Y’all laugh but I spent a lot of years not gaming such that this is very recent. I grew up playing pong and Atari, then grew away. When I had kids, the Wii was perfect. Then my kids became teens and it wasn’t enough. Suddenly everything was Xbox, then pc gaming.
Suddenly if I wanted to interact with them I had to figure out this alien contraption with too many buttons and joysticks. After about five years (playing every 2-4 weeks because who has time), I’m ok technically. But there’s no way I can do fighting or any twitch moves, and I still sometimes blank on which button does what - it’s not engrained enough to just do it and I’ll never play frequently enough for that to become true
And Microsoft’s terminology doesn’t help - wtf do “bumper” and “trigger” mean? I still remember those buttons as “opposite of bottom”and “opposite of top”
Bumper is the smaller top one, because it acts and feels kinda like a car bumper. Trigger is the larger bottom one, because it acts like the trigger of a gun.
For me, the cherry on top of this little piece of embarrassing history is something that only a handful of people remember: The PS1 had an official mouse controller, and this was one of the few games that supported it.
I bought the mouse when it came out, and I got a copy of this game about 10 years ago, and I’ve gotta say it works very well. It was also how I played the single-player campaign of Quake 2 back in the day.
The super Nintendo had a mouse controller. You could use it to swat fly’s in Mario Paint https://youtu.be/L9oJRsw_Abs
I wonder if that was actually just an attempt to sell more copies by describing the clearly better control scheme as scary as a challenge to anyone who thought it sounded ok. Like I don’t think it took me long to understand that the Halo control scheme was a game changer compared to the ones that preceded it (other than mouse and keyboard).
I absolutely hated my first experience with modern dual stick controls. It felt so wrong compared to GoldenEye.
Developers themselves were often in the dark as to what the best control schemes were back then. For example, the default controls in Quake games were not originally wasd plus mouse, that innovation actually came from prominent Quake players which eventually became implemented as default in games after.
The reviewer was right, you know. Playing an FPS with a controller is the most horrifying thing in gaming history. (Except if it has gyro).
Stick a trackball in place of the right stick, and we have my dream FPS controller.
I’ve only just started using a controller (on PC). I’m still confused by the two joysticks half the time.
Dammit, where are my glasses… I need to find my pearls so I can clutch them
As someone who didn’t have dualshock controllers back when I had the PS1, FPS games always felt awful. Most of the games had like L2/R2 for aiming up/down and L1/R1 for strafing, pretty sure Quake 2 was like that. I recall Medal of Honor had you hold R2 to fine aim with the d-pad
That first Medal of Honor game felt so epic though. The music, the ambiance. I’m playing the damn History Channel over here!
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.
At least there was a transition period. I remember configuring TimeSplitters 2 and the original Halo to let me use the good old tank controls I was used to from GoldenEye.
Trying to play GoldenEye today with the old controls is hard as hell.
On the contrary, I played GoldenEye for the first time last year and I was amazed at how well it controlled with that ridiculous controller!
Do you play modern FPSs?
I do! I play shooters from every era. Using the d-pad for movement isn’t too dissimilar from WASD movement IMO, and the joystick for aiming is standard. I thought it worked quite well.
What about the original Duke Nukem from 1991?
You mean this? It’s a Swedish release, can’t find the year, but it has over 1 Mb of graphics and animations!
Wow! That’s awesome. Hello fellow old man
The og is a side scroller
That’s the one I’m talking about. I’m trying to get it for free online, but I can’t find it.
I implore everybody to play the classic GoldenEye with dual controller setup in the menu so you can do twin stick shooting controls. If you use an emulator, you can bind two controllers to one controller and play GoldenEye in a way you’ve never played it before.
The combination of the animations and precision aiming with the twin stick shooting turns you into a demon. It’s so cinematic to quickly strafe a corner and then unload your gun just like into a horde of enemies and see them all fucking jump in different directions as they die as you spray your gun left and right standing still like you’re fucking Scarface it’s perfect.
You can even play it with modern controls on NSO if you set up the controls both in the game and the Switch itself right.
Back in my day we played Doom without any analog inputs, and strafing required a key combination so the sideway arrow keys would strafe instead of turn.
That said I did enjoy Doom the Dark Ages with my mouse earlier today, haha.
arrow keys, alt to strafe, ctrl to fire, space to interact. we made it work.
Did you do any old Classic Mac gaming? Do you remember Pathways Into Darkness?
I don’t think it had mouselook. It was all keys. Damned difficult game that I finished right as I was becoming a mouser on other more modern games.No, I never had a Mac.
Doom and Lemmings on MS-DOS and Anno 1602 and Age of Empires on Windows 95 or 98 were the first few titles my dad showed me on the old PC I got to use. He showed me how to interrupt the Windows boot so I could launch the DOS games instead.
I’m not sure if Doom was just on there because he played it, because this must have been in 1997 or 1998 or maybe 1999, a few years after it released anyway.
A few years back I was at a bar and they had golden eye on an N 64. Man the controls were hot garbage.
You can change it so the joystick aims, and you move with the yellow buttons…I think. Either that or the d-pad.
But even better? You can use TWO N64 controllers at the same time, one in each hand, for dual joystick controls. I didn’t even realize that was an option until I saw it in the Switch Online Emulator
But because there wasn’t anything better to compare it to, it didn’t feel that bad.
Metroid Prime transcended its crappy controls. Like one of the worst control schemes but still one of my all time favorites.
Have you played it on Primehack? Among other fixes it gives it modern dual-stick controls.
No, I haven’t tried that. How is it? As awkward as those controls were, they also feel like a core part of the game, so I’m feeling oddly both attracted and repulsed by the idea. But I’ll look into it, thanks for making me aware if it!
I never played the original on GameCube but I did all three on Primehack on the Steam Deck and it seemed to work pretty well. It took a bit of tinkering to get it working, but it was definitely worth it. Happy to assist if you have any questions!
Oh wow, just looked it up and the description is even better because it was intended to give the games mouse look controls, which IMO is superior to even dual stick for fps. Like set up a mouse and keyboard for a console fps that supports it and it’s like easy mode because you can aim much more quickly.
Guessing you need to bring your own ROMs (I wonder if I can rip my GCN discs with a blueray reader). Though to clarify, is this for the GCN versions or one of the other ports/remasters? I’ve got 1 and 2 for GCN and 3 for Wii.
Yeah it’s bring-your-own ROM because it’s just a modified version of Dolphin Emulator. I used the Wii trilogy version, had it installed on my WiiU and it was ridiculously easy to dump the ROM with Dumpling (you don’t need a modified console). If you’ve got GameCube/Wii discs then you’ll need a hacked Wii, I think it’s not too hard to hack a Wii if you own specific games (like Brawl which lets you read stages from an SD card and run arbitrary code), I think CleanRip is the tool you use to dump the ROM.
Ah so I might be able to do it with 3 just with what I have already but need a Wii and brawl, which is the one I’m missing from the three systems (have melee and the wii u one but not the wii smash bros lol).
Thanks for taking the time to write that, it’s a lot more info than I was expecting!
Ape Escape was peak dual stick gameplay.
Left stick to move. Right stick for gadgets.
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 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.
I still haven’t and IMO the original Metroid Prime controls on Game Cube are the best (other than keyboard and mouse).
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.
