EDIT: The below was written a week after an unpleasant experience playing the game so I must clear up that there is indeed some camera tracking with movement, specifically turning. However the character still controls independently of the camera since you can make it off-centre and run at weird angles. After a little investigation it turns out this is because of the PC version's mouse controls - strangely enough with a controller, movement of the camera with the right stick reverts to centre after the stick is released, which is possibly the reason many Steam reviews suggest playing with a controller. It must however be the only reason as everything else is still just as horrible only now you're aiming with your thumb instead of your whole hand.
I still feel my complaints are justified and that my criticism stands because the controls are still not great and they are not the only problem with the game, just the most immediately noticeable.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:
If anyone had actually watched my streams of RE4 they might wonder why I complain so much about their beloved game experience, so for those weirdos who have actually seen my atrocious gameplay I thought I'd clarify. The control scheme for RE4 is bad. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if the game weren't constantly foisting combat upon the player, but it does and it highlights how bad the game controls for action.
Most significantly, the character moves independently of the camera, which is a holdover from the previous games and their fixed camera angles. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact the you are also given control of the camera. When you turn, the camera stays in place, the only time character movement and camera movement coincides is when you're running, and due to the fairly large turning circle, the camera doesn't move very quickly - which is probably why they only matched the camera to movement under those circumstances, since it would be easier.
Now what this means is that during combat situations (of which there are many) you can't easily respond to threats because spotting them doesn't correspond to moving away or towards them. It does correspond to aiming - which is really the only reason I can see that you have control of the camera in the first place - however aiming always roots you in place and further restricts your view to allow for "precision" aiming. I say "precision" because it is a bit wobbly and while there is a laser sight it's not always easy to spot - basically it turns a marginally accurate shooter such as myself into an even more marginally accurate shooter.
This move to more accurate aiming is likely what most people found to be an improvement for the series, however with the restricted viewpoint and awkward movement it turns being surrounded by enemies into a mess of frustration. I may have said this elsewhere but: if you're more afraid of the mechanics of a game than of the content, it's not a scary game, just a bad one. Fighting the controls at the same time as trying to fight enemies is not fun. I know that it's supposed to be survival horror, but the real horror is the control scheme. As I said above - if the game wasn't constantly throwing enemies at you the controls would totally serviceable, but as it stands they are a hindrance. Limited resources can make a scary game as long as there's also limited combat, but the resources aren't all that limited in RE4 (although I'm only playing it on "Normal") and the combat is frequent.
In a nutshell: the amount of action in RE4 really should have a better action game control scheme. That is without all the added frustration of sudden quick-time events and escort missions (not really missions as such, just action sections where you have to protect someone, but "escort mission" is a more recognised term). The controls didn't have to conform to the whole strafing movement model, but having control of the camera relate to control of the character is a much better option.
That all took a little longer than I anticipated but as a final thought I wanted to make reference as to why the "tank" controls and fixed cameras were used by Resident Evil in the first place. The short answer is because of Alone In The Dark. The slightly longer answer is that Alone used fixed cameras because it was rendering a 3D environment (a very early 3D rendering), and that is easier to do if the camera doesn't move. The Resident Evil developers managed to make a more detailed environment by not actually rendering the environment but using high resolution (for the time) images and mapping player paths into the rendered image.
The point being that when you have a fixed camera, controlling your character relative to themselves works fine, especially since Alone didn't focus too much on combat. None of those technical limitations were a problem for the team making Resident Evil 4 and there was no need to retain the controls traditional to the series.
So I guess in summary: my gripe with the game has nothing really to do with the content and everything to do with actually controlling and playing the game. So if you enjoy watching someone not have fun while sucking at games, I guess you'll like my play of RE4, maybe?
No comments:
Post a Comment