FPS game where you could use the mouse to aim... up to a certain point. then it would get stuck, and you'd have to use KEYS to rotate. Which meant it was impossible to move on the fly easily, since you had to balance six movement keys (forward, backwards, strafe r/l, turn r/l); and it mentioned the controls being 'easy to get used to'. Games have come a long way.

And the bit about the wiring brings up another of my problems with the Wiimote-- it's way too focused on software. For example, if I want to turn off a remote but not the console, I have to use the home menu or pull the battery out. If I pick up a Wiimote and it happens to be set to p2, I have to go through a bunch of shit to get it back to P1 (because even on the Wii system, outside of games where I can be assed to look for the right controller, there are some things only P1 can do!)

It would be much better to have, say, the power button at the top ONLY control the wiimote. Leave the wii's power to the home button-- and have a "turn off console" option on the home menu (not sure if it already does or not)

Then for syncing, allow people to CHOOSE which controller they want to be. say, where we have the LCD lights now, put a slider under them. If there is a conflict, have an error message come up; to make sure that yours doesn't interfere with your neighbors, they could have an individual ID# (say, under the battery cover)
so that you can select which of the local "Player 2"s you want. Possibly even add in switches like garage door openers have.
______________________________
Oh, a controller concept design I meant to have in the OP, but forgot about.

Basically, gloves. They'd be so bad. You could have sensors (either pressure or twitch based) to tell when each finger was pressing a button, which would give you six buttons (three fringers on each hand; the pinky would be left out because it's too flimsy.) The movement of the thumbs would act as joysticks-- which could also provide a new dimension to gameplay, as a thumb can move in three dimensions, while a joystick only moves up/down and left/right, a thumb could also move in and out. With precision, not just an extra "L/R3" button.

It would be cool as hell, but pretty impractical for the cost. There's also the obvious extension of a gesture based control system.

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

To open your inventory, you can simply twist both sections of the controller like handles. Want to quickly take out your gun or put it away? Once it is equipped you simply have to flick your wrist to draw it. Do the opposite and it is quickly stowed away for later. Things like jumping can be done with a button press, but if you're in the right place you can simply launch Carnby up with some deft Wiimote flicks.

A quote from IGN's preview of Alone in the Dark. This is what I'm talking about -- a game doesn't have to have the motion controls "simulate" movement, they can just use flicks to make it much smoother.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

The biggest thing controllers need to lose, now that wireless is a standard and not a luxury, is all the extra buttons. If you can't make a controller work with 'only' a left trigger, a right trigger, four buttons, two joysticks, and a pause button, THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU. Pretty much every classic game before the mid 90s or so was able to deal with this, or less. The best games still manage to work great with few controls. All that extra baggage just makes games more intimidating, annoying, and hard to learn. Katamari, a game which is fairly deep for as simple as it is, uses two things for the control scheme. The joysticks. That's IT, your thumbs stay firmly on the joysticks. All the little tricks you can do are taught in a tutorial level that takes 2-5 minutes. Less can be far far more. Also, look at the DS-- it's quite probably the most flexible control system on the market, and many of it's games only require using a single method of interaction (poking the screen) which is much easier for most people to learn.

QFT.

My top three controllers, in chronological order, are the SNES controller, the N64 controller, and the Wii Remote.

[Lmnop]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

That Alone in the Dark bit sounds pretty awesome.

ok, let's see...

Coping with wireless: What you were saying about the wii sync up process sounds rather identical to my brother's qualms with the system (I have a [broken] PS3, he has a Wii that I'm oddly disinterested in playing). He has noted, playing on the PS3, how much better their system for notating controllers is. I pick up a controller -- any controller. I press the PS button, it powers on the console and denotes controller 1. From there, the next controller to press the PS button will take a new slot. moreover, the 4 little lights on the top tell you what player you are. It's still annoying that if you want to un-sync a controller, you have to hit the PS button (pausing the game) and choose to unsync. Moreover, you can't do this portion in the normal PS screen (all of the system stuff that can be handled w/out a disc in the drive) -- not that it matters. At this phase, you can easily just hand over the controller to whoever wants 1st. But anywho, the PS button not only has the unsync controller (which is effectively turning the controller "off"), but can choose to turn off system or quit game and return to PS System screen (<-- I think I remember that option. It's been 2 months since it's been able to even read PS3 games).

As you can see, the PS3 has its own problems far beyond controller. >.>

Useless bits: The worst offender is N64. It was a nifty, cool design. But it bothered the hell out of me to always feel like no matter how I hold the damn thing, I'm only using 66% of it.

Dual Analog designs of PS are also a bit guilty of this. As are the defacto Xbox schemes. The right stick is almost worthless if you want to use that same thumb for buttons. Most of the time, you can get around this with neat control schemes -- the original Red Faction had the "shape" buttons keyed to less important combat functions. square/circle were keyed to weapon swapping, triangle to reloading, and X functioned as a fine-aim mode. A pretty weak function but while it was held down, the user only needed one stick so the loss of the right stick was moot. For real gunfights, your right thumb is busy with aiming, and the fingers on the shoulder buttons are doing all the important things -- primary/secondary fire, jump/duck. This is a design that works well with the limitations of the controller design. I think God of War was the game where the right stick would make you tumble whatever direction it was pressed? That was also quite nice since you could quickly and easily fling your thumb from the "kill stuff" buttons to that. Another good display of buttonology.

But at the end of the day, I suppose the Wii scheme is doing better than its competitors, with every button and function reasonably accessible in almost any situation. So gogo Wii.

What tangents have I missed...?

About FPS, I just mean that I like the idea of starting to shoot at a guy who's say... in the middle of the screen. But then I'd start scrolling to the right to bring his buddy into focus but while I press the D-pad Right button, I move the 'mote back to the left to compensate and keep my crosshairs fixed on where Bad Guy A is about to pop out from cover. This is something that I think would work better if the D-pad were a bit further south on the controller and a little more round-y. Err, a bit more like a control stick. But that'd screw up with the "controller flip" maneuver, etc.

Anywho, you're the one with the Wii. I don't have a controller to look at for reference. And I haven't played extensively.

About Shoulders, I certainly agree about split level. I forgot to mention that's something else I've wanted to see PS do. Xbox360 controller sorta did this if I remember correctly... but I'm not sure I've ever even played an X360. I seem to recall there being something annoying about how they almost did what I wanted but still managed to screw it up. Yeah, looking at it on Google. Not what I had in mind. I would prefer the original Xbox controller -- with the deeply recessed shoulder buttons dedicated as "L2/R2" plus normal level buttons up where the XBox is strangely empty. Seriously looked like they intended to put buttons there.

Some more random While I liked the weight of Xbox, I did prefer the smaller controllers. And I've got pretty fat fingers. L3/R3 (and Xbox equivalents) are a decent idea that are incredibly weak in performance. Just thought I'd toss it out there. Crouch? Zoom? Nothx. I think I played another Xbox game where it zoomed, but only while you kept it held. Yeah, try aiming like that.

I did play RE4, but I get lost a lot. I probably used the map a decent amount. But I agree. As far as I can remember, all REs had horrendous change times to go from one section of menus to the next. Horrifying. Scarier than zombies, for sure.

the double shoulder buttons is one thing, it's not so much that you can't do it, so much as it just feels odd, especially for those of us that grew up with only having two triggers.

I grew up w/out any triggers. (No, i'm not that old. But we were Sega Genesis kids because it was the underdog system and we're cool and like underdogs, right??? ...And we didn't have the money to buy 2 systems.)

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

The PS3 controller sounds pretty much exactly like the Wii, except without syncing. Which can be important, if you have multiple consoles near each other (more common than you think, especially in tournaments)

The N64 I wouldn't call useless bits, it really wasn't such a bad offender given it's usage. It was a transitional controller-- I don't think Nintendo was entirely ready to invest in the joystick, but they didn't want it to pass them up either. Almost all N64 games only used the middle and right prongs, a few used the left and right prongs. I only recall hearing about one or two that used the left and middle or all three; but then that was a long time ago.

FPS, I think I kinda understand what you're saying. Still, the Wiimote is the closest thing to FPS perfection yet. Your concerns would be even more pronounced on other consoles or the PC, where you HAVE to turn to shoot at something, instead of being able to aim off to one side without turning

Shoulders, that reminds me, PS3, your L/R2 buttons, I hates them. I want to press buttons, not flick them. If I want to flick a button, I have plenty of techniques for doing that on my own.

L/R3, I'd much rather see implemented with, say, the joysticks themselves being able to be pushed, but not the 'ball' they rotate on (I know that's not exactly how they work, but it's hard to describe). Be it by making the sticks springs (think suspension springs) or by putting buttons on top (think the "LAUNCH" buttons on most flight joysticks, for missile launches and such)


Also, heh, my first memories of gaming were on a genesis. First console I owned for myself was an N64, though.

[Lmnop]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

Shoulders, that reminds me, PS3, your L/R2 buttons, I hates them. I want to press buttons, not flick them. If I want to flick a button, I have plenty of techniques for doing that on my own.

The way the L2/R2 buttons are on PS3, putting the controller down puts you in danger of accidentally pushing them. I skipped a bunch of CSs in Resistance: Fall of Man this way (and then realized I didn't care. Wasn't the thickest plot ever).

Hmm, in every one of these posts I've talked about FPSs. Oddly enough, FPS is probably the genre I play least (well ok, non-Starcraft RTS takes the cake, but FPS is second place).

About Wii, I love it and think you're right. it's the best FPS has ever been. It bothers me that it seems like this concept could still be twice as good, though. But I think we'll get there. Maybe not how I want to see it done... probably better. I don't have years of practice designing and thinking outside the box.

I regret talking so huge right off the bat. =( I feel like I scared away other posters.

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

No, that's ok, we don't need people in here going "XBOX BECAUSE ALL THE OTHER CONSOELS SUK LOL". Nor do I want people who just want to list one controller without explaining why they like it, and what could be improved about it, and what their problems are with others.

It's ok to have a thread for just the two of us!

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

Another question: How many controllers should a console be able to use? Obviously most have had at least two, and on the high end I've heard of multitaps allowing up to 16 players to play (sports games) on a single console.

This is even more interesting now that we're getting to the point where we don't even have controller ports, so the only real limiting factor in how many can be used is software.

Personally, I think games should be made to accept up to 8 players. At least 5 players, though, since it always seems like you have one more player than can play at once, and so you have to trade off, and that's annoying as hell.

[Lmnop]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

Ok so first off, I'd like to go back to your first post, le Feba.

You were mentioning games making use of the IR for menus. I really like this, but I'd like to see a bit more... duality. HINT: I miss the big red X to close out of my Firefox window half the time. I use the keyboard. While I say this, I'm becoming aware of just how many issues this may pose on a Wii. Where it's easy to accidentally move the wiimote and would cause the game to forfeit any button-press navigation in favor of movement. Would be odd. Well, simple solution. If the wiimote is pointed at the screen, it takes over. If focus is elsewhere (holding sideways, for instance), menu control is handled with D-pad. Would be nice to see some versatility in this.

Remember, my Wii experience is a bit limited. These are things I've noted in party games like Pickman or whatever it was called with all those rabbits, and WarioWare, a few other random games. They either don't use functions enough or they use 'em too much. One of my favorite things about FFXI is there's 4 ways to do anything.

Number of players is interesting, but this is something where you also have to consider the games played. Name one game where you'd actually want 16 players on the same TV screen, all doing their own thing. Just playing Super Monkey Ball, I always lose track of which monkey is mine in the little boxing punch-out arena thing with only 3 other players. Of course, FPS games would be horrendous. Split screen! 24-way!

However, 8 is rather reasonable. I wouldn't be opposed to having software ready to support upwards of 12, but I wouldn't want video game creators to feel compelled to work above anything over 4, really. Not w/out selecting some sort of LAN settings, anyway. At some point, you need the system to be able to process that many players doing simultaneous activity (not so far-fetched if you're looking at a Cell-beast as opposed to Wii technology) and likely the capacity to split screens intelligently (send 4 players to X TV, and 4 other players to Y TV).

Comfortable buttons: This gets a bolded heading because I can't believe we haven't discussed this. This is the biggest reason I'm a fan of PS controllers. I've never had buttons treat me so well as PS2 buttons. They have it right. I can button mash Tekken all day, 5 buttons/second. And not get blisters. Wow. No Nintendo controller has ever satisfied. And Sega controllers were all designed for amputation of digits, I'm certain.

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

Actually, lmnop, I'm pretty sure most Nintendo games do offer that. You can either navigate by pointing the Wiimote, or using the nunchuk, or combining both. I'm pretty sure even Wii Sports did that. And the problem you're talking about is present in joy sticks too, and easy solved by adding an "Are you SURE you want to quit?" box.

You're thinking of Raving Rabbids, btw. Pikmin is an entirely different game, on GameCube.

As for where you'd want 16 people; sports games. One player per character. And I'm not talking about splitscreen, that would be completely unplayable with more than 4 people. I'm talking about a single rendered environment, with many players running in it, again like in sports. The monkeyball thing is somewhat of a bad example, considering your character is constantly knocked around, and is hard to keep track of even in single player.

[Lmnop]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

Oh, is that Rayman? Bah, I'm terrible.

I recall always trying to navigate menus with buttons and not having success. Maybe I just don't remember them correctly, but i'm thinking on 2 separate occasions, I've played other Wiis and found myself trying to navigate via button press to no avail. Oh well.

So maybe I'm wrong or maybe I'm just an example of someone who wouldn't play such a game but... either your 12 players are packed into such a small area that you have the Monkeyball issue, or it's a large enough area that you'd have to be so far zoomed out that I wouldn't be able to tell what I'm doing -- nor would I have any hope of keeping up with the game.

Ok, I just thought of why I'm disqualified from this discussion. I can't even keep track of the other players in the SSB games (there's also the Monkeyball problem, but that's not what I'm talking about. Even training myself to keep focus on the correct character, I have no idea what the other 3 are doing because they're not right there). I'm pretty sure that this is simply an area of thought that should be discussed by people who are actually good at multiplayer, anarchistic games.

Then again... a game of Baseball is boring enough that I could play just fine. Yeah. Baseball is always boring.

[Feba]

Re: The controller discussion thread.

I might be slightly biased too. Bullet hell shooters aren't exactly a horrible way to get good at keeping track of plenty of individual objects. That might not be something other people would be good at. But it would still be nice to have the option.