Control Envy

[Glorb]

Raise your hand if this (or a similar incident) has ever happened to you:

The other day I was playing Resident Evil 4 (PS2 version). However, I had a hard time with it, despite beating it a few months ago. I was fumbling with the aiming and rotation systems, constantly cursed the game for not letting me strafe, and kept forgetting how to turn around. I pressed R1 with the intention of firing my weapon, but instead started aiming, and expected L1 to throw grenades. Why? Because I was so used to playing third-person shooters, which often use an FPS-style control scheme for maximum shootability. Once I got used to RE4's control scheme, as an experiment, I played GTA: Vice City, and found myself practically unable to move.
So here's my point: Why don't all games use some sort of control-remapping system? Of course, if all games controlled the same way they'd be boring, and not all games use grenades or whatnot, but shouldn't you at least be able to change all that stuff in the controls, like having a permanent aim/walk system or something? I think a game that let you excersize that much control over it would be a great thing.

[GiftedGirl]

I feel the same way with my Pokemon Pinball games. If I can't jump, attack or talk to anybody, I just want to use the A button for making selections, NOT to flip flippers. Thankfully, with the release of Pokemon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire, I was able to solve this problem and put the flippers on the L and R buttons of the SP.

[Chupperson Weird]

Game designers should design their controls to be the best in whatever game it is. Whether RE4 should let you strafe or whatever is entirely up to whether it fits in the game. Personally, I would get tired very quickly of games that had the same generic controls. Having intuitive controls is one thing, such as, I somehow knew what shoulder buttons did what in Shadow of the Colossus, but having all games use the same control scheme, making all characters' movements in certain types of games be the same and performed the same way, would be boring.

[Vidgmchtr]

I second Chup.

I can usually refamiliarize myself with the controls of other games fairly quickly after playing a new game with a completely different control scheme. A recent example would be playing Perfect Dark after playing Metroid Prime Hunters. Each game had two different control schemes, but were technically the same genre (First Person Adventure? Meh).

[TEM]

The only time I was disturbed by controls was when I played SMW for GBA.

[Glorb]

I didn't mean all games should have the same control scheme; I just think you should be able to change certain control perameters to fit your style of play. Cold Fear let you switch between over-the-shoulder and normal third-person, and Ratchet: Deadlocked let you pick an FPS, TPS or platform-style control scheme (and all points in between) and even let you play the game as a first-person shooter. I mean, obviously, not all games are created equal, but it sure would be appreciated if I could do complicated stuff like, you know, looking up and down in a Metroid Prime game without holding down a button. Or at least, that I could choose to.

[The Chef]

Now that you mention it, it would be kinda cool to play Mario Kart in a first-person view point like in the MK64 demo.

[Sqrt2]

I've never had a problem changing from playing one type of game then switching to another type. I can play Perfect Dark for hours and then go to playing Mario Kart 64 or Ocarina of Time, without having any problems whatsoever.

[SushieBoy]

I have problems with the games that control your character with the c stick or buttons, take Fur Fighters as an example.

[Glorb]

Well, Nintendo really needs to change their shooter control schemes. For example, they think you should use R (normally the shoot button) to aim while standing still (because, y'know, aiming is so trivial), A (normally the jump or action button) to shoot, and, for some demented reason, use C-stick (the equivalent of a right analog stick) to switch weapons. I'm not sure I've ever seen C-stick used as an aiming devicein a GameCube game.

[Lizard Dude]

Then you need to play the "normal" FPS like the Bond games and the Timesplitters games.

[Glorb]

Well, yeah, but I usually play those on my PS2. It's not that I'm unable to control Metroid Prime, I just think they should let you tweak the controls. It's ironic; Nintendo seems to cater to the casual gamer audience only and completely neglect FPS fans. I'm fairly stingy, so I don't want to shell out $400 on a 360 or $600 on a PS3 just to get quality FPSes.

Y'know, this reminds me of the shooters on the N64. It's wierd; the N64 controller was practically tailor-made for FPSes (move with the D-Pad, aim with the analog stick, shoot with the Z trigger), and yet developers still made wonky control schemes. Early N64 FPSes had this stupid feature where you had to hold the stick in position to aim because it automatically centered itself once you let go; thankfully, this was later fixed. Funny thing is, despite the controller's FPS-ready design, Nintendo never made an FPS (unless you count Perfect Dark, but they just published that).