Control freakiness

I can't stand Justin Beiber,  He is the embodiment of all that is wrong with a society bent on appealing to the lowest common denominator.  We should demand more of our entertainment choices than that which is why I've resisted every generation of console game since the Atari 2600.  I did have an Atari as a kid but it was an Atari computer and it did a far better job with Pac Man than any 2600 could dream of.

So  in case it's not obvious by now I'm a PC gamer but I see the writing on the wall.  There are far fewer titles that are purely written for the PC these days.  What we're left with most of the time in PC gaming are ports of games written for consoles.  Some better than others. 

With game franchises like Need For Speed and Modern Warfare the effort is usually well executed without too many carryovers from the console.  With others the port is obvious to the point of annoying.  Capped frame rates, bad controls and poor camera angles are hallmarks of a bad port.

So how does one bridge the gap?  How does a PC gamer hedge his bet against a future where PC gaming is reduced to a scant few titles worth playing?

If you can't beat 'em join 'em.....kind of....

I've been trying out a few titles that are obvious console ports to the PC platform. 

The first one I tried out was  Star Wars the Force Unleashed 2.  I'm a fan of the Star Wars genre and have something of a history with it.  The first Star Wars title I ever played was an 8 bit title on the Atari PC called Star Wars which was actually a port from the arcade game back in 1983. Basically the object of the game was to blow up the death star just like Luke Sywalker did in "Star Wars: A new hope"  It was crude with its wireframe graphics but impressive for its time.  It was the first game I'd seen that even tried to approach 3D since Atari's Battlezone in the arcade.

Enough nostalgia.

I tried playing Force Unleashed 2 with both a joystick and keyboard and soon found myself wanting to break something.  The camera angles are awful with a kind of orbiting third person view that is nothing short of maddening for an FPS gamer.  The controls are far too complex to be effective on a PC keyboard unless you have 15 fingers and they're all a foot long.  In fact the game's controls are hard coded for the most part and any controller it finds it treats as a gamepad.  It auto-assigned the buttons on my Logitech Attack 3 joystick for example rendering it mostly useless as a controller since I couldn't change the mappings.  Suffice it to say I was back on the keyboard fairly quickly.

That annoyed me. 

IT seems almost insane to port a game over to a platform and do virtually nothing to make it playable ON that platform.

Ok, I admit I bought the game during a Steam sale and it was about 5 bucks and had horrible reviews for all the same reasons I cited above.  Still, it got me to thinking about a lot of other games ported to the PC that were similarly afflicted.  Perhaps it wasn't so much the platform or the game as it was the controller I was using.

Here's the part where I take my first baby steps into the world of consoles.

I had heard that there was a way to make an Xbox controller work on a PC and even found a few articles on building an adapter to make it happen.  I had to pick up a couple of UPS's over a weekend and went over to my local Best Buy store.  While there I checked out their selection of XBOX controllers but didn't find anything that worked on a PC.  So I paid for my UPS's and left.  Later on in the day  I had a hunch and browsed over to Newegg.com where I did a search on Xbox Controllers.  I found that Microsoft indeed offered a Windows version of the Xbox 360 controller that connected via a standard USB port.   It works on the 360 as well by disconnecting the USB adapter dongle.

So for $33 I went ahead and made the purchase.  Two days later it arrived at my door.

Luckily for me I didn't have to wait too long to see if I'd be able to bridge the console/PC gaming experience.  The following night was a game night so I'd be able to see if I had a solution to all those bad console ports. 

After installing the driver on my gaming rig and plugging in the controller I decided to try it out.  My friend had picked me up a copy of Disney's "Split Second" driving game.  Normally I'd hook up the joystick to try it out but since I already had the Xbox controller hooked up I used it instead. 

To my surprise and my friend's amusement I fumbled my way into driving a few decent laps in the game.  I had also installed Activision's "Blur" which is another driving game.  My friend kept telling me to relax as I apparently looked tense while playing.

Both games recognized the Xbox controller but Blur was almost unplayable without it.  Blur like Force Unleashed 2 had no provision for a joystick and minimal keyboard control.  Driving games seem to be a good point of entry into using a gamepad since controls are less numerous and complex than an RPG or FPS title. 

When I returned to Force Unleashed 2 I proved that point.  I'm still getting used to complex control sequences with the Xbox controller and didn't do much better than my previous experience with the keyboard.  The fact that I'd never used a controller like this before is causing me a bit of a learning curve but I'm starting to get a feel for it.  It's definitely less awkward than the keyboard when playing games like these.

So  I still don't own an Xbox, PS whatever or Nintendo anything but I am putting a foot into their world.  I still prefer the PC as a gaming platform as even console ports look better on it.  Consoles are nothing but purpose built pc's at heart but the upgrade paths are minimal and hardware refresh cycles are pretty long.  Even the Xbox 360 is a five year old hardware platform which wouldn't be able to play Modern Warfare 2 at the detail and resolutions I'm used to on the PC. 

Consoles are due for a major refresh, however and the next generation is likely to be on par with gaming PC's today.  Increasingly consoles are also going beyond their gaming roots.  Blue Ray/DVD playback, streaming media, internet access and even social networking are being built into their firmware. 

Whatever the next generation of consoles bring I'm hoping that I'll be able to continue to enjoy gaming no matter what platform it's on.  I'm pretty sure I've taken the first step in that direction.