Rock, Paper, Shotgun

01/08/2008 at 17:10 Larington says:

My prediction, one of the RPS journos will be forced to leave a comment in this thread either telling people to calm down or stop throwing insults around.

I hereby challenge you, the Internet, to prove me wrong.

01/08/2008 at 17:14 Crispy says:

That’s stupid, if you ignore the effort of getting out your CC and putting in the numbers, surely digital downloads are just as easy for the average consumer as downloading a pirated version, apart from you can probably get it quicker via legitimate digital download than on most P2P sites.

So aren’t they kinda shooting themselves in the foot here?

01/08/2008 at 17:16 Commando says:

Capcom make terrible PC ports so I wouldn’t be suprised if people were further inclined to pirate them. I don’t know how DMC4 is but Lost Planet is atrocious with a terrible launcher, main menu, controls that expect a 360 pad and sloppy networking.

01/08/2008 at 17:24 Bas says:

Guys, remember Resident Evil 4 for the PC? Yeah, I wouldn’t give Capcom any money for their PC games after that either.

01/08/2008 at 17:27 Fazer says:

Aren’t console games pirated as well?

01/08/2008 at 17:34 Taxman says:

@Fazer not really to the extent of PC games as there is no risk attached on the PC so the hardcore pirates do it along with all the sideliners. On console side only the hardcore do it because of the risk to modding the hardware so those sitting on the sidelines are for the most part kept honest.

I don’t buy the RE4 excuse some are saying either (the port wasn’t done by Capcom), there were plenty of reviews of Lost Planet (which was there first proper PC effort) and DMC4 some even touting how well the games were converted to the PC.

What hurt it most was the delayed release after the consoles versions if they had released it at the same time it would have benefited from the marketing as the PC release saw little fan fair.

Capcom are putting effort into supporting the PC but if they don’t see any decent returns to justify it then they will turn there back on the PC, hopefully sales will fare better with digital distribution.

01/08/2008 at 17:43 Rob Zacny says:

Is DMC a game that can really be expected to do well on PC? If you’re exclusively a PC gamer, that probably means that games like DMC4 aren’t your cup of tea. Otherwise you’d own a console. I mean, it’s nice of Capcom to take the time to do a quality port, but it isn’t the kind of title that PC gamers traditionally play. On the other hand, maybe I’m drawing too much from my experience and the PC gamers that I know.

01/08/2008 at 17:49 Theory says:

Digital distribution means that the game remains encrypted until it launches. Other than that the only advantage it has over retail when it comes to piracy is immediate worldwide availability.

01/08/2008 at 17:53 Xyzzy says:

They complain about DMC4 put up on torrents the day of or after, when the Xbox360 version of GTA4 was up on torrents days before the game even hit the shelves?

01/08/2008 at 17:54 Alex says:

It makes sense when you consider their development process for the game – develop the title on a PC, then port it to consoles.

Isn’t that, in a very basic way, how all videogames are made? (I fear I will now be burned alive..!)

01/08/2008 at 18:07 Robin says:

@Commando: Play DMC4 before commenting. Runs better and has more features than the console versions. I expect future Capcom games using the same engine (i.e. RE5) will get similarly good ports.

Oh, and RE4 PC was not a terrible port (once the patch was applied) although obviously the Wii version renders all three joypad-based versions obsolete.

01/08/2008 at 18:24 SonicTempest says:

@rocketman71: Please play the port before commenting on the game’s quality. There’s a demo out there which you can try.

01/08/2008 at 18:29 gulag says:

I think there are a couple of things the publishers remain willfully ignorant of when they search for reasons people pirate games.

One is lack of availablity. What’s new on the shelves this week? Whatever it is, I bet there is a metric ton of it sitting out there waiting to be bought, it is after all the new hotness. But what about a ‘classic’, the ones everybody on here bangs on about? Find me a copy of The Longest Journey, or Sacrifice, or Citizen Kabuto. No luck? I’m not suprised.

Publishers are astoundingly bad at exploiting the long tail of their catalogues. Therefore if I want to play something from about 5 years ago which has since been recognised as a must-have, I have to hit the torrents to find it.

So the old stuff is pirated, sales they could easily pick up with a DD service. What about the new stuff? It’s 90% rubbish, just like everything else that is shoveled onto the shelves of HMV, Waterstones and GAME week in week out. Publishers take note: people don’t want to pay you for derivative tripe laden with restrictive customer-alienating controls. What possible incentive is there to buy it if it’s crap AND hard to use?

Publishers/developers deserve to get paid for their work. I believe that with my whole heart. I’m itching to spend my money on the next thing out of studios like Introversion, Valve, and CD Projekt. I also believe that publishers and developers should be paid what their games are *worth*.

There’s an awful lot of titles out there every year that aren’t worth stealing, let alone forking over inflated highstreet prices for. If your company is squeezing out those games, and watching your sales drop off after day one and the reviews are in, ask yourself if the pirates might not be the only reason you’re profits are sinking?

01/08/2008 at 18:33 Matthew Gallant says:

I wonder if he’s trying to be witty by making a “hell and back” joke about Devil May Cry. It’s an odd choice of words to describe piracy.

01/08/2008 at 18:40 Citizen Parker says:

if(article.Text.Contains(“piracy”))
   comments.Disabled = true;

01/08/2008 at 18:49 born2expire says:

i love the fact that Capcom belive’s everyone should love this game, when in all honesty button mashers don’t appeal to “PC gamers”.

hurry up and release SF4 and stop whining.

01/08/2008 at 18:51 gulag says:

I should have been clearer. I’d be interested if the people linking Ebay/Amazon could find those older games in a bricks and mortar games store? Not likely.

That supply of ‘classics’ floating around in the secondary market is very finite. Publishers are not doing anything to make sure their marketable assets are within easy reach of customers, either online or on the highstreet.

01/08/2008 at 18:52 subedii says:

Bought it on release and played the tar out of it, it really is a very well done port.

The reviews on the other hand, have largely been stupid. For some reason the reviewers have this hang up about the game. First they tend to say that it has no new distinguishing features, THEN they say that new modes like LDK and Turbo aren’t suited to the PC version. There seems to be this belief that a game like this is either too arcadey or too “hardcore” for the PC market (especially with the added difficulty modifiers) and have docked it accordingly. Granted I’m generalising, but those two points always seem to come up. As if a perfect port with updated features just isn’t good enough.

I even saw one review that complained about lack of mouse support. Mouse support. If anyone here can describe to me a good mouse based system of controlling Dante and Nero that won’t turn the game into a Diablo clone, I’m all ears. To me, it’s amazing that the keyboard only controls are actually passable (I know, I tried them). You can navigate the menu’s with a mouse, and that’s enough.

Barring that, I really wish they had put this on Steam. I honestly believe that would have helped it shift a fair few more copies. I don’t understand why this didn’t happen when Capcom have already stated in press releases that they’re big on using Steam and have put a lot of games on there already, it would have given the game a significant boost. If nothing else, people would at least have seen it on the front page and known about it. As it is, very few people even knew there was a PC release coming out, at least on the gaming forums that I’d been to. Very little coverage anywhere.

Beyond that, yeah, it’s very sad to see it get pirated. It’s a genuinely good port. Personally I’m working my way through LDK mode now, those reviewers who said it didn’t make sense on the PC can just jump in the lake. It was only possible as a mode on the PC, and I’m glad they included it. For a mode that’s too “hardcore” for PC users, I certainly managed it with literally no experience of the series to date, and little to no experience of games of this type in general.

It just gets on my nerves to see a good port like this get rubbished like that.

01/08/2008 at 19:11 cliffski says:

why is it ok to pirate a game because you can’t get it in a physical store? The link posted get you a physical copy delivered to your door.
Whats the difference?
Feel free to walk in a store, experience the atmosphere, then order it from amazon. Any way you cut it, this is no explanation for, or justification of piracy.

01/08/2008 at 19:19 RichPowers says:

Is buying used PC games also a sin, Cliff? No money goes to the publisher or studio, but I do it quite frequently, usually though eBay or Amazon Marketplace.

01/08/2008 at 19:44 Pidesco says:

DMC4 for PC is an awesome game, and deserves all the money PC gamers can throw at it. It’s like a declaration of PC gaming love from Capcom.

01/08/2008 at 20:03 caesarbear says:

I’d be interested if the people linking Ebay/Amazon could find those older games in a bricks and mortar games store? Not likely.

I can’t even find last years PC games in brick and mortar stores. I agree that PC publishers aren’t interested in pushing anything but the latest product and that’s a shame, but that’s a nonsense way to endorse piracy.

Take it from someone who makes a habit of hunting down old PC games. Generally you’ll be able to buy it, and not through some insanely overpriced ebay auction. The times that you can’t buy it online, you can’t get a pirated copy either.

01/08/2008 at 20:31 jackflash says:

These publishers crack me up. They make console-centric games, with console gameplay, the ports don’t sell well on the PC, and they use this to further rationalize focusing on consoles. Maybe we don’t want to play fucking console games on our PCs. Get it?

01/08/2008 at 20:41 Cedge says:

Incognito:
Well, the only recent PC port Capcom has done in-house recently was Lost Planet, which was also an excellent port. RE4, Onimusha 3, all that crap were ported by the hacks at SourceNext.

Anyways, I am impressed with Capcom’s recent PC efforts, but I do wish they’d release all of their downloadable titles on PC. I know that Age of Booty, Bionic Commando Rearmed, Flock, and eventually Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix are coming (all of which I plan to pick up on Steam), but I’d really love to see 1942: Joint Strike, Commando 3, and especially Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix on my Steam games list someday. Oh well. They’re still doing a pretty bang-up job as of late.

01/08/2008 at 21:02 cliffski says:

Agreed that any developer or publisher that doesn’t sell direct online needs a punch in the face. Fuck it, I can do it, and I work from a spare bedroom.
I remember asking my old employer why they weren’t developing something like steam (when steam was talked about) and the head of business development said “we don’t see there being much future in that idea”.

That twat probably still works there, and probably still earns 10 times what they used to pay me…

01/08/2008 at 21:15 subedii says:

Not that you’re bitter or anything right Cliffksi? :mrgreen:

But I agree, the move to not put this up on Steam when Capcom has put their other products up on Steam already is pretty mind boggling. The article mentions something about resistance to the idea from the HQ in Japan, but I can’t imagine why they’d be so averse to it.

01/08/2008 at 21:24 Kalain says:

Well, just looked at Play.com and DMC4 is out of stock… Looks like it is selling well..

01/08/2008 at 21:59 Sahagin says:

Why don’t developers just release dummy torrents that will flag the people who downloaded, or just blow up their computers?

01/08/2008 at 22:16 Matt says:

Sahagin, I believe that would be an invasion of privacy (or piracy, if you will).

01/08/2008 at 22:28 subedii says:

Scandalon, you uh, might want to look here:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/06/06/devil-may-cry-pc-gamers-may-download-demo/

Personally I downloaded the game straight from their main page, and it was plenty fast.

01/08/2008 at 22:38 Po0py says:

A lot of people who pirated DMC4 would have probably never even considered buying it in the first place. You have to take that into consideration. Also the fact that DMC4 was released several months later than the console versions had to have played a part in it’s low sales. There is just no publicity for the pc version; all the hype is gone. People simply don’t know its out there. And, as a previous poster noted, I haven’t seen this game in the store’s either. It is just nowhere to be found. You can’t blame the low sales on piracy alone; its fucking retarded.

01/08/2008 at 22:45 Kanakotka says:

Yet another game i pirated first and ended up buying after, just because it’s good. ;) Piracy doesn’t necessarily mean loss of sales, in this case, for instance, it meant the increase.

01/08/2008 at 23:23 Punning Pundit says:

I am a pretty hardcore PC gamer. This is the first I’ve heard that there is a new Devil May Cry. Do I understand that it requires a gamepad?! Marketing, not security, is to be blamed for poor sales…

01/08/2008 at 23:35 subedii says:

The issue with putting it on Steam isn’t so much preventing Piracy directly as increasing availability and ease of procurement, both of which Steam achieves. There’s also the increased visibility from it being on Steam’s front page and having a notification pop up to declare to all Steam users that “Hey guess what! DMC4 is now on Steam!”. Which would have been a big help in itself given that

a) Steam has around 14 million subscribers and

b) Few people even knew that DMC4 had come out on PC.

If only 1/100th of Steam users were even merely interested in DMC4, that’s 140,000 more people than would have been the case originally. And personally, I’d guess at a lot more than that.

02/08/2008 at 00:17 Muzman says:

slight sidebar: A lot of people still don’t like ordering stuff over the internet, giving out credit card details and then sacrificing their item to the whims of international post, customs, whathaveyou. It’s not that bad these days, but I think aversion to it is still present. If something isn’t in a shop I tend to declare it unavailabler rather than sift through a million warehouse vendors of unverifiable quality from all over the place. Or wander around download sites and reviews of same trying to divine what flavour of strange DRM it has and how many ways it can go wrong so I end up wasting bandwidth quota and money and hard disk space all at the same time.
Some of these things are more peculiarly Australian problems (or magnified by that), sure. But the netted up saying ” you haven’t exhausted all possibilities for paying for the game yet!” and flinging out half a dozen inks to online retailers large and small shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t stick with the average person.
Pass judgement how you like; everyone’s lazy, amoral scum or just stupid. I don’t think online shopping has reached universal acceptance yet is all, and it’s a problem for games when retail ensures there’s no shelf life beyond a month for your title.
(cruel as it might sound, I’m all for online stuff absolutely wrecking retail. Whenever you hear about stupid release dates, development cut short, cost overruns in certain areas, marketing descisions, pressure for gimmicry in games development half the time is boils down to dealing with the retail shelf rent, copies in stock and things of that sort. Tear it all down, I say.)

02/08/2008 at 00:45 Dot says:

Well, at least this time they’ve admitted to being a part of the problem here. If it was on Steam, I’d snap it up the very first day of release, but since it’s not-I’m going to keep waiting until it’s there or even on Impulse.
Though yes, piracy is still a huge problem and this is in no way apology for the people who DID pirate the game.

02/08/2008 at 01:27 Jonathan says:

Steamworks, all I’m saying.

Hmmm, dudes already said it. Nice one dudes.

02/08/2008 at 01:42 Ross B says:

Mouse Support, Put it on Steam, then i’ll buy it. The demo ran well but the two keyboard format was awkward and the load times (which seemed to only happen once at the begining) were horrendous. Capcom aren’t there yet.

02/08/2008 at 03:54 fearian says:

I just wanna say, I Have DMC for the PC and it is kickass and supirior than the console version. It has more content, better graphics, runs silky smoothly even when recording full resolution fraps footage. I’m really enjoying it.

now,

Stick ‘em on Steam. You knows it makes sense.

Steam isn’t the super secure option alot of people think – in fact the pirating systems for steam games are very easy for the end user to use, but they just havn’t been made ‘popular’ in the same way most crack releases are by torrent networks, IRC and usenet.

02/08/2008 at 05:52 mister slim says:

MetalCircus says:

Would putting games up on digital download sites really help? There will always be ways around this. There’s at least one way of getting around Steam that I know of.

The benefit of digital download sites along the line of Steam is that no one outside the developer/publisher has access to the .exe until launch day, so there won’t be cracks available before release and most likely they will be later than that.

02/08/2008 at 06:23 Frosty840 says:

Here’s a thing…
I’m something of a stereotypical nerdy, RTS/Neverwinter-playing PC gamer.
In the name of cross-platform diversity, peace, love and happiness, I *bought* a copy of DMC4.
I just can’t be arsed to even play it.

02/08/2008 at 08:51 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:

OKAY.

I know Capcom is known for their, well, underwhelming PC ports, but the news that piracy is giving them trouble for DMC4 is worth worrying about for a very good reason.

The DMC4 PC port is actually good. Great, even. They rebuilt it from the ground up to work on PC, and if you have a gamepad and a good machine, it plays better than on console.

Capcom is giving the PC some love for a change, and then getting bit in the hand for it. Lookin’ at you, Commando. All the way up there, smug in your “near the top of the thread-ness.”

But I agree with the Steamfolk here. Putting a game on Steam gives it a lot more exposure than putting it on a retail shelf. Even if the game still eventually gets pirated, it’ll sell a lot more copies if it’s on a popular digital publishing platform than if it’s left to languish, unadvertised, on a shelf. *Shh! Don’t let the retailers hear you. They’re in the bushes.*

@Frosty840: Any DMC fan could’ve told you that. This is very much a “Shut brain down, engage Guilty Pleasure circuits” sort of game.

Doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just not to your taste. It is to the Japanese what Gears of War is to the West. (Which is an analogy I first saw bandied about ’round RPS, come to think of it.)

But if you ask me, no other RTS I’ve thus far played has stood up to the Total War series in terms of both fun and thinky-ness. And I long for a return to Baldur’s Gate/Fallout form for the CRPG (read: Real RPG) genre. I still enjoy a bit of mindless stylized action now and then, though.

02/08/2008 at 10:59 thesombrerokid says:

@Dorian Cornelius Jasper
actually on capcoms latest tech the games are developed on pc it’s a cross platform simultaneous development process, they built the versions at the same time, which begs the question why wasn’t the pc versoin out first?

More importantly why release this on pc, why buy it on pc, i pirated it, i had no intentoin of buying it ever, it was as bad as i expected and i got little more than a demos worth of play out of it and i didn’t dl the demo because i could dl the whole game.

Generally speaking i dl most games when they come out and then buy the good ones when my pay check comes in like i done for bioshock, mass effect and crysis and delete the crap ones and i don’t see any reason why someone wouldn’t do it that way, unless they can afford them right there and then obviously, but that skews piracy figures a as does dling games that are not your thing like DMC.

Most All of the people stealing it were never going to buy it, but that wont stop capcom pretending they’re in the same leauge as crysis.

02/08/2008 at 12:07 Greve says:

Yes, DMC4 was such a slick port the controls even mention shoulder buttons. I’ve taped my keyboard to my back and tried to reach back to touch the keys, but that didn’t work. Obviously, a lot of attention has gone to the port.

02/08/2008 at 13:40 DSX says:

I have to agree with the theme “quality sells” when it comes to PC. Consoles games strike me as flavor of the week, for short attention span theater. Even many 3A PC games are notoriously dumbed down for their ability to be ported to console. The PC giant sellers though are all really quality games. They sell because of such, and only a few are ported to consoles.

02/08/2008 at 15:41 kadayi says:

“It seems everyone thinks that

1) Anyone can use steamworks and
2) Anyone can put their games on steam.”

(2) might not be the case, but (1) is entirely possible. They’ve said the tool are free repeatedly. I’m sure if that wasn’t the case they’d have been hauled up by now:-

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/

“With no licensing fees and no charge for bandwidth, keep your customers up-to-date and together with a unified system.”

02/08/2008 at 15:58 SwiftRanger says:

“That’s like marking down an RTS because you can’t play it with a steering wheel!”

Say what? Why would it be so odd to expect mouse+keyboard controls for an action game that isn’t first person? The PCG UK review mentions more problems than that as well, and they’re definitely not all about the actual controls.

02/08/2008 at 17:38 Mo says:

Also: there was that year where “Who wants to be a millionaire” was the #1 selling PC game for the holiday season. Quality indeed. :)

02/08/2008 at 21:30 Dominic White says:

“Say what? Why would it be so odd to expect mouse+keyboard controls for an action game that isn’t first person?”

Yes. Have you ever played a fighting game before? You don’t play Street Fighter with a mouse, do you? DMC is an arcade-style fighting game based around analogue movement and lots of buttons.

If you can come up with an even halfway workable control system for DMC4 that wouldn’t involve reworking the entire gameplay framework, I’d be very impressed.

03/08/2008 at 10:04 kadayi says:

If your reviewing something, your reviewing it for your target audience, and the input system they are most likely to use. Now regardless of whether DMC4 plays brilliantly on the PC using a controller, the plain truth of the matter is, most PC gamers don’t have one, and the developers clearly failed to do a good job at translating the game input to the keyboard & mouse, and testing it for ease of use.

03/08/2008 at 11:48 Dominic White says:

Kadayi: “If your reviewing something, your reviewing it for your target audience, and the input system they are most likely to use. ”

So, reviewers should mark flight sims down if they play badly with the mouse? Racing games too? Brilliant! So, IL2 Sturmovik has just gone from being the best WW2 flight sim out there to the worst, because it’s literally impossible to play it with mouse/keyboard – you’ll be lucky if you can get off the ground.

In your ideal world of journalism, any game that isn’t an RTS or FPS (or similarly controlled) will be panned by reviewers. It’ll be a bright new day for PC gaming!

Or, PC gamers could just suck it up and pick up a decent gamepad. The USB 360 pad is fairly cheap, and works perfectly on almost everything being released these days.

If a high-end video card is an assumed purchase if you want to play good-looking games, why shouldn’t you assume that a gamepad is a requirement for arcade action games?

03/08/2008 at 18:49 Dominic White says:

I just dug out my copy of IL2: Forgotten Battles to check – nowhere on the packaging at all does it mention a flightstick being required, or even reccomended. This is because in the real world, people assume a flight sim will need a flight sim controller.

It is no less unreasonable to assume that an arcade action game (especially a console port) would need a gamepad. Most people don’t play driving games with the keyboard either, because you lose all analogue control.

Tell me – would you be in favour of PC reviewers marking down Street Fighter 4 because most keyboards can’t handle the simultaneous button presses it requires to play properly? Is this the games fault, or perhaps – just perhaps – that the almighty mouse/keyboard combo isn’t meant to do everything.

Edit: Irony – I checked my copy of DMC4 PC too, and it actually DOES mention gamepads – in particular it points out that it natively supports the Xbox 360 controller.

Marking down DMC4 for being best with a gamepad is on par with marking down Crysis because the reviewers video card isn’t new enough.

03/08/2008 at 20:05 Charlie says:

I didn’t realise there would be such a fuss over what is essentially an above average action game. It’s not that much different from Golden Axe when you think about it. I mean its fun but it has terrible acting and script. Some great choreography though and the art style is lovely (apart from the emos and rediculous tits).

04/08/2008 at 10:50 subedii says:

Kadayi, I’m going to ask you straight, have you played this game?

I have. The game was designed around gamepad, and that’s what it works best with. Having said that, it is actually feasible to play it with the keyboard, I know, because I’ve tried it. It’s difficult to get used to at first but once you do it’s manageable. Probably not at the harder difficulty levels (I wouldn’t want to try it with “Hell or Hell” difficulty) but it’s still very playable. Which to me is an incredible achievement in itself. The very fact that I could control the game well with a keyboard is amazing.

Saying that they should be trying to shove mouse support into this game on top of that is outright retarded. It. Would. Not. Work.

You don’t mark down flight sims because they naturally play better with a joystick. Anymore than you say Street Fighter IV should come with frigging mouse control of the characters. The gameplay style and the very way the game is designed DOES NOT WORK with that input device.

You can’t just say “it should have mouse support” for any game that comes to the PC. If the game design and gameplay don’t work with a mouse, then they don’t work. This is an isometrically viewed game based around fixed camera angles, with camera relative movement controls and character facing relative combat controls. If you can come up with a control scheme for DMC4 (and Heck, make it Street Fighter IV as well, since clearly every game coming to PC needs to make use of the mouse for it’s central control) which makes good use of the mouse (not just token useage, but genuinely incorporates it into the control scheme) and doesn’t change the gameplay mechanic into Diablo, I’d really like to hear it. I genuinely would. Because right now adding mouse support when they have already gone to lengths create a workable keyboard scheme is just nutty.

Heck, I was even one of the people criticising Capcom for the lack of mouse support in RE4. In a 3rd person perspective, OTS viewed shooter mouse control is highly appropriate and makes sense. The control and gameplay mechanics are ideally suited to making use of a mouse. But here? I really do want you to post what you believe would be a good control scheme making use of the mouse. Because I cannot see a good way to implement mouse control here that wouldn’t either fundamentally change the gameplay or end up being worse than what’s here now.

04/08/2008 at 12:00 iainl says:

“Also games industry please note; downloaded games should never ever be the same price as boxed games.. seriously do you think we are stupid… seesh.”

Worse, I really wish the games industry would note that when Play and everyone else discount £35 games to £25 online, trying to sell us the download for £30 is NOT making that version cheaper.

I wonder how much of the DMC4 piracy is people who bought the console release not wanting to pay all over again just to see what the extra bits in the PC release are?

04/08/2008 at 19:06 kadayi says:

@subedii

I’m not arguing that it should be M&K only, or that M&K is a superior input choice (far from it), or that SF4 should be M&K either. What I am saying is that, if a game is best suited to a controller rather than M&K then developers/publishers should be frank in that respect when it comes to outlining what the hardware requirements are of a title including peripherals (Recommended 360 controller!!!). Unfortunately there is often a tendency for publishers to shy away from such things in case it dents sales, and often developers make some pretty questionable choices when it comes to translating their controller setups to M&K. The GTA series are a good example. Driving and running and gunning are easy as pie with M&K, but flying, esp the RC missions in San Andreas are hair tearingly impossible without the use of a controller. Dominic seems to think that gamers should inherently know what peripherals they are going to require for a great gaming experience, my position is developers/publishers need to spell it out on the box, and if they don’t then they are being disingenuous to the buying public. What’s wrong with better labeling? As you yourself said, although DMC4 is playable using M&K alone, the harder difficulty settings really require a controller. If the publishers have failed to recommend a controller as an appropriate peripheral, then they’ve done you the purchaser a disservice. Minimum Requirements M&K, Recommended Requirements 360 Controller. Simple really.

04/08/2008 at 21:49 malkav11 says:

The default peripherals on a PC are mouse and keyboard. Unless there is absolutely no role for the mouse in a control scheme (something which I’m sure will be true for Street Fighter, but is not true for a game involving gunplay), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the game to offer that support. It may very well play better with and be more suited for gamepad controls, like many space sims play better with a joystick, but that’s immaterial. Not offering support for mouse and keyboard on PC would be like requiring people to use mouse and keyboard for a FPS on the 360 – it’s possible, it would be superior control, but the 360 comes with a gamepad and you can’t guarantee people have the USB mouse and keyboard.

04/08/2008 at 23:58 Dominic White says:

@malkav11:

As has been mentioned, the game supports keyboard play, but it is far from ideal. The game is designed for gamepads from the ground up. This is no different from a racing game being best played with a pad/wheel/something analogue, or a flight sim being best played with a stick.

There is no way mouse control could be worked into it. At all. Everyone who has complained about lack of mouse support has done nothing constructive in their complaining – they just want mouse support, even if they don’t know how it would work.

Having professional reviewers mark down a game because it doesn’t support a controller that wouldn’t be even remotely feisable (again, like playing an RTS with a steering wheel) to use is a worrying sign of the state of games journalism today.