Which is Worse, Console or PC? First Person Perspective
Before I start talking about anything, I want to say what I mean by ‘œfirst person perspective.’ This is a game where you are in direct control of the human/alien/whatever you are and you are looking through their eyes. You can look up, down, left, right, move sideways, strafe and maybe if you’re lucky (or unlucky) you can jump. So anything similar to Halo, Left 4 Dead or Mirror’s Edge.
The biggest factor of first person perspective is how it’s controlled. Consoles use directional pads or analog sticks. PCs use keyboard and mouse. Each works very effectively in simulating that you are indeed the person you are playing and you have direct control over them. Everything you see is what the character sees, everything you do is what they do and everything you point your gun at is everything they point their gun at.
Essentially the two control schemes are the same. (I’m only talking about the things that control motion.) There is one method for controlling body movement (left analog or WASD) to allow you to move forward (and all other directions) and another for controlling where you look via your head/eyes. Wherever your eyes are looking that is ‘œforward.’ I’m sure you’re bored of me explaining how first person controls work so I’ll move on.
One difference between the analog sticks and WASD and mouse is the limiting number of directions for the body movements. While analog can go in whatever direction they want via directional tilt, the WASD has only eight combinations. This is a noticeable, yet minor difference.
The most important difference is in the head/eye controls, also commonly known as the camera. The way the analog stick is built, it allows for a smooth panning as the stick is tilted. The harder it’s tilted, the faster the panning will be. If you don’t know what I mean, just imagine turning your head slowly from left to right.
The mouse does the same thing but instead of a tilt, it’s small movements of the fingers and wrists. Compared to the tilting of the stick to movements of the mouse, the mouse is more precise. Let me give you an analogy for this: if the analog stick is like controlling your head, then the mouse is like controlling your eyes. It has more ability to focus on one point and a quicker reaction time so you can look at what you need to without having to pan from point A to point B.
My console friends have argued with me a lot on this. ‘œJust turn up the sensitivity,’ they said, but with the sensitivity up so high, it’s difficult to control with an analog stick. With practice I ended up playing Halo: CE with the sensitivity at eight or nine. When it came out on PC and I didn’t have access to an Xbox any more, going back to the console controls at that same sensitivity was never the same.
The camera lacks the precision of, not the mouse, but the fingers and the wrists. The thumb can only do so much compared to the fingers when controlling a camera. It’s just like the head and eyes analogy.
Mirror’s Edge takes the first person perspective and embodies everything to the point where you can even look at your own hands and feet. Yahtzee complains about the first person perspective, specifically about not being able to look down at your feet ‘œwithout looking straight down’ and when grabbing a ledge the ‘œslow’ need to turn your head to look for the next ledge. With analog it really is tilting your head all the way to the ground to see your feet and painfully bringing your head back up to look ahead. Even with the sensitivity turned up, I felt nauseous after a few minutes of gameplay from the motion blur.
Sure, mouse versus right analog stick can be argued that ‘œyou just need to get used to it’ but from what the first person perspective is trying to do, the mouse is a better way to go.
Buy me a PC, and I’ll play with a mouse and keyboard ;].
You’re wrong. Expect my reply post soon.
It’s really just a matter of personal preference. Case in point, my father games primarily on PC because that’s what he got into big time after the NES. He started me on the NES and I gamed on the PC as well, but I don’t care which I use. I can adapt to either one because I’ve had an equal amount of pratice. My dad never cared much for the PS1 or anything afterward, and has always sworn by mice. Whereas I’ll use either one because sometimes I have to make a game purchase for PC. Oh well.
@Rampancy – I know that it’s a matter of preference, but in the case of a “which is better” stand-point (which was what I was aiming for), I still think the PC is better at what the first person perspective is trying to achieve. And it’s more efficient at it too. :D
Sometimes, though, you have to figure in which game you’re talking about. Some FPS games have it all wrong. I feel that if it’s gonna be a TRUE FPS, you should be able to see all of your limbs, just as if you were carrying a gun and you could look down and see your feet, etc. That sorta bugs me that some games, you look down, and OH HI GROUND!
Regardless of personal preference, you just can’t be as good with the dual sticks in particular games. Those games are the true “twitch” shooters like Quake, or playing as the scout in TF2. It’s like comparing a D pad to an arcade stick for 2-D fighters; both work, different people prefer one over the other based on which one that person is most comfortable with, but the pros don’t mess around. They go for the arcade stick/mouse and keyboard every time. Obviously most of us don’t ever play games at the level at which this really matters, but I think it’s worth mentioning.
Still, some games are built around console controls and thus the analog sticks might be superior in those cases.
Halo 2 was one of the few console games (IMO) that got the controls right. Crank the sensitivity up a bit, and with a bit of practice and instinct, you could be a pretty damned accurate shooter. But it still doesn’t match up to PC, and it never will. PC controls for shooters are just superior. And don’t even get started on strategy games… they just don’t work on console, period.
Really depends on the type of game for me. The more precision and twitch reactions you need, the better mouse/keyboard works for me. If the game doesn’t require such precise and quick reactions, then I’m quite comfortable with the dual analog. CoD4 did this well I found, as did Mirror’s Edge.
Now it’s time to blow your collective minds and propose the perfect control scheme. What we really need is an analog stick/mouse combination. Bwa…
@timeshifter: It’s funny, the RTS was going to be my next topic of Console vs PC. :D
@ScottyG: Isn’t that the Wiimote?
I need to pick up some more good strategy games.. the genre really seems to have deteriorated lately. Starcraft was awesome. Red Alert 2 was awesome. Empire Earth 2 was awesome. Age of Empires (1 and 2), and I’m probably going to get strangled if I don’t mention Warcraft 3… but nothing modern is living up to those games. Sure, RA3 is incredible, but EA has made the focus of the game the women, and while that’s not entirely a bad thing, the RA series isn’t supposed to be about the women. I’d love to see a sequel to Age of Empires that’s on par with the original. I’d love to see an Empire Earth game that lived up to EE2. And then there’s Starcraft 2… ’nuff said.
I almost forgot Sins of a Solar Empire… I do need to play through that game more.
The focus lately seems to be so heavy on shooters and the like.. whatever happened to brain games? Older series created legacies of awesome gameplay, and their sequels killed them. It makes me sad…