An Ongoing Tribute to my own lameness.....

General random thoughts about gaming, both within and outside of the MMO genre.

Author: Jimmy_Scythe

I'm going to kick off this rant with a bit of heresy: A complicated interface alone does not make a game deep.

Got it? Get it? Good.

I say this because I notice that whenever the subject of MMOs on consoles comes up, someone always has to point out the difference in controls. There seems to be some odd belief that a 4 axis, 12 button controller is not as "smart" as a 110 keyboard and mouse set up. Personally, I think it's a load of bullshit.

For starters, some of the deepest PC games I have ever played required nothing more than pointing and clicking. Sim City, Heroes of Might and Magic, Civ3, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, XCom, etc., only required a two or three button mouse. Yes, BG and NWN did allow you to use the keyboard, but it wasn't an absolute requirement for getting through the single player campaigns. It really wasn't a requirement online either. Even some of the more recent RTS games don't require you to learn more than 12 hotkeys.

Let's take this in another direction. Let's put Street Fighter on the Keyboard and mouse control. Actually, let's just put it on the keyboard. Now, rather than having to pull off a complicated button combination to perform a special move, you just hit a hot key and the special move plays out. Is the game better or worse? Does it take more skill, or less skill to play? Obviously, the keyboard does not really add anything to the game other than a longer learning curve for the player that has to remember all the hotkeys. Once that's done, the game becomes a skill-less button mashing contest.

Now let's turn our attention to Diablo. Now we all know and agree that the PSX version of Diablo sucked. However, this development house, under the name of Snowblind Studios, applied the Diablo formula to four games for the PS2. These games were Baldur's Gate: Dark Allaince (1&2) and Champions of Norrath (1&2). What's really interesting here is that the controls actually expanded on the Diablo style of gameplay by adding the abilities to jump, actively block, and instantly switch between ranged and melee weapons. furthermore, you could also quaff health and mana potions on the fly in the same way that you could in Diablo.

Oh, I almost forgot!! The most popular PC game of all time was simply point and click! The Sims never required that the user punch a single key on the keyboard. The player interacted with the game through a series of context sensitive radial menus. That's a pretty simple and intuitive control scheme given the amount of actions that a player can perform in that game. This idea of maximizing the level of interactivity in a game while, at the same time, minimizing the control scheme is actually central to Nintendo's current marketing strategy. Funny thing is, it seems to be working.

Go check out Advanced Wars: Dual Strike or Age of Empires 2 DS if you really think that the actual controller determines the depth of gameplay. Both games are very deep and require no more of the gamer than to point at the screen. Or go download Virtual Villagers, Geneforge 2, or Oasis for the PC. The ability to point and one or two buttons are really the only thing required.

A games depth is ultimately determined by the number of options available and the mechanics behind the way those options interact. Just like your car; it's not the steering wheel, but the engine and the tires that define the quality.