12th January 2014, 10:29 PM
Well, it depends on what you need to control. A mouse is great for aiming, but terrible for direct control of a character. There's a reason "dual mouse" setups never really caught on. Joysticks and analog sticks really do seem to be the ideal way to control a character in a 3D game, without the awkwardness of needing to move a mouse "back to center" to stop moving (which involves a lot of overshooting and correction to get it just so since there is no "feedback" indicating where "center" is). Mouse is best for camera, and a d-pad is still the best way to handle a side scroller. I'm still not sure whether d-pads or an arcade stick work better for fighting games...
Suffice it to say that there's a wide variety of control schemes, each tailored to a specific task. The biggest problem with modern controller design is that too many forget this and try a "one size fits all approach, as Valve has done, and end up with one that only really works in a very narrow range.
Suffice it to say that there's a wide variety of control schemes, each tailored to a specific task. The biggest problem with modern controller design is that too many forget this and try a "one size fits all approach, as Valve has done, and end up with one that only really works in a very narrow range.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)