I want to go to Birmingham, but here I am at Crewe

[venta]

This weekend, among other things, I have been playing Portal on the Xbox 360. This may surprise people who know my computer-game playing habits (or, rather, the lack of them).

It's a fun game, it's a fun concept. I like the puzzle-solving aspects of it. I'm amused by the strange, sing-song, deadpan commentary from the test supervisor. I like cake.

What I don't like, however, is actually having to play it. If, like me, you haven't significantly played any games since pixellated graphics went out of fashion, you'll be completely bewildered by the concept of two analogue sticks. One controls the way you're moving, one controls the way you're looking; apparently this is pretty standard in this day and age.

I've never got on well with FPSs. I remember, many years ago, watching failmaster playing Quake and wondering how on earth he didn't get dizzy with the wildly scrolling background. I've still never quite got over this. In Portal (where "up" is a slightly fluid concept) I'm continually disorientated.

Fortunately Portal has no timer, so I can move very slowly and sedately and look about me carefully. At least, some of the time I can. The rest of the time I accidentally walk left when I meant to look left and fall off a platform and die. No, this doesn't get any better. I'm up to level 14 and I'm still walking into walls and falling off things.

To make things worse, the camera view works backwards the entire time. Apparently this is a well-documented problem with up/down: some people think that pulling the stick down should make you look up, some people think that pulling the stick up should make you look up. Accordingly, there are two modes: you can set the up/down to work either way. My problem is similar, but with left/right. Apparently this is not a well-documented problem, and pulling the stick left makes you non-negotiably look left. (Irrelevantly, perusing the configurable bits there is also a "Duck Mode". This is very disappointing if you're me.)

So, a typical few minues of me playing Portal will feature me blundering around, walking sideways a lot, looking up when I meant to look down, turning all the way around a bit, flailing about, and falling to my death. There have been several occasions where I've solved the puzzle, but the difficult part has been actually getting through the portal I've placed. I'm sure that's not meant to be the difficult part.

I'm looking forward to the cake, though :)

Comments

[pm215]

A lot of people say that the fps-bits of Portal are really quite simple. I think this is because they've done a lot of FPS-ing and therefore doing it not at high speed is very straightforward.

I did find using a trackball for camera-direction and keyboard for the rest worked acceptably well (trackball seems more intuitive than the mouse for this to me).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, watching ChrisC (whose 360 it was) waltzing around suggests that to those used to such things the navigation really isn't difficult at all. The question is really whether or not I care enough to put in the practice and become able at this.

I think I'd have to buy a separate PC copy to use a trackball (unless I could plug a USB trackball into a 360 ? I've really no idea).

[pm215]

Oh, I can't read, I didn't notice you were playing on a 360. Most people I know who've encountered it have done so on a PC. I don't think I'd much like playing it with a game-controller (and I have a feeling serious FPS weenies use a mouse and deride console-fpsen).

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Some weenies are serious about FPSs on consoles. I'm led to believe that something called "Halo"(*) made a big noise(**), and it landed in a market already wise in the ways of console FPSs.

I can't be doing with them. When I look at something, I want to move my mouse directly to the thing I want to see. I don't want to push a joystick, slooooowly rotate until I see the target, then release the joystick. In a submarine game I could understand it, because a periscope takes a bit of shifting, but how big must these people's hats be, given the apparent moment of inertia of their heads?

Mind you, PC FPSs lack the sheer analogue thrill of selecting from more than 8 (maybe 16 with "walk") possible deltas between your velocity and facing vectors.

* Apparently not a web browser.
** Even if certain management teams I could mention professed never to have heard of it.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

There is usually an option to reverse/invert the up-down problems somewhere. I also have the problem with left-right (which amazes metame, he can't think of any games which don't work that way round) and that doesn't usually have an invert option. Or at least not in my experience, I don't like FP and I don't really like S.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I found the option to invert up/down, but I thought it would be even more weird if up/down worked "correctly" and left/right didn't, so I went for consistency. There was indeed no option to invert left/right.

I don't have enough of opinion to know whether I like FP, and in Portal it's not really very S in the accepted sense :)

[zandev.livejournal.com]

Yes, the left-right for cameras IS a general problem with video games.

I don't particularly mind which it is, but there are a lot of games that are inconsistent with it and don't let you change it. Thus, if you play a lot of games, you will end up playing games that require both.

As to the up/down, I maintain that the one true way is pull back ('down') to look up. For the simple reason that this is how airplane controls work. Imagine yourself (or a plane) standing on top of the stick, and pulling back makes you look up.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

It makes a lot more sense on the PC where you move with the keyboard and look around with the mouse.

[john-the-hat.livejournal.com]

I used to play a ***LOT*** of FPS (£1400 phone bill anyone?) - there are utilities which will enable you to swap mouse controls all over the shop. It's been a while since I used them though, which probably means there are even more out there...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

There are two problems contributing to your woes here:

1) Portal was done by Valve^[1], whose heads live firmly in FPS-space. They doubtless saw no need to improve on the controls.

2) Portal is really a PC game. Using mouse to control look direction feels a lot more natural.

Apparently this is a well-documented problem with up/down: some people think that pulling the stick down should make you look up, some people think that pulling the stick up should make you look up.

Basing it on psychology is a bit of a stretch. What it's really about is aircraft controls. Pull back on a flight stick and your plane goes "up". Push forward for "down". But left and right roll you "left" and "right" respectively (which, barring aerobatics, is how you would turn left or right). This is likely why there's no left/right reverse option.

Ultimately most games with complex real-time controls work the same way, though: you either give up in frustration or you get to the point where you can control your character directly without thinking about what you're doing with the physical controller.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

[1] The footnote is a lie.

[pm215]

Which reminds me, presumably your 'in-joke' icon is itself an in-joke?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed.

The top half is a yak, which is a reference to the "sod this, I'm off to Guatemala to become a yak herder" line seen from time to time on various LJs (esp. lanfykins) in response to 'interesting' times.

The bottom half is an Uruk-Hai. It's a reference to two_nukes's offhand remark that he actually found them quite fanciable. (But that entertaining 10000 of them might be quite tiring.)

The icon as a whole reads "yak slash uruk" (in the "slash fiction" sense). It was a verbal shorthand that got used in an LJ comment (probably by me, but I forget) as an approximate synonym for "obscure in-joke nobody will get". At which point I decided it needed to be an icon.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think you're right in general, but I've never flown an aircraft or played an aircraft sim. I just expect the background to scroll in the direction I move the stick - so moving it left will cause me to look right. I have no justification at all for this, as the way it does work seems sensible enough. It's just not instinctive.

Whether I'll persevere or not remains to be seen :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

In which case I'm more convinced you have a point than you are!

First rule of UI design: the way the user tries to use your system is the way it should work.

[zandev.livejournal.com]

The problem with left-right, is that it really isn't obvious which is correct for a third-person case.

If you consider that the camera control moves where you are looking, then left should look you to the left. However, if you consider that it should be moving the camera, then moving the camera to the right makes you look left.

[hjalfi.livejournal.com]

I have no justification at all for this, as the way it does work seems sensible enough. It's just not instinctive.

Nah, it's quite simple; the designers are assuming that moving the mouse moves the character's head, while you're assuming that moving the mouse moves the world. I'm sure this says something deeply psychological about someone or other.

Do persevere; it's awesome. I particularly like level 19. Do pay careful attention to the warning signs, though.

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

The whole up/down thing as bateleur has already sys depends on whether you grew up playing elite or not. Interestingly, the controls of a hang-glider work the opposite way round: pushing the bar forward makes you climb - which did my head in until I thought of the bar as the accsssing a joystick from underneath,

I do intermittently suffer from a similar left/right problem as you when I'm playing third-person games on a console. Sometimes I think "I want to see what's to the left" and push the camera joystick left. Other times I think "I want to rotate the camera clockwise around the hero" (i.e. look to the right of the hero) and press the camera joystick left. Rather tellingly thinking about it now, I'm still not sure which one is correct.

Which is why God intended us to play in first person with keyboard and mouse, and why third person games where you're forced to use clumsy joysticks are the devil's work. The worst of which was quake III on thee dreamcast which didn't have an invert Y-axis mode. So I'd wander around thinking "up means down, up means down" and play OK until I saw my mate, panic, try shooting him but end up taking out the floor or ceiling near me - often with a splash-effect weapon like a rocket launcher

[venta.livejournal.com]

I have never played Elite, yet I clearly expect the up/down thing to work in en Elite-like way. I'm obviously naturally retro, or built backwards or something.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Oh! Dr Beeching Mr Porter.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think you get at least a kudo and a half for that :)