Ever hear the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt”? Of course you have (it’s a common idiom). If by some chance that today is your first day on the planet, I would first like to congratulate you on figuring out how to use the internet at such a young age. Secondly, that phrase basically means that the more accustomed you are to something, the more likely you are to hate it.
While creativity should be used to innovate in almost every aspect of gaming, there is one thing that developers should leave alone: my controller. Leave. My. Controller. Alone.
I know this doesn’t apply to PC people. I’m not talking to you, you elitist jerks with your 15-button mouse and 24-button game pad. You are obviously freakishly evolved to the point where you’ve grown extra digits and appendages to use all those button at once. Us primitive console folk are stuck with the limited number of buttons on the game pad. Because of this, developers have to get creative to fit all of their awesomeness onto a limited mechanism. The problem arises when one developer decides to say “F*** it” and go against the grain.
Now, I’m going to ignore anything before this generation because, frankly, I could be here all night talking about controls. Let’s just jump right into the first major release competition on the 360. In September of 2007, the gaming masses were graced with Halo 3. Funny I should mention this game first, as Bungie didn’t change the controls much from the previous game, but for the point of this article, Halo is my bad example. Cue a few months later when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released. This shall be my good example. Both games were fast-paced, twitchy shooters that paved the way for the years to come.
Fast forward to the present for a bit. Which control setup is the most iconic in shooters today? Unless you have played nothing BUT Halo for the past five years, you’ll notice that the CoD setup has been adopted for pretty much every game that provides you a gun. The main “hold to zoom” feature was so successful that series which never even thought of using the feature, like Killzone, had to patch it in, lest it get left behind because players didn’t want to relearn how to use a shooter.
This mass adaptation has served almost everyone equally well. It’s easy to hop between games that offer similar control setups. It’s even crucial for games that have been put aside for weeks. How many times have you picked up a game that you haven’t played for months, and immediately put it down again because you didn’t want to relearn the controls? That problem hardly happens when game controls are built off of one another. There’s a reason why Halo players tend to stick only to Halo. Their setup, especially the people who like to use the bumper jumpers, has never been globally applied to other popular shooters. That’s why I don’t go back to Halo. It’s not that I don’t like the game. I just can’t play the game effectively anymore. The controls are too foreign. As long as shooters continue to adopt Call of Duty controls, I shall continue to enjoy those games.
Familiarity breeds contempt? Not here.
Tags: Call of Duty (Series), controllers, Halo 3, Modern Warfare
23 Posts in Total
I know what you’re saying. Whenever I go back to Halo after playing pretty much any new FPS on the market, the first thing I do is pull the left trigger to aim and end up throwing a grenade or meleeing (see, I can’t remember what the L Trigger does on my setup and I played it last month.) Like you said, though, that doesn’t make it a bad game at all. The control scheme works for what the game is, but I’d probably go crazy trying to play Reach and MW3 at the same time.
At the beginning of the article, I thought this was going to be about the controller themselves in the next generation. I really, really hope Microsoft doesn’t deviate too far from the 360 controller.
I gotta say I don’t agree. I totally see your point, but it seems like an argument against hardware innovation. I’m very accustomed to the layout of an 360 or PS3 controller, too, but can’t discount the fact that they aren’t the most innovative or immersive ways to control games.
Sticking with a standard controller model, my middle, ring and pinky fingers are rendered completely useless. I know some people use a “claw” hold to pull the front trigger buttons with their index fingers and the back trigger with their middle fingers, but that doesn’t feel like what the controller was designed for. In essence, 3/5 of my digits are not used, when I need to go to quick menus or use button combinations to activate abilities in games that could be mapped to them.
I know opinions on motion controllers are mixed, but I think with the right amount of ingenuity there can be an optimal balance struck when using an advanced controller in tandem with limited motion control. I think controllers can continue to get more complex, but I’m not sure publishers are willing to take the risk of making their games more complicated in lockstep.
To your point about not wanting to relearn controls for a game you haven’t played in a while, I haven’t finished Arkham City yet, but I played though about 75% of it. I hadn’t played in about a month, and when I pick it up to play a little the other day I realized I had forgotten how to do stuff. That’s not really the games fault, but it did decide to make me put the game back down after a short play session.
Just add a push to talk button and I’ll be happy!
I usually don’t have that much trouble adapting to new controls. When I switch from playing Halo mostly to Call of Duty or any other shooter, I sometimes mix up controls. The only control I ever mix up is sprinting for some reason.
I bought Modern Warfare 3 in November and bought Battlefield 3 in January, and I realized that Halo is my favorite game to play online.
Halo’s got fun game modes that Battlefield lacks and has vehicles and fun gameplay that Modern Warfare lacks (MW3 is too repetitive and too predictable and grindy).
Can’t wait to see all the new maps, Halo always has great looking and diverse environments.
Controls are an afterthought, I downloaded darkness 2 demo last week and within minutes controls were secondhand. This topic doesn’t deserve an article, just a thought in your head or maybe a twitter post. Please spend a minimum of an hour coming up with editorials, they’ll be more interesting.
I know ever so much what you mean about code switching between Halo and COD. I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to sprint, forgotten how to melee (it’s gotten me killed so many times when sneaking up on a camper) and throw a grenade when trying to pull up iron sights/scope. I think the problem lies not on resting on their accomplishments and not innovating, but the fact is that how much different can they make a controller. We can’t grow extra fingers (unless DARPA is holding way back on us) or get an extra limb. What else could they do it? If you add buttons the controller has to grow (and many complain the xbox controller is too big already), we’ve already two triggers and two thumbsticks. The only thing they could do is go with a keyboard and mouse set-up, and I’m not going to lie, I don’t miss that as much. Hell, whenever I dial up steam and play a game on there (excluding an RTS), I plug in my wired 360 controller because I like how streamlined everything is.
Hate to say it, but it’s the same way in PC-land. Pretty much every game has the same basic layout at start, and it’s VERY GOOD. If someone goes nuts with an 8 button mouse, well, they can set it up for it, but it’s hardly the standard. (In fact, I finally found my first game I could see a use for more then 2 buttons and a wheel this week… and even then it would be nice, but far from needed.)
However, I do have to make one suggestion for controllers… not a new choice of what buttons do, but a new addition. The potential the Vita may show for a touchpad on the back should not be ignored.