[The Game Doctor has been a legend in the electronic gaming industry since he debuted in the world's first video/computer game publication, "Electronic Games" in 1981. Also known as Bill Kunkel (co-creator of the aforementioned magazine along with Arnie Katz), he has answered software-related questions in more than a dozen magazines and gaming sites for 25 years and recently published his scandalous memoirs, “Confessions of The Game Doctor”. As a long-time associate of Running With Scissors, he makes regular office visits to The RWS Newsletter. Doctor, your patients await… ]

Control Freaks (Part Two)

As some of you may remember, last issue’s installment of this column comprised the first of two parts dealing with the impact of controllers on the kinds of games we play.

The original Atari VCS and Odyssey2 joysticks developed in the late 70s, for example, were direction-oriented, with the player’s (presumably-dominant) right hand assigned the task of movement via the joystick with a single button employed to initiate an action of some sort.

The joypad-style controller dominated the market from 1986 well into the 90s with its simplified direction controls (basically north-south-east-west) designed for the left hand, with a more varied selection of actions handled via additional command buttons by the right.  This configuration led to the dominance of 2D platform and fighting games because they were best suited to this new type of control device.

The next major step in the evolution of game interfaces came with the arrival of the Nintendo64’s innovative Bat Signal-style controller.  It maintained the basic joypad format but added several new action buttons as well as an analog joystick for games where more precise movement was required than the four directional joypad buttons could easily provide.

With the arrival of the Playstation 2 and Xbox as the dominant systems in the following generation, however, controllers had spawned a phalanx of new action buttons as well as a second analog joystick.  This second joystick allowed players to control the new pseudo-3D games along both the x and y-axis while also tossing in a half dozen or so button-based action commands to memorize.

Many older and younger players were frankly intimidated by this new generation of controller, often feeling more like camera operators than game players while they struggled to remember the commands invoked by each of the many action buttons.  The new sticks worked very well on FPS games, but if the player-character actually appeared on-screen, it often took hours of practice before the gamer developed any sort of comfort level in maneuvering their surrogate.

But in the current generation, while both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 have more or less maintained the status quo in terms of their controllers, Nintendo once again proved itself the true innovator in this realm with the introduction of its wireless Wii controller (already dubbed the “Wii-mote” by most gamers) which makes great strides in terms of simplifying the gaming process for both casual and hardcore players.  The motion-sensors which direct movement through these marvelous devices allow the Wii stick to not only adapt into anything from a light saber to a tennis racket, it also boasts an input at its base which allows users to affix a series of supplemental controller attachments.

The simplicity and elegance of the “Wii-mote” had an almost instantaneous impact on Sony, which hastily retrofitted its PS3 controllers with a pair of motion sensors designed primarily, it would seem, for driving games.

If the Wii winds up with the lion’s share of this generation’s game market, it may feel to some gamers as if controllers have come full circle – from simplicity to increasing complexity and back to simplicity.  Of course, along the way there have been many attempts at radical departures from the controller norm, from Broderbund’s disastrous stickless joystick, the U-Force and Mattel’s infamous Glove controller to LeStick (an abortive attempt to regulate on-screen movement via a baseless joystick driven by a collection of internal mercury switches) and several types of headband controllers that promised users complete gaming control through the power of their minds!

The ultimate test, of course, is success.  But if history teaches us anything, it’s that the Wii’s controller should open up the market to a range of new game paradigms, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 seem more likely to produce games that are essentially similar to what Microsoft and Sony bred in their previous generation, only prettier.

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And that's a wrap. For more information on the forthcoming POSTAL movie be sure to visit the “Postal Nation” section of this newsletter. In the meantime, you can find answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions, while you check out the “POSTAL – The Movie” section of the official GoPostal.com site. Send any new questions regarding RWS, the POSTAL franchise and anything else that occurs to you to: GameDoctorKunkel@gopostal.com.