Certainly, it’s easy to tell when a game responds badly – to
someone used to playing games it can be obvious within a few minutes of
gameplay how responsive the controls are. However, this assessment is hardly
objective, because it’s based on the perspective of someone biased toward games
they have already played.
There are certain controller mechanics that have become
standardised across multiple games, but it’s unclear whether these continue to
be used because they’re the best way of doing things or simply because they’re
what people are used to. Nobody likes change, gamers less than anybody.
Even with PC games that all use the WASD movement keys,
something as simple as a different key from jumping can feel off-putting when
switching from one game to another. In something as diverse as combat mechanics,
what one person finds fluid might feel clunky and restrictive to another, but
that doesn’t mean those mechanics are bad.
The question is, what do we really mean by intuitive? For someone used to using a computer, when they’re controlling the cursor, they decide where they want it do go and move it – they don’t think about the mechanical aspects of their hand pushing and pulling the mouse. For someone used to playing a certain kind of game, the controls may become second nature. For someone who is not familiar with games, almost any game will feel clumsy at first.
Possibly then, one measure of how intuitive a game is could be
how quickly the average person can get acclimatised to it, but that is
difficult to measure. Simple games might be learnt in a few minutes, but then be
limited to very basic input, while other game could take several days to learn
fully, but once everything is learned fully and being used in the right way, be
a lot less frustrating and a more enjoyable experience. Think of it as
comparing ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors” to Chess.
Of course, this is where a good tutorial can help to ease someone into the controls, allowing them to learn simple interactions at first such as movement and working up to more complicated functions such as hotkeys and the like.
Personally, I can’t stand using a console controller. I made
it through Assassin’s creed II on the PS3 simply because I wanted to see what
happened, but found it a lot more enjoyable playing subsequent games on the PC,
simply because I wasn’t fighting with a controller that felt like it wanted to
jump out of my hands.
On the other hand, playing the first Assassin’s Creed game
on PS3 for a short while was what convinced me to actually get the game for PC.
I managed to actually pick up the base mechanics pretty quickly. Assassin’s
Creed did actually make an attempt to change the way its mechanics worked, with
the context-sensitive controls, and compared to other console games I’ve tried
playing I found them fairly user-friendly.
Its controls are certainly different; if I play assassin’s
creed and they switch to a more typical game, it takes a while for me to stop
pressing the mouse buttons trying to sprint.
There have always been attempts to introduce new ideas into
gaming mechanics, especially in the early days of consoles; it’s just that few
of them have been financially successful. The few that were successful carried
on and evolved.
This could be taken as proof that the most common mechanics
we use now are just the best way to do things, but equally those consoles’
failure could be down to the limitations of the technology of the time, or the
limited market back then. Look at the Virtual Boy for an example, which was
basically the Oculus Rift MK 1, and was a commercial failure.
More recently there have been innovative new consoles which
have been a success, such as the wii. One thing to note though is the audience
for these games is somewhat more broad than for other consoles – in particular,
it targets families and children, people who are less likely to have tried more
generic consoles, and experience the games without preconceived notions.
However, perhaps it’s more fair to attribute the wii’s
success simply to how easy it is to use. Compared to other console handsets,
with buttons on every available surface, the WII controller looks relatively
unintimidating.
The games are fairly simple, if the one game I’ve played is
anything to go with (Wii bowling, for ten minutes or so while I was doing work
experience) and tend to have easily understood concepts, such as sports, which
people are already somewhat familiar with.
Kinect, like the Wii, is another non-typical method of controlling
games. It detects both movement and voice commands, and can be integrated into
some pre-existing games.
The oculus rift is another recent introduction. It’s mainly
caters towards immersion, but it also allows the player to look around my
moving their head. This is obviously a much more instinctive way of looking
around than manipulating a joystick or a mouse, and it frees up part of the
control for some other use, such as moving around of selecting objects in-game.
It does, of course, completely obscure the player’s vision. While there are
plenty of people who can use a keyboard or controller without looking, many can’t,
especially if trying to use hotkeys, or buttons that are used infrequently.
Sometimes it simply comes down to whether you want a
simulation that mimics reality as closely as possible, or something with more
options. Not all games are looking for the same things.
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