Ken Levine Defends Lair's Control Scheme

A recent Gamers with Jobs podcast (well worth listening to) features co-hosting duties performed by Ken Levine of Irrational/2K Boston, makers of the title BioShock. During the podcast, Levine comes to the defense of Factor 5's Lair , saying that the folks over there may not have had much choice in how to proceed with their game. "Let me speak in these guys' defense for a minute as a game developer. I'm sure somebody came to them at some point and said, 'We have this motion control controller, and we have to make a go of it. And we really think you should try to make your game exclusively on that.' I think you're seeing a lot of this lately. Aren't there a lot of games where you're just like, 'Dude, can I just use the d-pad or the analog stick?' Ever since the DS came out I feel that there have been a lot of games like that. They've been so impressed by their control mechanic that they just really, really want you to play with that." It's still really, really bad.

He's probably right

[Tebriel (192168)]

They probably were told "do it this way" by those on high.

Gotta love being forced to an agenda rather than making a fun game...

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[xenocide2 (231786)]

I like how since Sony or whoever told them to do it, it's now not Factor 5's fault. Instead they got an order on high to "make this game suck" and they followed through.

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[XenoRyet (824514)]

It's a dodge. The problem with Lair isn't that they used the motion controls, it's that they used them badly. If they had managed to develop a good motion based control scheme, or even an adequate one, it wouldn't be an issue.

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[Mongoose Disciple (722373)]

When you come right down to it, a video game is still a software project, and it's subject to all of the potential for weird politics, unrealistic deadlines, and irrational demands from on high that any other software project is. I'd be totally unsurprised if one or more of the above did indeed drive the crappy control scheme. The developers probably aren't idiots and knew it wasn't good but for whatever reason couldn't do much about it.

Developer sympathy/solidarity isn't enough to make me actually play t

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[Pluvius (734915)]

Factor 5 itself basically admits this in their "Mastering the Beast" video. To quote one of the developers:

"We got the controller, it's great, new hardware! Everyone huddles around the desk and looks at it... So the first thing we did is just take the controller and use the tilt as a replacement for the joystick--we tilt left, we tilt right--and everyone tried it and it's like, 'This is crap. I don't want to play this.'"

But instead of just doing the logical thing of scrapping the idea of making Lair con

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[Mongoose Disciple (722373)]

Or: it could be that the controls are genuinely bad or inaccessible.

Different can be good. Different is not automatically good. I can take a crap on your desk and tell you you're stupid or hate originality if you don't love it, but that doesn't make it true.

I would say that this:

You weren't good with a D-pad when Nintendo came out, you weren't good with an Analog Stick when Dual Shock came out, and you weren't good with Sixaxis when Sixaxis came out.

is probably true, but with respect to game developers,

"Is there a game..."

[nweaver (113078)]

Is there a game, with the exception of Wii Sports, that you've been thrilled that there's no option to go back to a regular d-pad?

Yes. Metroid Prime III

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[moderatorrater (1095745)]

WarioWare

Re:"Is there a game..."

[Tadrith (557354)]

Seconded.

Retro did an absolutely amazing job using the Wiimote in Metroid Prime 3. The smoothness, the reaction time, it was absolutely perfect. I was dreading it for a while after seeing what it was like playing Red Steel, but it was nothing like that. Some of the most fun gaming I've had in a long time.

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[Itchyeyes (908311)]

They mention that in the podcast. Levine admits that he has not played it yet.

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[MemoryDragon (544441)]

Super Paper Mario... they added a lot of useful functionality to the D-Pad, Zelda also works exceptionally well. Rayman Raving Rabbits basically lives from the Wiis Control scheme, just check out how poorly the game works on other platforms than the Wii. Resident Evil 4 also works better on the Wii than on any other system. Also on the DS it finally is possible to play strategy and point and click games decently, many games which use the pad as mouse replacement work exceptionally well, those which dont wor

For a second, I thought this guy was Hitler

[by Anonymous Coward]

Then I realized he wasn't defending Dragon's Lair

Hell, anyone who could defend the control scheme of Dragon's Lair, probably eats puppies for breakfast.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

[PlatyPaul (690601)]

From TFA:

Is there a game, with the exception of Wii Sports, that you've been thrilled that there's no option to go back to a regular d-pad?

Yes [wikipedia.org], there [wikipedia.org] definitely [wikipedia.org] is [wikipedia.org].

Why does he think the d-pad can necessarily provide better control? The issue isn't that motion controls are by-nature loose; it's that developers are new to doing it right. Lair sucked because they did it wrong, pure and simple, and it might (or might not) have been OK if they'd worked harder at really nailing it.

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[Sciros (986030)]

It depends entirely on the game, of course, but it IS true that a lot of developers have been utilizing the DS touch screen and Wiimote seemingly just for the sake of utilizing them, and to no good effect.

Think Castlevania for the DS with the "trace this BS shape to finish off the boss" mechanic that we all fell in love with (just kidding WTF was with that) or the "press the screen to change map types" functionality in Mario Kart DS or the horriblicious controls for games like Mario Hoops 3v3. There are man

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[geeknado (1117395)]

You're probably correct-- the developers are new to doing it "right". Given that that's the case, is it really good business to force them to adopt new control strategies, good or bad, before they're really ready for them? By doing so, it seems to me that a) many potentially good games will suffer for these directives and b) the merits of these control schemes in general may be unfairly called into question due to bad experiences with these games.

IMO, motion sensitive controls work best when we're capturing

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[p0tat03 (985078)]

I haven't played some of the games on the list, but I can tell you that RE4's motion controls, while well done, was not superior to the traditional gamepad, IMHO at least. At no moment did I ever go "thank God they invented motion controls, or otherwise this game would be significantly inferior!", and in fact in a few moments i truly wished I had a control pad.

d-pad

[HeronBlademaster (1079477)]

I played some Mario game or other on my little brother's DS a few months ago, and I was absolutely confused by its insistence that you actually use the touch screen to work the menu. Intuitively, if a menu item is highlighted by default (and it was), using the d-pad should change which menu item is selected... but it didn't.

I absolutely hate the whole "use the [touch screen/motion sensor/whatever] just because it's there" fad. It drives me insane.

I haven't tried Metroid Prime III yet, so I can't say wheth

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[Cecil (37810)]

I fail to see how the Wiimote could provide a good duel experience with light sabers. You'd have no feedback when you hit your opponent's light saber. Your arm would continue to swing while your on-screen avatar's saber is blocked by your opponent's, and more than likely, if you move your hands back to match what shows on-screen, it'll move your saber while you do that in a direction you don't intend.

First of all, "no feedback" is not entirely true. The Wiimote has a pretty intense rumble ability. And what'

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[Altus (1034)]

I will agree with you, but it would be even more annoying if the opposite was true. If you couldn't use the touch screen.

most of the games on the wii allow for both pointer and d-pad driven navigation. Its good to have choices.

I hate the menu navigation in Tiger Woods 08 (for the Wii). So far the rest of the game has been ok (Ive only just started playing it) but the menus are a pain in the ass.

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[rjung2k (576317)]

"Intuitively, if a menu item is highlighted by default (and it was), using the d-pad should change which menu item is selected..."

This is only "intuitive" after you've spent years being accustomed to using D-pad-based control schemes. For ordinary non-geek mortals, the "intuitive" response when seeing a control is to *cough* touch it.

From someone who actually listened to the podcast

[Itchyeyes (908311)]

As someone who actually listened to the podcast, I can say that I distinctly did not get the impression that Levine was defending Lair's control scheme as a good control scheme. He was just making the point that Factor 5 might have been pressured into using the tilt controls. He, in no way, defended how poorly of a job they did implementing the tilt controls. The headline and the quote in the summary are completely out of context.

Re:From someone who actually listened to the podca

[1019 (262204)]

The headline and the quote in the summary are completely out of context.

On Slashdot? IMPOSSIBLE!

Lair's problems

[by Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, the control scheme isn't Lair's problem. I've got the game, and have played through most of it. The control scheme does have a high learning curve, but once I got used to it, it seemed realistic, like steering a dragon.

Lair's real problems are elsewhere. The biggest annoyance is the way the damn thing inserts ten second cut scenes in haphazardly during combat. You'll be in intense combat, trying to get a bead on something and suddenly you're looking at some stupid scene about something blowing

Give the novel controllers a rest already

[RogueyWon (735973)]

I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion around these parts, but I feel that the emphasis on so-called "innovative" controllers in the gaming market over the last 12 months or so has been a terrible thing for games in general. Lair is a particularly bad example - what could have been a servicable, perhaps even decent game crippled by a control system that is agonising at best. I had a horrible feeling that Heavenly Sword was going to be ruined by the same crap, until I found the option to turn the motion-sensing stuff off. Now, part of this is down to just how sheer bloody awful the motion sensing functions of the Sixaxis are, but Wii games are, in many ways, just as bad. Certainly, after the first two hours of Zelda, the novelty had worn off, my elbow was getting tired and I was desperate for a sensible controller. With the exception of Resident Evil 4, I've yet to play a *proper* Wii game (as opposed to one of those all-pervading tech-demo-cum-party-game atrocities) where the controller actually added to the experience, rather than being a distraction.

Fancy controllers might be ok for games which get dragged out once every couple of months when you have friends over and nothing better to do, but for those who, like myself, like to put in a substantial amount of time every week gaming, you just can't beat either a traditional two-analogue-sticks console controller or a keyboard and mouse combo. Far more precision, far less hassle and far more engagement. Right now, the best console controller on the market is the 360 controller, hands down.

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[Quiet_Desperation (858215)]

Kinesophobes should take the plunge or not play.

Oh, God, another false dichotomy! Can we divide and conquer ourselves in any more ways?