I recently started playing Jak II again (emulated), for the nostalgia. It’s pretty much as great as I remember it but the inverted x-axis on the camera is making me go nuts
Surely you can flip it in the emulator’s settings, right?
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!”
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 grew up on D-pad and mouse so any of my controll skills fly out the window when given a c-stick.
Love gyro aim though lol. More akin to a mouse.
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’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.
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.
Quake on dreamcast, 1 analog stick. Very disorienting now
Quake 3 on the dreamcast with M&KB! Spent like 50 bucks to gain a edge! I was even online with it!
Unfortunately I’m trash and people are just really good at Quake.
Tank controls + horrible camera + terrible draw distance + massive polygons = the classics
I tried to replay PS1 Tomb Raider and nearly threw the controller away.
I don’t know how I did it as a kid.
I remember binding forward, backward, strafe left and strafe right to the C-buttons in Goldeneye, so I could free up the joystick for quicker aim and Odd Job hate. Everyone thought I was crazy. Who’s laughing now!
1.2 solitaire controls. The other fools using C to aim ate my dust.
I do that, but use the d-pad for the righty stick.
Remember in 1998 how I tried half life on PC using a mouse after ever using keyboard on Wolfenstein and Doom.
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 & having little clue how to solve their situation because they are disoriented. Same with young kids learning.
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?
It’s even a thing in our generation - my now ex was pretty stumped playing skyrim. 2d games were no issue.
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?
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).
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.
The transition period from the 90s to mid 2000s for control schemes was so fragmented. I remember a dozen games with wildly different control schemes. Wasn’t until the late 2000s when things started getting more standardized to what we know today.
Imagine if people kept having to port their games to Dreamcast with its single-stick controllers. We dodged a bullet when that console failed.
but we could be playing samba with maracas!
Mouse and Keyboard superiority!!!
Mouse and keyboard has never felt right for most games for me.
Seeing people play something like Assassin’s Creed on mouse and keyboard is just wild.
It’s better for FPS games and worse for action games.
Don’t forget about RTS, MMO and some CRPG.
And fighting games
I don’t know about that, I wouldn’t want to play a fighting game with standard keyboard. An ergonomic keyboard could work though. FIn any case from what I’ve seen those guys either play with a gamepad or an arcade stick.
I came up on pads for everything, and still do it for stuff like the Arkhams, Silksong, and various forms of platformer, but FPS? Once you’ve mouse aimed, the joypad just feels clunky.
A mouse? For shooters?!?
I definitely still played Quake with keyboard only and having it automatically look up or down on ramps.
I think during playing Jedi Knight I started using the mouse and having the revolutionary idea of using the numpad for movement and the surrounding keys for important Force powers. Because that was so much better than using the arrow keys.
No idea when I switched to WASD.
A lot of games have aim assist with controllers. I’m currently playing Read Dead Redemption 2 and when you aim with a controller, it auto locks to their body.
I noticed that with a bunch of games when I’m playing on the Steam Deck.
JK 2. Mouse wheel up and down for push and pull, click for choke. Others can be keys.
Next you’ll be telling me you missed tank controls in games. Why strafe when you can slowly rotate to turn?
Yep. Tomb Raider and Resident Evil are the only 3D games I like.
Ya. The controller people on their little boxes do not understand.
Like, I could plug a controller into my PC … but WHY?because i can lean back and put my legs up on my desk this way. using the mouse in this position is super awkward (keyboard cable would be long enough, but no surface for the mousepad is an issue). But i wouldn’t bother with a cable for plugging in the controller, 2.4GHz and Bluetooth are a thing nowadays.
One day when you’re an adult, you’ll look back at the childish patronising insults you threw at millions of women, men and children, none of whom you know or have any right to judge, in order to feel a sense of smug superiority for a few moments on the Internet.
If adulthood hasn’t happened yet, it’s not likely. I broke enough Atari controllers to have paid my dues. Fixed em with superglue and tape. But, you know. I was twelve. Then I got older and purchased big boy toys.
You ought to consider shorter sentences. And drop some of the formalisms. That works better for today’s audiences.
I’m gonna just ruin everyone’s day by sharing that I play racing simulators with a controller. On PC.
Im gonna add to the ruination by saying I play shooters on PC with a controller
Really? Like, I know its physically possible. Do you survive long?
Sure. Racing and flight simulators are a joke on those little boxes. Ya need a PC. Do you use extra monitors?
Hah, I play on a laptop with just its screen.
‘Gran Turismo’ is in fact quite good, and supports wheels. Their fantasy tracks are really nice, starting from the first game — I had to have them as mods in ‘Assetto Corsa’. ‘Wreckfest’ also works fine on consoles.
Man those smart TVs are so cheap now. The video screen is what you interact with most, its the biggest part of the experience. Get yourself a huge TV, an HDMI cable, and call it your gaming monitor. (Mine TVs don’t get to talk to the internet.)
Yeah, it would also be the biggest part of my room.
:] Laptop it is, then!
I remember my friend bringing over his Xbox and playing Halo for the first time. I was constantly looking down at the ground while he was pistol sniping me across the map. Figured it out eventually.
Haha! You’re just like my buddy!
My superior M&KB did not prepare me to be owned so much in Halo!
Those controller folks are gifted.
My grandmother owned a PS1 which was the first console I ever played on as a kid.
But it was also the last console she ever owned and she said it was because of the move to thumbsticks made her gave up on gaming. Kinda sad…
I remember a LOT of people giving up gaming entirely during the transition to 3D because of this. That was when a lot of the people who experienced the arcade era stopped keeping up.
I was pretty against 3D games until I played Mario 64 and realized their controls didn’t have to suck. Still feels good to play to this day, an impressive feat for a 3D game from 1996!
I gave up on console gaming for the same reason (the last console I owned was a Super Nintendo) but that’s because mouse+keyboard is just so superior that using dual-joystick controllers feels like punishment rather than entertainment.
I’m just now exploring PC gaming and i have NO idea how you all use the keyboard and mouse for FPS games. Controller is all i know and so much easier.
In my times…! 😁
Karate Champ and Crazy Climber had 2 sticks.
