Sunday 9 September 2012

Keyboard and Mouse Vs Controller


This is another one of those debates I see pop up on various forums and internet websites, and quite frankly it's a discussion I wish would just fuck off forever.

If you're going to have this discussion in a general sense, you should just shut up.  Both have advantages and disadvantages but you have to think about it based on what kind of game you're actually playing.  You can't just go and say that one is outright better than the other, because that would just be silly.

There are some genres of game where it doesn't matter if your using a controller of a keyboard and mouse.  Things like RPGs with turn based combat, or turn based strategy games (yeah, it would be a pain in the ass with something like Civ, but it would still get the job done) and things like that.

That said, a keyboard and mouse is about the only way to go for FPS and RTS games.  In FPS, the precision you get from aiming with your mouse is something you just can't quite get with a controller.  FPS controls on consoles are in fact, very good, but it just feels more natural on a keyboard and mouse, to me at least.  RTS games just require so many buttons to do so many different things, that trying to put an RTS on a console just seems a bit dumb really.  In order to have RTS on a console, you would need a keyboard peripheral or you would have to dumb down the gameplay quite significantly.

That said, I would not want to play platform games or fighting games on a keyboard and mouse.  I feel that when platforming, it feels way better to use a controller due to the fact I can make jumps a lot easier, and with fighting games, I'd hate to put quarter circle inputs in with a goddamn keyboard, it would be awkward as fuck.

But you know what, that's just me, I'm sure there's a guy who can beast FPS games with his pad, and another guy who can whoop my ass at Street Fighter with a keyboard.  At the end of the day it just comes down to what feels most comfortable to the player.  So while it makes sense to have certain control schemes for certain genres, the whole debate is rendered a bit pointless when it just comes down to personal preference.

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