Worst. Controls. Ever.

[evildead2099]

What games feature the worst play control you've ever experinced?

As much as I love Haunted Castle (A coin-op take on Castlevania), I must admit that it features some of the most ultra-stiff control that I've ever shaken a joystick at!

E.T. (Atari 2600) This game is notorious for many things, chief among them is its abysmal control system (Read Sean Baby's review to get hilarious idea as to how bad this game controls)

A Boy & His Blob (NES) can be difficult to control due to the extent to which the boy slides uncontrollably when you get him to take three or more steps forward.

[njiska]

I though P.N.03 had pretty stiff, shitty controls. It's just terrible.

Conker's Bad Fur Day (and Live and Reloaded) has pretty stiff controls as well.

[Damaramu]

As much as I love the series, I gotta say the controls for Armored Core makes me wanna scream at times. :angry:

[davidbrit2]

Ever tried playing XBox Silent Scope with one of the light guns? Cripes, it's awful. You have to crank the game brightness WAY UP so that it can track the gun across the "black" areas of the screen (which pretty much end up being light grey). And the sight is all sluggish and laggy behind your movements. So it ends up being a muddy looking uncontrollable mess. Stick to the PS2 versions with a USB mouse.

[hegyak]

Any console FPS for me. Can't see how anyone does it. Give me a keyboard and a mouse.

[youruglyclone]

although the concept is pretty cool. the controls of total overdose sucks.

I'm still willing to trudge through it though.

[evildead2099]

although the concept is pretty cool. the controls of total overdose sucks.

I'm still willing to trudge through it though.

What are you talking about? O_O


Any console FPS for me. Can't see how anyone does it. Give me a keyboard and a mouse.

Try to be more objective (and specific) than that.

[dreamcaster]

The Tokyo Highway Challenge/Xtreme Racer games. I love the gameplay, but the stiff controls make it a chore to play. :/

[swlovinist]

Captain Novalin for the SNES LOL LOL LOL LOL

I TRIED playing this turd...no thanks, now give me my minutes of life back!

[Aussie2B]

Well, the worst controls belong to games that were programmed like shit, but as far as decent games go, I'd have to say Mischief Makers. I don't know what was up with Treasure on the N64, but they would try to go for the most ambitious complicated control scheme they could think of, even though they could have easily made it MUCH more intuitive. Sin & Punishment also has wonky controls, but good god, Mischief Makers is hard to play. My thumbs hurt like hell after just 20 minutes of that game. With one hand, I'm dealing with the N64's crappy D-pad, and with the other, I'm having the C buttons dig into my right thumb. x_x It's so frustrating because I DO like the game.

[JamesAmbrose]

I had a real difficult time controlling my character in Hybrid Heaven for the N64. Sharp turns required me to absolutely strain the control stick either left or right. Shitty game as a whole I might add...

[punkoffgirl]

I'll second Conkers, although I think it has more to do with camera control than actual gameplay.

[whoisKeel]

Any console FPS for me. Can't see how anyone does it. Give me a keyboard and a mouse.

Try to be more objective (and specific) than that.

I feel similar. For me, any FPS that is fast paced/PC oriented (deathmatch, etc), like Halo for instance. Something like Metroid Prime on the other hand feels fine with a controller. I spent too many years playing Quake3 and Unreal, these console FPS games seem slow and limiting control-wise...

I dunno, in retrospect I think the first Mortal Kombat is pretty weak in the controls department (at least snes version...i should try another I suppose)

I never liked the way the resident evils controlled, but that was alot of the way it was setup.

NES Bad Dudes

I'm drawing a blank, I know there's alot of games I don't like controls for...I just don't have them in my collection anymore so I can't remember them off hand :)

[Dr. Morbis]

E.T. (Atari 2600) This game is notorious for many things, chief among them is its abysmal control system (Read Sean Baby's review to get hilarious idea as to how bad this game controls)
ET, isn't a bad game if you give it half a chance (that doesn't mean turning it on, falling in the first pit, smacking the power button to the off position and declaring "truly though art the worst game of all time"). Have you ever played it? My guess is that 99% of the people who say this games sucks have either never played it, or have done what I just described in parentheses above. For the record, I don't like ET myself, but it's quite clear to me that there are piles and piles of games on the VCS alone that have much worse control than that game.

As for the topic, I'll pick Death Race for NES. It's a cool idea, but you have the turn radius of a whale among many other control issues that make it absolutely impossible to play.

[DonMarco]

I can't play the GBA Super Mario games. The NES/SNES port ones. I'm obviously the only one in the world with this problem, so pay me no heed...

[mr_pollock]

Forza Motorsport had horrible controls for about 2 days until I got used to them.

Halo, Halo 2, Splinter Cell, any game where I have to aim a gun at a dude and fire. They all have horrible controls on PS2/XBOX/GCN, whatever.

[evildead2099]

E.T. (Atari 2600) This game is notorious for many things, chief among them is its abysmal control system (Read Sean Baby's review to get hilarious idea as to how bad this game controls)
ET, isn't a bad game if you give it half a chance (that doesn't mean turning it on, falling in the first pit, smacking the power button to the off position and declaring "truly though art the worst game of all time"). Have you ever played it? My guess is that 99% of the people who say this games sucks have either never played it, or have done what I just described in parentheses above.

Hell yes, I've played E.T.; I wouldn't have bothered claiming that a game has poor controls if I had yet to play that game :roll:

I've given E.T. much more time than it deserved, and even the time that I'm currently spending whilst talking about E.T. is more than E.T.'s gameplay (or lack thereof) warrants. E.T. is a shitty game and an example of licensing at its worst. E.T. features some of least responsive controls I've ever experienced (again, I'll refer you to Sean Baby's review).

[quote]For the record, I don't like ET myself, but it's quite clear to me that there are piles and piles of games on the VCS alone that have much worse control than that game./quote]

Fine; name 5 of them. :P

[Nez]

I though P.N.03 had pretty stiff, shitty controls. It's just terrible.

So true evading lighting fast shots is damn near impossible. I'd say it give Ninja Gaiden a run for its money on difficulty. Shame PNO3 has no redeming features. Its just boring and frustrating.

[Valhalla]

For recent games I loathed the controls for Metroid Prime, FPS style games have had as perfect controls as they can get with whats available on consoles for years, but this game tried to be different and was 2 steps back from shooters on the N64.

Hated having an auto lock on feature, made they game fairly lame, and the boss battles I've played so far a walk in the park, that is only about the first 5 or so bosses though. Would've been a great game for me other than the controls.

[hu6800]

What games feature the worst play control you've ever experinced?

As much as I love Haunted Castle (A coin-op take on Castlevania), I must admit that it features some of the most ultra-stiff control that I've ever shaken a joystick at!

E.T. (Atari 2600) This game is notorious for many things, chief among them is its abysmal control system (Read Sean Baby's review to get hilarious idea as to how bad this game controls)

A Boy & His Blob (NES) can be difficult to control due to the extent to which the boy slides uncontrollably when you get him to take three or more steps forward.




Way of the warrior for the 3DO

[sabre2922]

Tomb Raider series although I secretly like the damn games :embarrassed: those fucking controls made me break at Least a couple PSX controllers :angry:

Playing almost anything on PC -keyboard or controller- besides RTS and a few FPS I cannot stand but then again Im very biased and have never been into PC gaming much (to say the least).

just about any 2-D fighters on Genesis they just didnt seem near as responsive as the great SNES pad.

[jajaja]

Cheetahmen II for NES. Only tried it on emulator, but the controllers really sux. Various games on Action 52 for NES also have some bad controls.

[davidleeroth]

Virtual Hydlide for Saturn. I've been playing this lately and although in a sick way I like this game, it takes 10 seconds! for the dude to do a 360 turn. It's actually faster to go to the map screen and do it there (takes about 3 secs in all).

[jdc]

Tomb Raider for me as well. Even when they went to analog they STILL couldn't get it right. I never could see why they couldn't just make Lara move around "normally" like a million other third-person game characters before her. It seems as if the developers took great satisfaction in complicating her moves. I'm hoping (yet again) that the new upcoming Tomb Raider game with do away with the previous control system.

Funny thing is.......I just bought a complete mint library of the PSX Tomb Raider games. Sucker for punishment am I. LOL

[Daltone]

Ah I'm glad that people have mentioned Tomb Raider. I think that they must have purposely made the controls that clunky, there's no other explanation for it.

Quake 3 and Outtigger on the DC were pretty bad with the pad I recall. Monkey Island 4 needs to be mentioned because of the total lack of mouse support (why would you do such a thing to me Lucasarts?!)

[chrisbid]

just about any 2-D fighters on Genesis they just didnt seem near as responsive as the great SNES pad.


are you kidding?! the SNES used one of the most sluggish controllers ever

[rbudrick]

For recent games I loathed the controls for Metroid Prime, FPS style games have had as perfect controls as they can get with whats available on consoles for years, but this game tried to be different and was 2 steps back from shooters on the N64.

Hated having an auto lock on feature, made they game fairly lame, and the boss battles I've played so far a walk in the park, that is only about the first 5 or so bosses though. Would've been a great game for me other than the controls.

I think ALL fps games except Prime 1 and 2 had terrible controls. I just can't stand them and they all bore me to death. I thought Prime had great controls...I didn't think it was a step back at all. In fact, I thought it was pretty innovative the way they did it with the GC's controller setup.

As for games with bad controls...as much as I like Deadly Towers, the control is absolutely terrible...and cheap...and SLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW. Of course, this is mostly all at the beginning.

-Rob

[Xizer]

ANYTHING on the PS2 is bound to have the "Worst. Controls. Ever."

What an atrocious controller.

[jajaja]

Ah I'm glad that people have mentioned Tomb Raider. I think that they must have purposely made the controls that clunky, there's no other explanation for it.

Quake 3 and Outtigger on the DC were pretty bad with the pad I recall. Monkey Island 4 needs to be mentioned because of the total lack of mouse support (why would you do such a thing to me Lucasarts?!)

Hehe, I was also suprised that Monkey Island 4 didnt have mouse support. I asked around in the begining if there was a mouse patch or something, but no luck. But after a while I got used to it so it was no problem :)

[GameSlaveGaz]

PSP games (at least the ones I played: Twisted Metal, ATV, MediEval) have very slow and unresponsive controls and the analog nub was practically useless. But like I said, those were the only games I've played so far. I don't know if there are any games with good or phenominal controls for PSP. But at least 3 have very sluggish controls.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

I'm amazed nobody's mention the Resident Evil series yet.

[CrimsonNugget]

SOCOM for PS2. That was the only game I've had that I've considered unplayable. Mary Kate and Ashley's Sweet 16 game for the Cube is pretty bad control-wise too. I don't know why they'd give something that hard to control to kids.

[evildead2099]

ANYTHING on the PS2 is bound to have the "Worst. Controls. Ever."

What an atrocious controller.

I disagree. The PS2 controller may not be perfect, but it hardly 'ruins' one's ability to play the games designed for that system.

I find that, due to the dual sets of triggers, the Dual Shock controllers are better for First Person Shooters than are Xbox controllers.

But please, enough about console controllers or the fact that you can't stand to play First Person Shooters on consoles! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO FOCUS ON GAMES WHICH FEATURE ATROCIOUSLY BAD CONTROL MECHANICS.

... GAMES. Not 'types' of games, or types of controllers, but games whose control dynamics are poorly implemented (i.e. A Boy & His Blob, because you slide around way too easily regardless of the surface you're walking on).

[Slimedog]

Drake for Xbox. Freaking awful. I guess part of that might be the camera with went spinning around for no reason right after you made any kind of movement, but that was one of those games where the monumentally horrible game was actually worse than the sum of its crappy individual components.

Powerpuff Girls for PS2. The game was ok overall, but I remember the optimal way to zip around the city streets involved steering with the thumbstick while holding down the L2 and R1 buttons. It gave me cramps after a while, but not as bad as trying to play Halo with one hand.

Perfect Wepon for PS1. Imagine a game with a roughly Resident Evil layout of 3D characters over 2D prerendered backgrounds. Now pull back the camera until all of the characters are really small. Now make sure there is lots of hand to hand combat. Finally, give the the control scheme of Crazy Climber. Have fun.

[Push Upstairs]

"Zombie Revenge" on the DC.

The controls on this game were utter crap. I tried to get used to the controls but i gave up and realized they just blew.

Dynamite Cop didn't have smooth controls either but it was far better....and it was more fun.

[Nz17]

Rag Doll Kung Ku. Good God, playing this game can be an exercise in frustration. The play of the game is you use the mouse to move the arms, legs, torso, and head of a martial artist. The problem is that when you are trying to attack enemies the whole thing falls apart. When you try to do a specific attack, often times your guy will use the wrong limb. So then you have to move the mouse onto him, click the right limb, hope the game didn't accidentally register something else, and try to attack again. All the while, the other ninja/trolls/fighters are attacking you!

To add insult, the final boss can and will kill you with a cheap one his kill very frequently. Finishing him is luck more than skill.

And I apologize, but I must do this to make me feel better:
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

[syd]

A couple games I can think of are:

Ghosts and Goblins: Not only was the game hard as hell, but IMO the controls were a big part in that.

Super Mario Bros.: I'm talking about the original game, the one where you jump up the platforms to hit the enemies from below, there's a POW box at the bottom, etc. I always used to slide into the enemies every time.

[hu6800]

Virtual Hydlide for Saturn. I've been playing this lately and although in a sick way I like this game, it takes 10 seconds! for the dude to do a 360 turn. It's actually faster to go to the map screen and do it there (takes about 3 secs in all).

omg that game pissed me off.
I REALLY wanted to like that game but damn.

[hu6800]

just about any 2-D fighters on Genesis they just didnt seem near as responsive as the great SNES pad.


are you kidding?! the SNES used one of the most sluggish controllers ever

Try "Battletoads Battlemaniacs" or "Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt" on the snes,,, The controller worked spot on for both games . Both those games have intense gameplay.
The Genesis could'nt handle that kind of control or graphics sir.

You wanna see bad control? Play Dragons Lair for the sega cd.

[Amy Rose]

Oh Lord. Reading this thread brought back the horrid memories of Tomb Raider. I remember renting one of them from a video store and my brother and I got so frustrated with it, after a few hours of attempted play, we spent the rest of the night alternating between making Lara do handstands, making her dive off balconies and drowning her. LOL

Mother in background: "that poor little girl! Don't kill her!"

[Daltone]

You wanna see bad control? Play Dragons Lair for the sega cd.

Ah the Mega CD, I'd forgotten about that. While I quite enjoyed Road Avenger I had to more or less had to jump up and down on the controller because everything's just so.. unresponsive. Supreme Warrior is also amazingly awful control wise. You can try to block, or punch, but it takes so long for your button presses to be translated onto the screen that you're already getting beaten to a bloody pulp by the time your character gets around to it.

[Daltone]

Oh Lord. Reading this thread brought back the horrid memories of Tomb Raider. I remember renting one of them from a video store and my brother and I got so frustrated with it, after a few hours of attempted play, we spent the rest of the night alternating between making Lara do handstands, making her dive off balconies and drowning her. LOL

Mother in background: "that poor little girl! Don't kill her!"

Hehe nothing like a swan dive off a giant cliff. Has anyone *not* played Tomb Raider and got annoyed and taken to killing off Lara in different ways *thinks of the episode of Spaced with much Lara death*? I swear I had more fun doing that than actually playing some of the games.

[hu6800]

You wanna see bad control? Play Dragons Lair for the sega cd.

Ah the Mega CD, I'd forgotten about that. While I quite enjoyed Road Avenger I had to more or less had to jump up and down on the controller because everything's just so.. unresponsive. Supreme Warrior is also amazingly awful control wise. You can try to block, or punch, but it takes so long for your button presses to be translated onto the screen that you're already getting beaten to a bloody pulp by the time your character gets around to it.

Or "It came from the Desert" for the turbografx16 cdrom
Fighting the ants on the side scroll segments.

Those little handhelds they now sell at wallmart, when they
first came out with pac man and mrs pac man
i was getting so pissed at the control i wanted to put
the thing under the tire of my car and run it over.

Any DVD game where you have to use the remote control


"The Blues Brothers" for the SNES sucked for controls.
play through the game to know what im saying.


I thought Ghouls and ghost was kinda cool to control
because you had to be a really good game freestyler to
get through the hard levels.


Mortal Kombat for the Genesis was a pain in the ass.
using a well worn in controller helped.

[CocoVG]

The R-Type III port to the GBA - absolutely terrible. Although, that's probably 50% bad controls and 50% no collision detection. Haven't played anything quite as bad as that in recent memory.

[Wavelflack]

E.T. (Atari 2600) This game is notorious for many things, chief among them is its abysmal control system (Read Sean Baby's review to get hilarious idea as to how bad this game controls)
ET, isn't a bad game if you give it half a chance (that doesn't mean turning it on, falling in the first pit, smacking the power button to the off position and declaring "truly though art the worst game of all time"). Have you ever played it? My guess is that 99% of the people who say this games sucks have either never played it, or have done what I just described in parentheses above.

Hell yes, I've played E.T.; I wouldn't have bothered claiming that a game has poor controls if I had yet to play that game :roll:

I've given E.T. much more time than it deserved, and even the time that I'm currently spending whilst talking about E.T. is more than E.T.'s gameplay (or lack thereof) warrants. E.T. is a shitty game and an example of licensing at its worst. E.T. features some of least responsive controls I've ever experienced (again, I'll refer you to Sean Baby's review).


For the record, I don't like ET myself, but it's quite clear to me that there are piles and piles of games on the VCS alone that have much worse control than that game.

Fine; name 5 of them. :P

Apparently you haven't actually played E.T., your protestations notwithstanding. There is nothing "unresponsive" about the controls. E.T. promptly moves in the direction you direct him to go. The problem with ET is one of design, not execution.

If you wish to continue to pretend that you know what you are talking about, please describe how ET's controls are unresponsive. And don't bother pointing to Seanbaby's site again. His "reviews" are amusing, but are loaded with exaggeration and hyperbole.

[evildead2099]

Super Mario Bros.: I'm talking about the original game, the one where you jump up the platforms to hit the enemies from below, there's a POW box at the bottom, etc. I always used to slide into the enemies every time.

good call. I forgot about that one.

here are some more that i thought of:

*Q-bert

Time Killers (cool control setup, but the control programmed into the game is abysmal)

[evildead2099]

E.T. (Atari 2600) This game is notorious for many things, chief among them is its abysmal control system (Read Sean Baby's review to get hilarious idea as to how bad this game controls)
ET, isn't a bad game if you give it half a chance (that doesn't mean turning it on, falling in the first pit, smacking the power button to the off position and declaring "truly though art the worst game of all time"). Have you ever played it? My guess is that 99% of the people who say this games sucks have either never played it, or have done what I just described in parentheses above.

Hell yes, I've played E.T.; I wouldn't have bothered claiming that a game has poor controls if I had yet to play that game :roll:

I've given E.T. much more time than it deserved, and even the time that I'm currently spending whilst talking about E.T. is more than E.T.'s gameplay (or lack thereof) warrants. E.T. is a shitty game and an example of licensing at its worst. E.T. features some of least responsive controls I've ever experienced (again, I'll refer you to Sean Baby's review).


For the record, I don't like ET myself, but it's quite clear to me that there are piles and piles of games on the VCS alone that have much worse control than that game.

Fine; name 5 of them. :P

Apparently you haven't actually played E.T.

I don't know what to tell you, except that I have. If you don't want to believe me, fine.

How is the game 'unresponsive'?

1. It takes forever to get E.T. to float upward.

2 Trying to get E.T. to stop floating upward when you need him to is so difficult that its almost silly.


If you wish to continue to pretend that you know what you are talking about...

I don't apprciate the way you are speaking to me. Disagree if you like, but don't accuse me of lying unless you can prove what you are saying.

Perhaps 'unresponsive' wasn't the most accurate word that I could have used, but I still feel very dissatisfied with the way that the game controls for the above reasons.

Admittedly, one could argue that those factors have more to do with the way that the game was design to play than the way that I want it to handle. With respect to the first point, for instance, it could be said that I cannot get E.T. to float upward when I want him to because E.T. is supposedly concentrating in order to accomplish levitation (as evidenced by the rate at which he sllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwll lllllllllllly extends his neck). As to the second point, one could say that the condition of repeatedly plummeting back into the pits has more with one's inability to react in a prompt manner. However, if that's you're argument, you could claim that Dragon's Lair (Coin-op) features great, flawless control; they only reason why you can't get Dirk to react when you want him to is because you're too damn slow twitch specifically at that 1 / 1000th of a second.

[rbudrick]

The only problems I ever had with ET's controls was getting out of the pits and getting away from the bad guys.

Those pits SUUUUUUUCCKK.

Otherwise, it is actualy a good game and one of the first I ever beat. SOme people don't give it credit...it was an early game with an end AND an ending. I can count on one hand the games I can think of from that era that did that.

-Rob

[Slimedog]

The only problems I ever had with ET's controls was getting out of the pits and getting away from the bad guys.

Those pits SUUUUUUUCCKK.

Otherwise, it is actualy a good game and one of the first I ever beat. SOme people don't give it credit...it was an early game with an end AND an ending. I can count on one hand the games I can think of from that era that did that.

-Rob

Yeah, if they hadn't paid so much for the liscense and overproduced the game so insanely, I sure nobody would be calling it the worst game ever. I had an ok time with this one as a kid and I'd put it on the same level as Raiders of the Lost Ark overall, somewhere between between 6 and 7 on a ten point scale.