Be Excellent To Each Other

Well hello,

after a long while involving problems logging in and my boss now being able to se my screen at work I am posting again. Sooo.

I was playing GTAIV earlier and got shot down a few times by Niko just being a bit slow to turn around. This made me think that with the Wiis pointy controls surely there is some way of making a character, 1st person or 3rd, rotate quicker the closer you point to the edge of the screen. It sort of happens in FPS's on the 360, but it all feels a little impercise with a stick. My thought was you could have a rectangle in the middle where the camerea doesn't change but outside it the camera rotates faster. With a dive button it could make stuff like Max Pain teh awesome on the wii.

This may have already happened but not in any game I have played.

Any thoughts?

That sounds just like the dead zone on a joystick, though... and the harder/faster/further you jam the stick to one side, the faster you'll turn.

Indeed, that sounds like a deadzone - something in every single game for years.

Either that or I'm completely misunderstanding you.

Maybe this is just my general ham-handedness.

I heard there were levels of pressing on the PS2 X button which were used in Gran Turismo 3. I never noticed them. Most FPS games I have played go slight movement to the side slow turn, bit more slow turn, bit more and I've turned 180 degrees.

My idea was that with the Wii's pointing reticule you could easily spot someone coming into view on the edge of the screen and kind of follow them naturally as if you were moving a gun with your arm then slow down the movement as you align with them. Or pull off the slightly harder shooting while turning move which involves you following them as you fire.

The PS2s analogue buttons were beyond awful. No tactile feedback, which meant pushing too hard, as you weren't sure if you were pushing hard enough.

Given they were only used in racing games, you could usually use the right analogue stick instead - nowhere near as good as triggers. But some other game types you didn't have the choice.

Yeah I tried using the right thumbstick for throttle/brake in a couple of racing games. Sadly, my right thumb seems to be an all or nothing kind of guy. This is especially bad for 1st/3rd person shooters where accuracy is a must. I just think a well executed Wii game could be groundbreaking using the "how close are you to the edge of the screen" appoach.

Yeah, the DS2 was so bad at analogue, there's some games I use a DS1 just to properly register 100%

Ahh so you were one of the guys with a circle indented into your thumb then. The 360 controller was a revalation for racing games, apart from the dreamcast contoller of course. Shoulder triggers for racing games are the only better way for acceleration/decelaration other than foot peddals and you need to buy a £80 wheel for that.

Absolutely, although I always used sticks where possibly on the PS*

I was one of the people who bought a Dreamcast first then got a PS2. Going from MSR to GT3 felt a bit strange, being used to left trigger breaking while keeping the power on - a bit - then letting go and having the throttle still on, to, in GT3, breaking or accelerating messed me up for a while.

Off topic: the dreamcast controller is one of the best I have used before wireless.

Mad Maestro also uses the analogue buttons so that as well as pressing the buttons in time to the music, you had to press them harder if that bit of the music was louder. Took some getting used to.

The analogue buttons on the DS2 did have their uses... controlling your power when sliding around bends in GTA3, for example, and likewise in GT3. It was not really that precise, though.

Metal Gear Solid on the PS2 used the analogue features of the buttons - squeeze square to get the gun out, press harder to fire.

Which basically meant every time you took your gun out you fired it.

Aye, getting all the dog tags was an utter bastard due to this. The XBox version was times worse though.

Oh, and having done another full race earlier with F1:CE on the PS3 and ending up with severe pain in my left hand for well over an hour after finishing, I am seriously considering selling the PS3. I don't suppose there are any PS3 controllers where the designers haven't been retarded enough to put the stick in a stupid position and use absolutely rubbish triggers?

The sizaxis by by far and away the worst controller I've ever used.

Get hold of the trigger add-ons magazines gave away.

Good it still isn't, better it certainly is.

The pistols in analogue-buttony MGS fire upon sharp release rather than a heavy press (and you can always deselect an aimed pistol to make sure you don't accidentally squeeze a round off); The automatic weapons are easier to misfire but, then, you're unlikely to raise them unless you intend to immediately let rip. Once you're used to it the system's pretty sweet. (I was probably a bit hard on the SOL controls at the time -- I replayed it on Xbox recently, just to check, and it really is being continually interrupted by drivel that ruins the experience more than anything else. Snake Eater -- similar control philosophy, actually-quite-tolerable plotting -- is aces.)

Getting the sensitivity of analogue buttons wrong can obviously be fatal though, especially for a racing game. The preview disc of PS2 Le Mans 24 Hours nearly crippled us, such was the grimace-inducing pressure required to zip around at full tilt*, but then I remember F355 Challenge on the DC knackering my fingers too so it all comes down to design and build quality... for my money the Xbox triggers definitely offer the most satisfying and least fatiguing experience so far.

To (finally) address the first post, I get what what you mean -- if you want to see a prior example of dead-zoning the reticule (as opposed to simply the control device, although they'd inevitably be directly equivalent on the Wii) then pop N64 Perfect Dark on.




*Fixed for release, mind, and I might have to pick it up now I've reminded myself about the game. It's bizarrely satisfying to secure the win by changing your tires at just the right moment.