Many people have complained that Metal Gear Online requires between 2 and 3 different button presses to fire a weapon. One has to select the weapon, then shoulder it by holding a shoulder button, possibly select an aim mode, then fire.

I think this level of detail actually adds to the game, instead of detracting from it.

I played a lot of Unreal Tournament, and the control in that game was so fluid that the excellent map design allowed you to do crazy jumps and dodge up ramps that seem totally impossible if you don’t know how to do it. It all comes back to excellent control as the starting block. If your avatar controls poorly, nothing’s going to be fun for long, even if holding one direction will make them do amazing things on screen.

*CRASH* is the manual for flightsim 200x.

If the game is about control then by all means, make it complicated, but if its about empowering the player, then dont try and punish us for not having insanely dextrous fingers. I dont want to have to push 7 different buttons to jump. then again, its nice when the game actually gives you the OPTION to jump…ok, Im rambling.

I actually think games oughta go back to simpler, but more robust control schemes. Mario is a good example since the first one only used two buttons and the digipad. while the mechanics were simple, they felt powerful. I could jump 30ft across a chasm and land on a dime. In the current generation theres this tendency to go for something more realistic, which is to say more subtle. when you ‘jump’ in assassins creed, its only 2-3 feet, and to make up for that they added the whole parkour thing which was neat for about 2 hours, but didnt really leave me with the same feeling of power. But comparing assassins creed to mario is like comparing apples to fat people. One has you charging towards an objective, while the other has you running away.

I think Shadow of the Colossus did the whole parkour thing pretty good. It was skill based enough so that if you got good enough at pulling of the more advanced tricks you could fell the games bosses in under a minute, but the controls weren’t complicated enough to leave novice players behind. Even though the colossi were huge, the player still feels in control, and therefore empowered.

I want control, but not too much, otherwise I wont be able to play the game. Yes, we the public are picky.

My biggest beef with Creed (besides the giant point of it being a political assassination game rather than the “assassin’s creed.”) was that I never felt like I had control. The controls were smushy when I was on foot, the combat was horrible, and making wall climbing as easy as pushing the stick forward is just silly.

I feel more like a superhero when I control the execution of the maneuvers. What if we played a flight simulator where all of the hard maneuvers were done automatically for you? It would stop being a flight simulator, and wouldn’t be fun in the least bit.

If a game is *supposed* to be a platformer, like Mario, then of course, removing all challenge from the platforming makes the game boring. But if the point of the game is not platforming, then removing the extraneous difficulty of navigating the world makes the game.

Let’s ask a question: What fantasy is Prototype trying to fufill?

I can only guess at the answer, but my guess is “To make the player feel like a superhero.” This fantasy fufillment is made stronger by the fact that Alex appears human, as opposed to Radical’s previous games involving the Hulk.

Anyway. If the player is trying to imagine that they are a superhero, fun elements involve battles with hordes of “normal” people, or colossal showdowns with other beings of similar power.

Falling off buildings interferes with this fantasy fulfillment. Having to remember and master controls to allow the character to move around interferes with this fantasy. Navigating around the environment isn’t the *point*. It shouldn’t be difficult, and it definitely shouldn’t be frustrating. The designers should make it as natural and painless as possible; they have succeeded if the player never even thinks about navigation in his world.

Now, I do have a concern with movement AI, that is completely different from your complaint. The problem with AI of this kind is that it is trying to guess what the player wants. In some cases, this guessing is not hard, and the AI can do a good job. But in other cases, there may be ambiguity in the input given by the player, especially if buttons are used for many different context-sensitive purposes. In these cases, player frustration may result because the AI chooses a different action than the player wanted, because the AI can’t read the player’s mind.

Personally, I have this problem with many of the duck and cover games, particularly those with “sticky” cover where your buttons all change function when in cover.

The challenge of the Prototype team is to make the controls feel smooth and natural, and avoid ambiguities as much as possible. The approach they are taking is sound, but it is difficult, and dangerous if they don’t get it right.