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/u/Honest-Room-8924
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Wii Remote + Nunchuk was one of the most underrated FPS control schemes the industry ever had its hands on, and I think gaming left a lot on the table by not taking it further.
People hear “motion controls” and immediately think of waggle gimmicks. That is not what I mean. I mean actual pointer-based first person controls in games like GoldenEye 007, The Conduit, the Wii Call of Duty games, and even Metroid Prime 3, which was not a competitive shooter but still showed how damn good first person gameplay could feel with the Wii Remote.
The strength of that setup was obvious. You had analog movement in one hand and direct aiming in the other. That alone gave it a serious advantage over sticks. You were no longer dragging a reticle around with your thumbs and praying aim assist would finish the job. You could actually point, correct, track, and react in real time.
And the best Wii shooters were not just copying mouse aim. They had free aim. Your crosshair could move around the screen first, and only when it hit the edge would the camera start turning. That made the controls feel fluid in a way that neither sticks nor standard mouse aim really do. You got precision without losing that loose, aggressive feel.
That also made dynamic gunplay better. With sticks, spread and recoil are more of a fight because precision is limited from the start. With a mouse, you are still dealing with a pad, surface friction, and small overshoots. With the Wii Remote, you could make live adjustments in the air while firing. That made it easier to ride recoil, track movement, and compensate on the fly.
There were other advantages people ignore. The Wii Remote speaker added another layer of feedback. You were not just getting visual confirmation and TV audio. You were getting information directly through the controller in your hand. That tightens the whole feedback loop. Once you got good, the system let you aim, fire, confirm, and move on with real confidence.
The other thing people overlook is comfort. Mouse and keyboard has more binds, no question. That is its biggest real advantage, but, in terms of pure aiming and actual play feel, Wii pointer aiming was at least in the same conversation. For some people, it was more comfortable too. You were not locked into the same desk posture for hours grinding your wrist into the pad. The setup let you play in a looser, more natural way for longer stretches.
And I am not talking out of my ass here. I put hundreds of hours into GoldenEye 007 on Wii and spent a considerable amount of time at or near the top of the leaderboard before hackers ruined it. I got good enough with the controls that I ran the sensitivity all the way up and was making fast twitch reactions on people consistently. The skill ceiling was absurdly high. Honestly, even then, I still felt like the sensitivity cap was too low. That is how responsive the setup could get once you really mastered it.
Also, shout-out to Pandemonium, who was consistently at the top of the GoldenEye 007 leaderboards and hit the highest level before anybody else. Absolute poopsocking legend. Respect. I hope you're well.
That is why I do not buy the idea that this was just some novelty that only sounded good on paper. The hardware, games and results were already there. This isn't a hypothetical scenario, since this control style already proved itself with minimal support, weak online, and barely any serious long term investment.
It also wasn't just a Wii-specific fluke, since even Killzone 3 on PS Move helps the broader case. The implementation of the PS Move was more of an afterthought, a side implementation because Sony had the Move and needed games to support it. This game wasn't built from the ground-up with motion controls in mind. In my opinion, the PS Move did not feel as fluid as the Wii Remote, and the aiming felt a little laggier. That matters a lot in a twitchy first person shooter. Yet, even with that less elegant setup, and even with motion controls not being the main selling point of the experience, Killzone 3 still felt incredible to play on the PS Move. If an afterthought version of the idea could still work that well, then the core concept clearly had real strength.
I will go a step further. I think if this input style had actually been given time to mature, it could have gone toe to toe with mouse and keyboard and maybe even edge it out in online settings for some players. The aiming ceiling was that high. Give this style of input better hardware, stronger online support, more developer investment, and a young up-and-coming player with crazy reflexes, and I really think he could make short work of a lot of mouse and keyboard specialists before they even understood what kind of input they were dealing with.
The real reason it would struggle in formal tournament play is because it would be hard to standardize. Sensor placement, screen size, room setup, distance from the display, and player positioning all affect how it feels. That makes it much harder to replicate one player’s practiced setup in an official event environment. In online play, where everyone gets to use their own dialed-in setup, that problem mostly disappears.
I am not saying mouse and keyboard has no edge. It clearly does in bind count and overall input complexity. However, I do think Wii-style pointer aiming deserved a real lane in the evolution of FPS controls, and instead the industry basically let it die before it had the chance to mature.
That is why it still stands out and, in my opinion, it's the best input setup for first person shooters. It got scraps, and still delivered some of the most fun FPS gameplay around.
Edit: tl;dr: Wii Remote + Nunchuk was a better FPS input than standard sticks, had enough upside to contend with mouse and keyboard, and the industry killed it before it had a real chance to mature. GoldenEye 007, The Conduit, Metroid Prime 3, the Wii COD games, and even Killzone 3 with the worse PS Move setup all proved the concept worked. The hardware, games, and results were already there. The real problem was weak online, weak support, and the fact that the setup was hard to standardize for formal competition
submitted by /u/Honest-Room-8924
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People hear “motion controls” and immediately think of waggle gimmicks. That is not what I mean. I mean actual pointer-based first person controls in games like GoldenEye 007, The Conduit, the Wii Call of Duty games, and even Metroid Prime 3, which was not a competitive shooter but still showed how damn good first person gameplay could feel with the Wii Remote.
The strength of that setup was obvious. You had analog movement in one hand and direct aiming in the other. That alone gave it a serious advantage over sticks. You were no longer dragging a reticle around with your thumbs and praying aim assist would finish the job. You could actually point, correct, track, and react in real time.
And the best Wii shooters were not just copying mouse aim. They had free aim. Your crosshair could move around the screen first, and only when it hit the edge would the camera start turning. That made the controls feel fluid in a way that neither sticks nor standard mouse aim really do. You got precision without losing that loose, aggressive feel.
That also made dynamic gunplay better. With sticks, spread and recoil are more of a fight because precision is limited from the start. With a mouse, you are still dealing with a pad, surface friction, and small overshoots. With the Wii Remote, you could make live adjustments in the air while firing. That made it easier to ride recoil, track movement, and compensate on the fly.
There were other advantages people ignore. The Wii Remote speaker added another layer of feedback. You were not just getting visual confirmation and TV audio. You were getting information directly through the controller in your hand. That tightens the whole feedback loop. Once you got good, the system let you aim, fire, confirm, and move on with real confidence.
The other thing people overlook is comfort. Mouse and keyboard has more binds, no question. That is its biggest real advantage, but, in terms of pure aiming and actual play feel, Wii pointer aiming was at least in the same conversation. For some people, it was more comfortable too. You were not locked into the same desk posture for hours grinding your wrist into the pad. The setup let you play in a looser, more natural way for longer stretches.
And I am not talking out of my ass here. I put hundreds of hours into GoldenEye 007 on Wii and spent a considerable amount of time at or near the top of the leaderboard before hackers ruined it. I got good enough with the controls that I ran the sensitivity all the way up and was making fast twitch reactions on people consistently. The skill ceiling was absurdly high. Honestly, even then, I still felt like the sensitivity cap was too low. That is how responsive the setup could get once you really mastered it.
Also, shout-out to Pandemonium, who was consistently at the top of the GoldenEye 007 leaderboards and hit the highest level before anybody else. Absolute poopsocking legend. Respect. I hope you're well.
That is why I do not buy the idea that this was just some novelty that only sounded good on paper. The hardware, games and results were already there. This isn't a hypothetical scenario, since this control style already proved itself with minimal support, weak online, and barely any serious long term investment.
It also wasn't just a Wii-specific fluke, since even Killzone 3 on PS Move helps the broader case. The implementation of the PS Move was more of an afterthought, a side implementation because Sony had the Move and needed games to support it. This game wasn't built from the ground-up with motion controls in mind. In my opinion, the PS Move did not feel as fluid as the Wii Remote, and the aiming felt a little laggier. That matters a lot in a twitchy first person shooter. Yet, even with that less elegant setup, and even with motion controls not being the main selling point of the experience, Killzone 3 still felt incredible to play on the PS Move. If an afterthought version of the idea could still work that well, then the core concept clearly had real strength.
I will go a step further. I think if this input style had actually been given time to mature, it could have gone toe to toe with mouse and keyboard and maybe even edge it out in online settings for some players. The aiming ceiling was that high. Give this style of input better hardware, stronger online support, more developer investment, and a young up-and-coming player with crazy reflexes, and I really think he could make short work of a lot of mouse and keyboard specialists before they even understood what kind of input they were dealing with.
The real reason it would struggle in formal tournament play is because it would be hard to standardize. Sensor placement, screen size, room setup, distance from the display, and player positioning all affect how it feels. That makes it much harder to replicate one player’s practiced setup in an official event environment. In online play, where everyone gets to use their own dialed-in setup, that problem mostly disappears.
I am not saying mouse and keyboard has no edge. It clearly does in bind count and overall input complexity. However, I do think Wii-style pointer aiming deserved a real lane in the evolution of FPS controls, and instead the industry basically let it die before it had the chance to mature.
That is why it still stands out and, in my opinion, it's the best input setup for first person shooters. It got scraps, and still delivered some of the most fun FPS gameplay around.
Edit: tl;dr: Wii Remote + Nunchuk was a better FPS input than standard sticks, had enough upside to contend with mouse and keyboard, and the industry killed it before it had a real chance to mature. GoldenEye 007, The Conduit, Metroid Prime 3, the Wii COD games, and even Killzone 3 with the worse PS Move setup all proved the concept worked. The hardware, games, and results were already there. The real problem was weak online, weak support, and the fact that the setup was hard to standardize for formal competition
submitted by /u/Honest-Room-8924
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...