Why Can't All Video Games Have Fully Customizable Controls?

[Xeogred]

Funny thing about Silent Hill 5 was that it was bugged so you couldn't invert the y-axis controls, you could select it in the options but it'd do nothing. I played it years after it released and they didn't even bother to patch that up. Are you freaking kidding me? It made the game unplayable to me, at least have that option available of all things.

I laugh out loud a little when some games give you a controller menu for the buttons and have ZERO customization, like the new Deus Ex on consoles.

[Hobie-wan]

From talking to all of my programming friends about this over the past decade and a half, it is literately a couple if statements per control, literally about half a day of work for a programmer and an artist/animator.

Indeed. Let's look at part of the config file from the PC version of Quake from 1996 shall we?

bind "a" "+moveleft"
bind "c" "+movedown"
bind "d" "+moveright"
bind "s" "+back"
bind "t" "messagemode"
bind "w" "+forward"
bind "z" "+lookdown"
bind "~" "toggleconsole"
bind "UPARROW" "+forward"
bind "DOWNARROW" "+back"
bind "LEFTARROW" "+left"
bind "RIGHTARROW" "+right"
bind "ALT" "+strafe"
bind "CTRL" "+attack"
bind "SHIFT" "+speed"

That's pretty simple. Assigning an input button/key to the internal programmatic name of a control. Here's part of the 1999 PC Unreal Tournament INI file that does more or less the same thing.

LeftMouse=Fire
RightMouse=AltFire
MiddleMouse=MoveForward
Tab=Type
Enter=InventoryActivate
Shift=Walking
Ctrl=Jump
Alt=Fire
Pause=Pause
CapsLock=LookToggle
Escape=ShowMenu
Space=Jump

In both of these cases it is built into the engine so any game using that engine gets the same benefits. Games these days are more often than not built with engines and use plugins for parts of the games like file handling, sound, and playing videos. I'm sure in a lot of cases, even on consoles, that someone can write "Bob's input recombobulation module" that people could use like games use Physx or Havoc physics engines.

[Xeogred]

I love me some config files. So easy to mess with things, haha.

[CRTGAMER]

Sept 20,2011
Am I the only one who has ever wondered this?

I mean, it's 2011. Is it really that hard for dev's to add fully customizable controls into every game - that way nobody could ever complain about awkward or shitty preset controls?

At least give me credit
I wrote about this just five days prior in another Thread during my review of a FPS game.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 94#p482894

Why The Conduit's Controls are Unparalleled

The best part is the Wii controls are fully customizable! This reminds me of PS1 Descent with all the custom controls.

All games should work this way
Every button can be customized. Even the motion sensors can be changed to any function!

All controls should be included in the customize options. Let the gamer decide how to play a game. How about Classic Controller support for ALL Wii games? Taken a step further, maybe all controllers including Arcade Sticks and even older controllers that plug directly in a given console? A great example would be the old PSX Flightstick which has an undocumented feature that also works on a few PS2 games. I covered this in the PS2 Special Editions Guide.

[jfrost]

Even when companies do implement customizable controls, sometimes they do it in an ass-backwards way. They make us circle between all possible actions for a button, instead of making us press the button we want for a given action.

Fighting games are particularly guilty of this.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Sept 20,2011
Am I the only one who has ever wondered this?

I mean, it's 2011. Is it really that hard for dev's to add fully customizable controls into every game - that way nobody could ever complain about awkward or shitty preset controls?

At least give me credit
I wrote about this just five days prior in another Thread during my review of a FPS game.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 94#p482894

Why The Conduit's Controls are Unparalleled

The best part is the Wii controls are fully customizable! This reminds me of PS1 Descent with all the custom controls.

All games should work this way
Every button can be customized. Even the motion sensors can be changed to any function!

All controls should be included in the customize options. Let the gamer decide how to play a game. How about Classic Controller support for ALL Wii games? Taken a step further, maybe all controllers including Arcade Sticks and even older controllers that plug directly in a given console? A great example would be the old PSX Flightstick which has an undocumented feature that also works on a few PS2 games. I covered this in the PS2 Special Editions Guide.

I actually never saw your posting on that. But I'm glad many of us are on the same page. Half-Life on the PS2 also had fully customizable controls, and that was a very early PS2 game. Makes me wonder why so few FPS games have followed suit since then. But like others have already mentioned, a lot of it is probably just lazy programming.

[Erik_Twice]

Because the suits don't care at all. Which is dumb, I have seen so many games panned because they had poor controls that the risk is not worth it. On the very lest if you do a PC port and you don't do that they rip you apart.

But the suits don't care. They just say, hey, you, do this part and you do this one. And they never give anyone a "make customizable controls" part because they don't even know about it.


Anyways, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I have noticed a lack of polish in many modern games. There's less love, so as to speak. This indicates faults in the design process and the way the industry is organized.

[fastbilly1]

A great example would be the old PSX Flightstick which has an undocumented feature that also works on a few PS2 games. I covered this in the PS2 Special Editions Guide.

R-type final also uses the flight stick

[CRTGAMER]

A great example would be the old PSX Flightstick which has an undocumented feature that also works on a few PS2 games. I covered this in the PS2 Special Editions Guide.

R-type final also uses the flight stick

There were several PS2 games that worked with the old Flightstick in the digital mode. However the only game that utilized true analog controls with the Flightstick is XGIII Extreme G Racing. RType uses Analog and Digital, but the Analog mode works as digital only one speed. XGIII has proportional steering with the Flightstick, the more you push the stick the more the cycle turns.

[Inazuma]

This old flight stick you guys are talking about...

Are you talking about the PS1 Analog Controller, that giant controller with 2 analog sticks? "Analog Controller" was really a horrible name for that thing. >_>