I find it rather ridiculous that with all his bluster he never points out that the developers of Bionic Commando were stupid enough to map movement to the right analog stick and movement to the left analog stick, which is contrary to just about every game ever made on a dual-stick console. I like the Overthinker and I think he made some valid points (like why should there be an "evade" button when you can simply just get out of the way with movement?), but this video just felt like a lot of nostalgic whining about "how much better we all were back in the good ol' days." The problem isn't that there are a lot of functions now mapped to a lot of buttons, but that they can be mapped in such a way that it's not intuitive to use them. Clearly Bionic Commando doesn't do that. As for the "jump" button in Bionic Commando, it's there because people mocked the original game for you not being able to jump. Maybe it could have worked with auto-jumping, maybe not.
I think you missed the point. He wasn't whining about games being better back then, he was stating that some of the games the industry have claimed to be the best ever are those that have easy to learn controls that added more depth and playability than games that had messy control layouts (as evidence by Bionic Commando).
He's pretty much telling game designers to not be afraid of making games with simple controls and to not try and create a messy configuration that will in the end limit your audience.
I don't see anything remotely nostalgic about that.
No, I got his point about how gamers shouldn't have to fight the control scheme but the challenges in the game itself. He also points out that developers should use controls as they need them rather than just using commands for the sake of it. That's fine. I just think he could have used more modern games to illustrate his point, like Smash Bros. Brawl compared to Street Fighter or whatnot. The problem with using classic NES-era games as examples is that those games didn't use simple controls because that's what the developers wanted. They used simple controls because that's all they had, since the NES only had 2 action buttons. When given the option of using more buttons with later consoles, the developers have clearly preferred to use more buttons to better incorporate their design. So why not use a modern game with a streamlined control scheme to illustrate your point, like say...Batman: Arkham Asylum?
Why he chooses to devote a video to such a generally-awful game as Bionic Commando (which sold so poorly the studio that made it has shut down) instead of something that got a better public reception like Splinter Cell or Devil May Cry, is beyond me. People didn't buy Bionic Commando, so why use it as an example of how the industry is going in the wrong direction? And by the way, Overthinker, the original NES Bionic Commando wasn't well-known for being spectacularly easy to control, either.
He's also completely wrong when he says the Ocarina of Time, one of the greatest games of all time, "only uses two action buttons." No, it does not. It uses one context-sensitive button for general commands (A), one button for sword attacks (B), 1 trigger/shoulder button for camera lock-on (Z/L), 1 button for manual blocking (R), 1 button for a help button (C Up), and
3 buttons for additional weapon usage (the 3 remaining C buttons). That's a lot of buttons for your typical gamer to remember, but it works because the controls are logically laid-out and intuitive with images of the buttons at the top of the screen so you always know what they do.
We don't need more "simple games". We already have an entire
console dedicated to nothing but them (the Wii, although it is getting better in this regard), along with two robust online services on the PS3 (PSN) and Xbox 360 (Xbox LIVE). I don't mind a game with complicated controls if I'm not spending more time fighting them than I am the game itself (especially Quick-Time Events, one of the worst things our industry has ever come up with).
Topic: The "Game Overthinker" Thread (Read 20325 times)
