Comments on: Don’t Port Me, Bro

By: Ephidrina

Ephidrina — Sat, 31 May 2008 22:11:14 +0000

The Resident Evil 4 port was great because even if you downloaded a mouse-hack you needed to use the arrow keys in conjunction with the mouse because it was too slow on its own even with max sensitivity. You would also almost always die on the first instance of an action sequence because the R1-L1 keys were mapped so awkwardly from the movement keys/mouse. You basically had to move your hands from the extreme right side of your desk to the extreme left side in a second, and if you didn’t expect that giant tentacle to pop out of the ceiling you generally died until you could Simon Says it.

I can almost side with the companies porting it to a platform where it will most likely get pirated for not adding in a flawless mouse system. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that even if these PC ports came with mouse functionality or even came with a controller in the box 95% of them are ridden with bugs and crashes anyways. It’s even better when these companies almost always release just one patch for these games and it’s a localization fix or something useless. Oh well.

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:19:52 +0000

I would praise games like Mass Effect for their excellent ports of it wasn’t for the whole “Check your CD key every 10 days or else your fucked” system they are implementing. Steam was bad enough, now they are just messing with us.

By: Alnora

Alnora — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:31:52 +0000

Playing the Silent Hill games on PC is pretty enjoyable. Obviously the console versions have better (read: easier) controls, but SH played on the PC with graphic options on high and a pair of headphones… gives such a different feeling to the game. To see and hear small details you normally couldn’t on a TV adds a whole other level of atmosphere to the game — creaks and groans, muffled sounds coming from other rooms, Heather’s man hands.

There’s also the fan-made port of SH1, but the keyword is fan-made, thus it’s exactly the same as the PS1 version. I guess some graphical details are easier to make out?

By: Shunal

Shunal — Sat, 31 May 2008 23:57:19 +0000

What about the horrible horrible control scheme for Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition for the PC? I swear to god that game was bloody impossible to play without a gamepad.

By: Daniel Primed

Daniel Primed — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:38:44 +0000

I have a PC port of Resident Evil 3 and it isn’t too bad except that all of the prerendered backdrops are extremely pixellated on my machine. Still it works fine and I haven’t had any major hitches.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is just awful though. My brother bought me this second hand (althogh as new) for $10 and I wasted so much time trying to get it to work and once I kinda did the controls were just too difficult to configure.

As for Resident Evil 4, if anyone is interested here is a list of good PC modifications for the game:
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5871

By: Monique

Monique — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:29:15 +0000

Daniel and Alnora:
That’s why I praised those specifically! I credited Konami for generally decent (albiet awkward) ports, and said Capcom even did well with RE3 and Dino Crisis. But my god, so many others ports of theirs were just nightmares. Total waste of money.

Shunal–I had no idea there’d been a DMC port. I never got terribly into the series, so that’s my bad, but that sounds horrible.

Dem, I agree it’s a lame system, but from the technical aspects they did well. It’s just a shame they’re trying to implement systems that are idiotic and harmful to PC gaming.

By: Brittany

Brittany — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:56:10 +0000

Okay so, basically, I loved your article. I unfortunately grew up on the FF7 and FF8 ports to the computer which I did NOT enjoy. In fact, I wasn’t even able to finish the game because I didn’t have the ability to restart from where I last left off. You see, the game crashed, and my game saves somehow got erased even though no one used the computer but me, and I hadn’t done anything at all for them to have suddenly vanished into thin air. Like I mentioned to you the other day, I did like having access to the cutscenes but then again, I could have ripped them from the PS1 disc. I was an ignorant child back then though, haha. XD

I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed the port of KOTOR because I found the controls to be easy to use and intuitive. Of course, back then I hadn’t been used to the Xbox controller. Even still I prefer playing KOTOR on my PC. I have the sequel on the Xbox but I hardly use it because I find it to be a little more annoying to keep on using button presses all the time instead of mouse clicks.

I have more to say, I’ll say it later though because I’m with my parents at the moment at Office Depot and I am ninja stealing their internet.

By: Alison E

Alison E — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:59:42 +0000

I am such a spaz about this that I can’t play emulators.

When I play my old eight-bit stuff, it has to be on the old eight-bit, with the old eight-bit controllers. When I want to play OOT? I can’t use the compliation for the gamecube. The 64 has to come out.

I think if I got one of the controller adapter things for the PC (or the XBOX), I could probably do emulators, but the feel just isn’t right. I think you’re quite right in that what makes a successful port is adapting it to the controls (and other things) of the system being used. No one likes to feel like they’re dealing with blocky, inefficient controls that were tacked on as an afterthought. Of course that happens in consoles too. Looking at you, Twilight Princess.

It would probably also help if audiences are considered - it was pretty bright of Sony to re-release FFtactics for a handheld after the ridiculous success of Tactics Advance, for example. See where the audience for it is, take it there, instead of just slapping a rerelease on whatever system will pay for exclusive rights.

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:15:38 +0000

@Alison - The OoT emulation controls are TERRIBLE. Each time you hit an arrow key, you move a certain quantified distance, so you cant aim with the slingshot, hookshot, boomerang or arrows at all. This makes bosses fucking impossible since it takes 20 secs to aim correctly.

By: Alison E

Alison E — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:20:53 +0000

Amen, Denosthenes. Couldn’t agree more. I kept getting confused about which button did what, too.

The Gamecube Port for MM also has a vicious tendency to freeze up when you try to turn back time. So you know, you’ve just struggled your way through the annoyingly complicated hoops and hedges of the Wedding Mask quest, gotten your little wedding mask, and you pop out your ocarina and… freeze!

Oh, did you want to save that? Sorry, sucker, the only way to save the game is TURNING BACK TIME. Have fun doing that all over again.

By: Matticus

Matticus — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:17:09 +0000

Don’t forget shooter ports. I usually find them better on the PC then on the console, but that’s because I’m biased towards mouse and keyboard. I loved playing Halo on the PC. Offered me way more control and more ‘wrist’ shots. Halo 2 I’m not sure about as I don’t have Vista to play it on :(.

By: Saffron

Saffron — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:38:22 +0000

You kno what makes me really mad..the new games for console, Civilization. I played the demo on xbox and it seriously sucked

Btw good blog, found you guys thru SU.