There is this wonderful article up on Destructiod, make sure you read the whole thing; and then come back. If you aren't reading the article then, I can't really help you. If you are, then good for you.
The beginning of the article talks about the over sequelizing of the industry and how there are far too many 2s, 3s, 4s, etc... And that gamers as a whole are scared of new IPs and that; just like publishers gamers are mainly drawn to sequels. All of that I can get behind, both from a gamer's perspective and a member of the press who sees SO MANY sequels that after a while it actually made me kind of bummed for the whole video game industry. But then...
The whole article goes off the rails. He starts talking about gamers wanting "standardized controls" and that games like Killzone 2 and Resident Evil 5 shouldn't be critiqued for their control schemes. He says it's the gamers expectations of what the controls SHOULD be rather than what they are that is to blame for this. At this point I was wondering if he was dating someone who is working for Capcom PR.
The developers of Killzone 2 actually put a patch through that CHANGED the controls because they agreed that they responded too slowly for multiplayer. I didn't notice this when playing but obviously others did. Resident Evil 5 however is a totally different animal. I usually play ALL video games with the default controls. I VERY rarely try and change them. I usually find the controls to be perfectly fine. With Resident Evil 5 however, I actually went online and asked for help in choosing a controller configuration because the controls were SO BAD. Why do I need 2 buttons to reload when the game isn't using at least 2 face buttons and one shoulder button most of the time anyway? If nothing else I could just push the analog stick in. Why do I need to push the stick up and hit the A button to run? Why wouldn't I want to aim as fast as possible? Why isn't my character all ways "Quick Turning," why must I trigger it? No dodge button? I guess the dodge is when you hunch over to pick stuff up off the ground. Like ammo... No, I'm sorry, I don't want standardized controls; I would just like controls that wouldn't only make sense to someone who has just marathon played every Resident Evil game before this and then sitting down to test the controls for Resident Evil 5.
He then mentions Bioshock and states that people were mad that there was no multiplayer even though the game was wonderful in single player. Well, there are two reasons for this; first, when you love a game in single player the natural reaction for most gamers is to want to play it in multiplayer to, if nothing else, to show your friends how good you are at it. Also, some people buy games at $60 and they feel kind of cheated when 20 or 30 hours later the game is over. Personally, I would have liked to see some DLC levels or challenges for both PS3 and XBOX 360; or at the VERY LEAST the PC. Because Bioshock IS kind of a short game. Although I maintain it IS the best FPS ever made.
So really, it's not standardization that's needed. It's testing outside of the office that's needed. Of course, developers and in house testers are going to be fine with wacky controls; because hey they have been playing this way for sometimes YEARS. But you want AS MANY PEOPLE TO PLAY THE GAME AS POSSIBLE. Not just the people who are REALLY good at the game, right? So this is something to consider when releasing a game, right?
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