PaigeFTW: Control Yourself
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings brought my great foray into PC gaming to a thunderous stop. I started up the tutorial, figured out how to walk and then promptly hit a brick wall when it came to combat.
Too many keys were mapped to too many different attacks, spells and traps — having to remember the function of 20 different buttons was too much. Alt is lock on to target, but 4 is for Aard Sign and E is block? It was overwhelming. I gave up before the tutorial battle was even done and fled to the relative safety of a more turn-based RPG, where my only concerns are shuffling through menus and walking.
It’s not that I can’t use a keyboard, it’s just that, holy crap, this is a whole new ball game after years of having trusty controller in hand.
The tactile feedback of gaming is little discussed but, as I’ve come to realize, surprisingly essential to the experience. Pushing a joystick just feels like walking in a way that pushing a button does not (on a 3D plain, at least. You can tell I entered gaming during the age of PlayStation and not the NES). Hitting a trigger button feels more natural to me when shooting than clicking a mouse.
Real-life arcades in particular have a lock on that joy with their oversized joystick and button array.
A keyboard, in that sense, feels kind of lifeless to me. I can see why they purposely build gaming keyboards with extra-loud clicking — to try and capture the ephemeral pleasure of smashing buttons.
Then again, my boyfriend (a dedicated, lifelong PC gamer who built my computer) felt exactly the opposite after he started playing The Last of Us on my PS3. “These controls suck,” he grumbled, for hours on end. “This is so stupid. If I had a mouse, I would be able to aim.”
Maybe I should just dig up my old Xbox 360 controller for The Witcher.
