Frenetic Pony

This is the new (console) shit!

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Yeah, I want to keep my left trigger for the grenades. That's how Halo is meant to be. I'm fine with the CoD thing of putting melee on there, as typically when I'm put into a situation where I'd want to use melee it's a bit of a shock anyway and my hands just naturally clench a bit, which triggers an accidental but helpful melee attack. Intelligent control mapping can make a big difference. That said, the sticks are easily the most misused "buttons" in control design, and I think that with very few exceptions I'd consider them a detraction from my gaming experience rather than a benefit.

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That said, the sticks are easily the most misused "buttons" in control design

Also: the d-pad, or as I like to call it, the "lets map random shit to these buttons" pad. I think it used to be worse early in the generation (left = night vision!, right = MAP!). These days the mapping makes a little more sense, like left/right to cycle weapons, or the Gears of War style weapon selection mapping.

I get that the stick buttons are important, but they're badly designed buttons. Also, they're not discoverable! Ideally, we'd get rid of them entirely, but maybe it's possible to make them work better? (think Xbox dpad vs Nintendo dpad)

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I get that the stick buttons are important, but they're badly designed buttons. Also, they're not discoverable! Ideally, we'd get rid of them entirely, but maybe it's possible to make them work better? (think Xbox dpad vs Nintendo dpad)

First time a game told me to press "L3" I must've examined my controller for like 15 minutes before I decided to google what the hell L3 was supposed to be. I have to admit I kind of like them for things like sprinting and instant-actions like the knife in Call of Duty, but I'm sure there is a better solutions... Someone think of it!

The gamecube shoulder buttons were a good mention. They were some of the most comfortable shoulder buttons in existence too.

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The whole d-pad thing is another weird issue. Nintendo has a patent on their d-pad, and it's led to everybody else having to come up with alternate solutions. The Sony d-pad i find really uncomfortable and mushy, but it's functional. The Microsoft d-pads are just the absolute bottom of the barrel though, they are completely useless for the things you need to use a d-pad for. (I think their revised d-pad on the newer 360 pads was a big step in the right direction, though.)

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Actually, that's one thing about the Vita. Sony finally got the d-pad right. It feels great. Which is weird, because the PSP's is one of the worst d-pads I've ever used.

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That patent expired in 2005. and companies could have licensed the technology. The Gravis Gamepad used a d-pad very similar to the Nintendo one, not sure if they licensed the patent, but the d-pad is great.

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The whole d-pad thing is another weird issue. Nintendo has a patent on their d-pad, and it's led to everybody else having to come up with alternate solutions.

Oh yeah, I'm aware of the history. What I'm saying is that there's more than one way to approach a problem, and it's possible that there's a better solution for the L3/R3 buttons.

That patent expired in 2005. and companies could have licensed the technology. The Gravis Gamepad used a d-pad very similar to the Nintendo one, not sure if they licensed the patent, but the d-pad is great.

Huh, now this I wasn't aware of! Hopefully this means the new consoles will all have decent dpads.

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That patent expired in 2005. and companies could have licensed the technology. The Gravis Gamepad used a d-pad very similar to the Nintendo one, not sure if they licensed the patent, but the d-pad is great.

It might just be sunk-cost fallacy with the big names. They've had to develop their own D-pad design, who cares if it's inferior now?

I was also going to mention "not invented here" syndrome, but that's maybe too many corporate-culture buzzwords.

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That patent expired in 2005. and companies could have licensed the technology. The Gravis Gamepad used a d-pad very similar to the Nintendo one, not sure if they licensed the patent, but the d-pad is great.

I don't know that it was really all that similar to the Nintendo d-pad, but the Gravis Gamepad was a phenomenal little controller. I still keep mine around for nostalgia's sake, i never even lost/broke the little screw-on joystick like most people.

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The Microsoft d-pads are just the absolute bottom of the barrel though, they are completely useless for the things you need to use a d-pad for. (I think their revised d-pad on the newer 360 pads was a big step in the right direction, though.)

I don't know which version of the 360 gamepad I have, but even the simplest actions like changing the weapon in Assassin's Creed are a pain with that D-pad. I can't even imagine using it for more complicated tasks.

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The revised 360 pad has the "transforming" d-pad. By default, it's a disc like the old style of Microsoft d-pads, but you can twist it and cause the corners to sink away, making it feels like a proper cross pad. It's also generally just much more responsive and comfortable to use.

I still couldn't imagine playing a fighting game with it, it's still too mushy for input demands that precise, but i think it works pretty well with mostly everything else. I don't feel like it's an impediment when i use it to play scrolling shooters and 2d platformers, which i couldn't say about the original d-pad. It still falls short of the DualShock and Nintendo d-pads though.

Here it is.

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What's the general verdict on those revised 360 controllers? I've still got my original controller that came with my first-gen 360, but it's starting to get pretty creaky. Is it worth stepping up to the new one before this one dies, or should I just ride it out?

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If you need a new 360 controller anyways, there's no reason not to find one with the revised d-pad. It's a significant improvement over the original 360 d-pad.

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This means nothing to me, Oh Vienna

Are you singing, oh Vienna are you swinging, Oh Vienna, we were happy like the shape of May, when you got carried away...

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Bluray drive..? Really? Why don't they release a BD add-on for the 360 then?

I don't really understand your question. Why would they?

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Yeah I don't follow either. That's a bit like asking why they didn't release a DVD add-on for the PS1 when they announced that the PS2 would have a DVD drive. It's fairly normal to move to the latest optical standard with a new generation isn't it? Unless you're Nintendo of course, in which case you use an almost-but-not-quite version of the latest standard.

Anyway, it's good that the Durango Blu-ray drive will support 6x. That's three times the speed of the PS3's, which as we all know is so slow you often need to install games onto the HD to get acceptable performance. It's clearly dual-layer too, hence 50GB instead of 25GB. Wonder if the optical drive is potentially geared up to support quad-layer (100GB!), seems like they'd be crazy to not at least put the possibility in place. Of course that's all kinds of pain for any digital distribution plans, but the capacity being there is exciting.

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