• Fandangalo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    531·
    14 days ago

    Gaming literacy is a real thing. Most people who didn’t grow up with 3D games don’t intuitively understand it. I’ve seen many boomers either stare at their feet or the ceiling & they have no clue how to solve their situation because they are disoriented. Same with young kids learning.

    • halfsalesman@piefed.socialEnglish
      172·
      14 days ago

      I’ve always wondered what’s specifically going on their minds when that happens. I remember getting into shooters and pretty much immediately understanding the two separate axes in Duke Nukem 3D at like age 7-8 (yeah I played violent games when I was young my parents only restricted movies). Maybe that’s why? My brain was just better able to learn at that age? Or is it that I am autistic? Is neurology a factor?

      EDIT: Just realized, even younger, I played and beat Star Fox SNES, which only had 1 axis, where aiming and moving were bound together. Maybe it was the baby step of playing a simpler 3D shooter game.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      13 days ago

      I’ve seen many boomers either stare at their feet or the ceiling & they have no clue how to solve their situation because they are disoriented. Same with young kids learning.

      Any last words, Jim?

    • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      13 days ago

      Yeah, it’s just wild to me, that we went full-force ahead with the whole 3D thing, when you lock out so many potential players with it.
      With 2D games, you can chuck someone a controller and even if they’re just haphazardly pressing buttons, they can still participate in the game. With 3D, no chance.

      And even those who do have practice still struggle with it. Think of a difficult 3D game and I bet it’s a valid joke that the true end boss is the camera.

      • dbtng@eviltoast.orgEnglish
        3·
        13 days ago

        May I present Vampire Survivors.
        Fantastic game. Entirely oldskool 2d.
        You can navigate and play one-handed, no mouse.
        And best of all, this is the exact game you just described, where a n00b can haphazardly press buttons and get somewhere.

        • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          12 days ago

          Yeah, indies are thankfully still covering 2D games, and there has been somewhat of a rebound in general, where e.g. Nintendo will also publish 2.5D versions of some of their games.

          It just always felt weird that AAA studios treated 3D as mandatory, in the name of profit in particular, despite it locking out customers.
          Well, kind of the obvious thing happened: Mobile games. Often fiercely 2D. Often controllable with one finger. And of course, obscenely profitable.

    • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      It’s even a thing in our generation - my now ex was pretty stumped playing skyrim. 2d games were no issue.

  • Bubs12@lemmy.zipEnglish
    34·
    13 days ago

    My best friend still uses “Legacy” (goldeneye) controls and gets mad when games don’t have that option. He has even emailed developers about it. Half of them have no idea what he is talking about because they are not old enough to remember the before time.

    We roast him for his special controls but he is better than all of us so I guess, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

    • Blindsite@lemmy.todayEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      I remember goldeneye. And yeah it would be annoying. You could probably plug the snipe commands onto the right thumbstick. But yeah trying to emulate 90s single stick controls onto double stick controllers is a pain. Almost as bad as trying to emulate a Wii lol.

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      13 days ago

      Did you know that GoldenEye actually has dualstick controls, you just had to use two controllers

      • Bubs12@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        13 days ago

        That’s horrifying. Someone needs to tell the McElroy brothers. I bet they would have fun with that.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
      3·
      13 days ago

      I remember Goldeneye but I played it on GameCube so have no idea how more traditional controllers handled input.

      • Bubs12@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        13 days ago

        N64 only has 1 joystick so games had to work around that. The joystick makes you walk forward/backwards and look left/right. There are also the C buttons that act as a D-pad for your right hand. Up/down is look and left/right is strafe. There were considered advanced movements that the majority of casual players could ignore.

    • tetris11@feddit.ukEnglish
      67·
      13 days ago

      Thats because he discovered the secret that we all eventually discover when playing with dual sticks:

      You don’t actually aim with the right stick, you aim by strafing.

      Think about it, when you’ve lined up the perfect shot in the distance but the enemy keeps moving, do you readjust your aim? Or do you duck walk in a little circle whilst prone until the crosshair lines up

  • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
    24·
    14 days ago

    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.

      • ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        4·
        14 days ago

        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!

        • Xenny@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8·
          14 days ago

          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.

          • samus12345@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            14 days ago

            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.

  • Redkey@programming.devEnglish
    18·
    13 days ago

    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.

  • Prove_your_argument@piefed.socialEnglish
    16·
    14 days ago

    The transition period from the 90s to mid 2000s for control schemes was so fragmented. I remember a dozen games with wildly different control schemes. Wasn’t until the late 2000s when things started getting more standardized to what we know today.

  • HouseWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    161·
    14 days ago

    My grandmother owned a PS1 which was the first console I ever played on as a kid.

    But it was also the last console she ever owned and she said it was because of the move to thumbsticks made her gave up on gaming. Kinda sad…

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      121·
      14 days ago

      I gave up on console gaming for the same reason (the last console I owned was a Super Nintendo) but that’s because mouse+keyboard is just so superior that using dual-joystick controllers feels like punishment rather than entertainment.

    • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.worldOPEnglish
      4·
      14 days ago

      I remember a LOT of people giving up gaming entirely during the transition to 3D because of this. That was when a lot of the people who experienced the arcade era stopped keeping up.

      • samus12345@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        14 days ago

        I was pretty against 3D games until I played Mario 64 and realized their controls didn’t have to suck. Still feels good to play to this day, an impressive feat for a 3D game from 1996!

  • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
    14·
    14 days ago

    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)

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        14 days ago

        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.

      • smh@slrpnk.netEnglish
        3·
        14 days ago

        Yes, the y-axis must be inverted. Otherwise I spend the whole game staring at my feet or the sky.

        Oddly, growing up my younger brother was the opposite. It was annoying to take turns playing games with him, because we have to adjust the settings between handoffs.

    • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      I’ve been trying to play it on switch and it’s basically impossible with 2 sticks. Also it’s really jarring after a few hundred hours in breath of the wild.

  • Glide@lemmy.caEnglish
    13·
    14 days ago

    I remember binding forward, backward, strafe left and strafe right to the C-buttons in Goldeneye, so I could free up the joystick for quicker aim and Odd Job hate. Everyone thought I was crazy. Who’s laughing now!

  • Pixel_Jock_17@piefed.caEnglish
    13·
    13 days ago

    I grew up on n64 and I don’t recall having any issue with jumping to dual joy sticks. Like it was so natural… I probably had a week of adjustment that I just don’t remember.

    • SidewaysHighways@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      13 days ago

      nahh i remember the struggle going from armored core with the shoulder buttons to the 2nd joystick. it was real, and the struggle wasn’t all the players. the devs really didn’t seem to get it.

      nothing to do with the n64 other than i was there in the trenches with ya

  • Frostbeard@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    14 days ago

    Remember in 1998 how I tried half life on PC using a mouse after ever using keyboard on Wolfenstein and Doom.

  • lolola@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    10·
    13 days ago

    My best experience with a shooter was Metroid Prime Trilogy on Wii. Joystick to run / strafe and motion controls to aim, freeing up your right thumb and fingers for buttons.

    I hate having to switch between aiming with my right thumb and pressing buttons with my right thumb. Like in Metroid Prime Remastered on Switch. Grr.

    • ByteOnBikes@discuss.onlineEnglish
      5·
      13 days ago

      I remember hating Metroid Prime’s controller scheme on the Gamecube. The controls felt so stiff. But I was so in love with the universe and gameplay that I just accepted it, kind of like every Rockstar game.

      Now I wish I played it on the Wii.

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      2·
      13 days ago

      A lot of games now still have motion control aiming, you just tilt the controller. Sometimes it’s off by default though. I typically use the stick for big movements and tilt aiming for zeroing in.