Quality Control: What Works In Today's Console Controller
I am meticulous about how I play my games. I a log a fair amount of playtime monthly and I like this time to be enjoyable. When I play a game I want to think about the plastic spaceship in my hands as little as possible. Did I say space ship? Oh! well I meant controllers! It seems to me that it's been hard to tell the difference lately. When I play a game in today's market of fighters and shooters there are certain things I look for in the interest of simple accessibility. The hours spent navigating a controller with a poorly implemented design can make one feel like an overworked drag queen on milkshake night at the Apollo, without the makeup or the tips! So in an effort to inspire those with the time and the money this is what someone who logs 12 hours plus a week playing console games requires.
"Jump on over and check this out!"
It should be no bigger than your basic TV remote, say 6 inches long tops. Remember boys it's not the length so much as it is the girth. It should be able to fit comfortably in my hands. It should also manage to be lightweight without compromising durability. The less bells and whistles the easier it is to focus on the game. It should be wireless. There should be one central home button linking the controller directly to the system and facilitating a connection to the console's operating system. Start and Select should also be easy to find. The overall design should appear smooth, cool and elegant, a companion if you will to the games played.
The D pad is most important. It should be a solid cross shape and built independently of the faceplate not mounted onto it. Most fighting games today require spot on D pad technique, which requires a pad that moves with some flexibility There is nothing worse than losing a ranked match because the D-pad got "mushy". The pad should also be made of a soft and firm material to help avoid crampage and callousing and the ever embarrassing "sweaty fingers"
The face buttons should be sparse, probably no more than four and should be conspicuously placed, the same size and easy to differentiate. A simple color pallet should be used.
The two analog sticks should be placed slightly adjacent from one another and at an even angle, not at a rigid parallel. The sticks themselves should be cradled in a mount with an eight point radial indentation for easy aiming. The material used should be as durable as the shell of the controller, you have no idea how many times I have almost broken the analog stick in the heat of a spray from my SMG.
The shoulder buttons should consist of four components: two shoulders and two triggers. Now until the console controller as a species has been successfully tested as a quality vibrator I don't want to have to look for any "secret buttons". The shoulders should be in plain sight on the left and right of the device, never on the bottom or some other "special place". I have enough trouble finding that place in real life let alone in a heated battle with some enemy monster. The triggers should be placed just below the shoulders and feel like real triggers or reasonable facsimiles. The point of an FPS is to be glued to the action not terrified that a piece of the controller is going to break off! The shoulders and the triggers should both be tactile.
Motion technology in the current gaming climate still feels forced and gimmicky. When ever I have tried to get into a game that supports this type of control I am reminded that I still play games on a static flat screen not the 3-D environment necessary to allow this type of control to truly come into it's own. I believe if properly implemented it can become a great asset in the future of play control but for now if it must be included keep it simple and allow me the option of standard, "digital" play.
And voila! A recipe for success if I do say myself! This is obviously subject to further debate. Certain needs will differ from gamer to gamer but I think this a solid foundation for a great controller. This is an exciting time for games and we should have a great way to enjoy them. However we as consumers have more power than you think! So speak up! What do YOU absolutely have to have in a controller? Somebody just might be listening...
ROCsteady
Posted to Miscellany, Video Games on 25 October 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: console controllers, fighters, fps, motion control, shooter
This whole quoted, free-floating "jump here" and "more after the jump" on almost every single one of your posts is killing me man.
So is this supposed to be anything other than just an in-depth description of the 360 controller? Most of us know what that looks like.
So you'd prefer Metroid Prime 3 with typical digital controls??
bit of a pointless article methinks.
Tough crowd! Don't we have anything constructive to say out there? I personally think this article really speaks to all the complainers out there anyways. I mean, if you want to complain about something why not try the oddly shaped controllers we have today? Let's try channeling this whaaa-fest into thinking of a controller that doesn't feel like trying to milk some kind of three-pronged hard plastic cow udder with buttons (N64 controller, I'm lookin' at you).
To fulfill your article's intended purpose, I agree that the D pad should be four individual buttons as opposed to a short/squat plate with bumps. I'd definitely take the PS3 design for the D pad over the 360's any day. I also haaaaate the "secret" trigger buttons you were talking about too! I feel like I should be able to slide from R1 to R2 with relative ease no matter what game I'm using it for.
Maybe adjustable shoulders would be a solution for different sized hands too. Mine are pretty big (L to XL in gloves) and get cramped if there's tons of trigger action. If the shoulders could move up a bit that would fix a lot of problems!
I completely disagree about the shoulder triggers. The best shoulder triggers I have ever seen on a controller were from a 3rd party PS2 controller (from Pelican) that had recessed R2/L2 buttons on the underside of the controller. It allowed my middle fingers to rest comfortably on those triggers while my index fingers rested on the shoulder buttons. I find it very uncomfortable on the regular Xbox 360, and especially the regular PS2/PS3 controllers with the triggers flush with the shoulder buttons so that I need to extend my middle fingers farther to reach them.
I'm right with you on the D-pad, though I'd have to disagree again on the directional notches for the analog stick. For me, the whole point of analog stick control is to be able to move freely in any direction, and directional notches limit that freedom of movement, and limit game designers to create levels based on 45 degree angles. If I want to only move in the compass 8 directions then I'd say use the d-pad for that.
Give me an Xbox 360 button/stick layout with a Playstation d-pad and Pelican's shoulder triggers. Throw in a VMU-like screen or the ability to detach the 2 halves of the controller and use them Wii-mote style and that would be the perfect controller.