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Ever looked down at the pad in your hand and thought...."you know what? That controller is so dull."? I know I have. But what are the controllers designers going to be able to add to our pads to keep us interested in them?
Over the years companies have made bigger (not literally, in some cases it is though) and better pads, increasing the options for the game developers to add into their games.
Want to see what I mean? Go and search for that old Nes pad and then stick it next to a Gamecube pad diagram....if you ask me the Nes pad, which was good for its time (finally gamers had a button for jumping instead of having to push up) is now going to be looking decidedly crusty.
Take for example the amount of buttons, which honestly isn't that important, the Nes pad was very basic. All it had was a d-pad, start and select and an A and B button. Now list out the GAMECUBES buttons (first book a few weeks off work). The GAMECUBES buttons are, a d-pad, A, B, X, Y, start, a c-stick, analog stick, L and R. Also underneath the L and R buttons are two concealed triggers that get pressed when the shoulder buttons are fully pressed in. Get my point??? The Nes pad is now looking very out of date. It did its job for its time, but now it would just not be enough.
You may be wondering what the point of this topic is, I know I would be. Well the point of it is, what are the pads designers going to be able to add to the consoles that follow the 128 bit era? Over the years many new ideas have been attached to our pads, but what on earth can be added next?
New ideas have been brought forward all the time, with our pads getting more and more confusing, L and R triggers have been added, Analog sticks are now a normal feature and no longer do we just have two buttons. Our pads have changed in a big way.
Here are some of the ideas I would have for a new pad on any of the new consoles, that follow the 128 bit power houses.
Pressure sensitive buttons
When I say that I don't mean like the analog buttons that have now been added to the Dual Shock 2 pads, I mean a button that can be easier or harder to push in. Say for example you are playing Zelda and you come to a box to push, its obviously going to be heavy, so the button you need to push could respond to this by being harder to push in, making it seem like you are actually pushing something heavy. It would be reversed for something easier though, say a soft enemy. You go to hit it with your sword, but as it is soft the button slides in really easily.
Heat pads
What I mean by this is a pad that adjusts itself to the environment you are in. So ay for example you were inside the crater of a volcanoe, the pad itself would heat up to show you are inside a warm place. Again for a cold place it would go cold, to represent a cold place.
These are just my ideas of course, I am sure work is already underway for the next generation of pads. Hopefully when they finally arrive, not for some time, they will surprise me and make me interested in the way I am playing the game, not only the game I am playing.
Thanks for reading.
St*rsailor
Over the years companies have made bigger (not literally, in some cases it is though) and better pads, increasing the options for the game developers to add into their games.
Want to see what I mean? Go and search for that old Nes pad and then stick it next to a Gamecube pad diagram....if you ask me the Nes pad, which was good for its time (finally gamers had a button for jumping instead of having to push up) is now going to be looking decidedly crusty.
Take for example the amount of buttons, which honestly isn't that important, the Nes pad was very basic. All it had was a d-pad, start and select and an A and B button. Now list out the GAMECUBES buttons (first book a few weeks off work). The GAMECUBES buttons are, a d-pad, A, B, X, Y, start, a c-stick, analog stick, L and R. Also underneath the L and R buttons are two concealed triggers that get pressed when the shoulder buttons are fully pressed in. Get my point??? The Nes pad is now looking very out of date. It did its job for its time, but now it would just not be enough.
You may be wondering what the point of this topic is, I know I would be. Well the point of it is, what are the pads designers going to be able to add to the consoles that follow the 128 bit era? Over the years many new ideas have been attached to our pads, but what on earth can be added next?
New ideas have been brought forward all the time, with our pads getting more and more confusing, L and R triggers have been added, Analog sticks are now a normal feature and no longer do we just have two buttons. Our pads have changed in a big way.
Here are some of the ideas I would have for a new pad on any of the new consoles, that follow the 128 bit power houses.
Pressure sensitive buttons
When I say that I don't mean like the analog buttons that have now been added to the Dual Shock 2 pads, I mean a button that can be easier or harder to push in. Say for example you are playing Zelda and you come to a box to push, its obviously going to be heavy, so the button you need to push could respond to this by being harder to push in, making it seem like you are actually pushing something heavy. It would be reversed for something easier though, say a soft enemy. You go to hit it with your sword, but as it is soft the button slides in really easily.
Heat pads
What I mean by this is a pad that adjusts itself to the environment you are in. So ay for example you were inside the crater of a volcanoe, the pad itself would heat up to show you are inside a warm place. Again for a cold place it would go cold, to represent a cold place.
These are just my ideas of course, I am sure work is already underway for the next generation of pads. Hopefully when they finally arrive, not for some time, they will surprise me and make me interested in the way I am playing the game, not only the game I am playing.
Thanks for reading.
St*rsailor
Good Post SS.
The heat pads sound great!
The heat pads sound great!
I always thought that a stink pad would be a novel idea.
Basically the stink pack comes with the game, and plugs into the pad. When you reach certain parts of the game different smells are released.
Imagine travelling the the Bog of Eternal Stench, then arriving in a cottage to the smell of freshly baked bread...
Basically the stink pack comes with the game, and plugs into the pad. When you reach certain parts of the game different smells are released.
Imagine travelling the the Bog of Eternal Stench, then arriving in a cottage to the smell of freshly baked bread...
Nintendo patented a thermal game pad this time last year, and it is one of the few times I've looked at them as insane. What way would a warm pad ever make the games playing experience better and how many games would actually use it? Can you imagine FIFA or Tetris benefiting from a pad that can warm up? The arguments I heard then were along the lines of "but it will make the game more imersive". How? Yeah, your hands are a tad warmer, but is that anything like the experience of being, oh, catapulted towards the sun? After five minutes would your cold hands in SSX not just get annoying? I just can't see how the added price of producing the controller could be justified by the questionable benefits.
The other suggestion does have legs though, in fact I have a controller like it sitting at my feet now - a brilliant Microsoft Force Feedback wheel. I've never driven a F1 car, as you may have guessed, however the experience with this must be more realistic than that of a pad. The wheel fights with you as you force your car round corners a little too fast and rattles and shakes as you go over gravel. Now that's cool. That makes me feel more part of the game - but it comes at a great expense. Naturally there are only so many things you can use a steering wheel for, but even for a pad, again, when would it really be used? Would it justify the price?
For reasons I'm not going to go into as it's really dull and nothing came of it, I did a little research into the history of controllers around the launch of the PS2. There are some interesting things out there now that could be put to good use. One thing I'd love to try out is the blood pressure monitor used in Bio Tetris. It monitors your heart rate and adjusts the difficulty accordingly. You can choose whether you want a nice relaxing game to wind down with, or a hectic nail biter. That's a good idea. Imagine taking that into something like Doom or even sports titles. I'd be interested to see it in action.
I also quite like the BeMani mat style controllers - well the good ones anyway. Always a laugh, though a bit like the maracas on the DC there good fun for about half an hour when playing with friends, but then you wonder why you spent all that money on them.
Ultimately controllers now are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago. The D-Pad, first seen on the Nintendo Game and Watches, is still at the heart of most controllers. Even analogue control is very old hat. There big fancy controllers split in two, twisting between a big ball, but its all a little impractical and not really as good as what we have already. Easiest way to improve controls in console gaming at the moment is to pick yourself up a mouse a keyboard - nothing beats then for FPS, RPG and RTS.
A change would be nice, but there's only so much you can do with two hands and the required character movement. The next big change (the last big one being the D-Pad) will be a revolution, not an evolution. If I knew what that was I'd be employed by some R+D team at an extortionate wage and not rambling (yet again) here! : )
The other suggestion does have legs though, in fact I have a controller like it sitting at my feet now - a brilliant Microsoft Force Feedback wheel. I've never driven a F1 car, as you may have guessed, however the experience with this must be more realistic than that of a pad. The wheel fights with you as you force your car round corners a little too fast and rattles and shakes as you go over gravel. Now that's cool. That makes me feel more part of the game - but it comes at a great expense. Naturally there are only so many things you can use a steering wheel for, but even for a pad, again, when would it really be used? Would it justify the price?
For reasons I'm not going to go into as it's really dull and nothing came of it, I did a little research into the history of controllers around the launch of the PS2. There are some interesting things out there now that could be put to good use. One thing I'd love to try out is the blood pressure monitor used in Bio Tetris. It monitors your heart rate and adjusts the difficulty accordingly. You can choose whether you want a nice relaxing game to wind down with, or a hectic nail biter. That's a good idea. Imagine taking that into something like Doom or even sports titles. I'd be interested to see it in action.
I also quite like the BeMani mat style controllers - well the good ones anyway. Always a laugh, though a bit like the maracas on the DC there good fun for about half an hour when playing with friends, but then you wonder why you spent all that money on them.
Ultimately controllers now are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago. The D-Pad, first seen on the Nintendo Game and Watches, is still at the heart of most controllers. Even analogue control is very old hat. There big fancy controllers split in two, twisting between a big ball, but its all a little impractical and not really as good as what we have already. Easiest way to improve controls in console gaming at the moment is to pick yourself up a mouse a keyboard - nothing beats then for FPS, RPG and RTS.
A change would be nice, but there's only so much you can do with two hands and the required character movement. The next big change (the last big one being the D-Pad) will be a revolution, not an evolution. If I knew what that was I'd be employed by some R+D team at an extortionate wage and not rambling (yet again) here! : )
It was a good post the first time I read it, and it is just as good the second time St*rsailor. Perhaps there could also be a virtual reality pad on computer consoles, the console could be worn as a hat but a small screen will drop down in front of your eyes and you have control over your movements. It would give you the ability to interact more with the game.
I like Meka's idea of a stink pad, the only problem is if you are controlling your character into a sewage plant or other really smelly place then will the games company provide gas mask's for those really volitile smells?? Or would the smell not be that strong??
(P.S. Hope you do come back as Quiksilver mate!! Not the same place without him!!)
I like Meka's idea of a stink pad, the only problem is if you are controlling your character into a sewage plant or other really smelly place then will the games company provide gas mask's for those really volitile smells?? Or would the smell not be that strong??
(P.S. Hope you do come back as Quiksilver mate!! Not the same place without him!!)