Foreign Jackass
Member
-jinx- said:The original post was kind of crazy since (as impirius pointed out), the "extra buttons" aren't terribly functional during gameplay.
With that said, I personally feel that modern game controllers are overly complex. The number of buttons and control sticks is daunting enough, but when you have to combine them in various ways in realtime during a game, it can be overwhelming. From an HCI theory point of view, controllers do exploit certain types of natural mappings (button = take action, stick = indicate direction), but including things like buttons that are triggered by pushing on sticks is a lousy design idea.
I know that a lot of people here are going to think I'm crazy (or weaksauce, or both) for thinking that controllers are too complex when most of you have zero problems using them. However, I also suspect that it's easier to master something complex when you learn it for the first time, rather than learning something simple and progressing to something complex. When I was growing up, most controllers had a single D-pad and 2-6 buttons. When I got back into gaming as an adult, I did well with games that had simpler control systems, but struggled with more complicated ones because my learned muscle memory didn't help me juggle, say, using a second analog stick to manipulate a camera. Same thing with FPS games -- I learned how to play them on a PC, but simply cannot adapt to console controls, even though it's basically the same thing.
The problem with making controls simpler is that you do necessarily limit the number of options you have during gameplay. A simple controller which requires complex, precise actions to cause different results (see: Street Fighter) is also very hard to learn. It's a tough design problem...but I do wish that games would have simpler controls and provide more contextual options (e.g. knife at close range, shoot at long range, rather than having separate buttons for each).
Very smart post. Thanks. I know my OP made it seem like I was talking about this gen in particular, but I think I made my point clearer afterwards, and I'm in agreement with you over everything you said. Finally, a smart human being.