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Gyruss and Time Pilot, the way they were meant to be played
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: opt2not on August 08, 2019, 09:23:25 pm ---
--- Quote from: leapinlew on August 08, 2019, 08:26:02 pm ---It takes out some of the challenge, but that's because it's using bad controls.
--- End quote ---
--- End quote ---
Oh yeah! Goes without saying.
Plenty of folks love the controls and gameplay as it is. With a spinner, it’s like a game genie hack. Since the game was programmed to be used with a joystick the game is much easier. If you could play tempest with a joystick, it would probably be super difficult because it’s meant to be played with a spinner. Different strokes...
Mr. Peabody:
Gyruss and Time Pilot controllers seem weird when you think laterally rather than circularly. A little re-programming and off to the races. Or at least in Gyruss you could stay in the lower third of the screen....
opt2not:
--- Quote from: leapinlew on August 08, 2019, 09:43:21 pm ---
--- Quote from: opt2not on August 08, 2019, 09:23:25 pm ---
--- Quote from: leapinlew on August 08, 2019, 08:26:02 pm ---It takes out some of the challenge, but that's because it's using bad controls.
--- End quote ---
--- End quote ---
Oh yeah! Goes without saying.
Plenty of folks love the controls and gameplay as it is. With a spinner, it’s like a game genie hack. Since the game was programmed to be used with a joystick the game is much easier. If you could play tempest with a joystick, it would probably be super difficult because it’s meant to be played with a spinner. Different strokes...
--- End quote ---
Except it’s not different strokes. It’s just plain wrong.
The original designer didn’t intend to use a spinner for those games. This is especially true with Gyruss. It’s apparent to how positioning and spawn patterns cater to an 8-way joystick, and memorizing the spawn locations with the ability to quickly move your ship to a specific location is a major part of the game. You don’t get specific location movement with a spinner. In Gyruss Down-right will always move your ship to the 4-o’clock position. Up, will always move your ship to 12-o’clock. If you are truly familiar with the game you’d know that being able to get to these locations quickly for enemy spawns is 80% of the gameplay.
Let’s not construe this more than it is. It’s a neat hack to mess with the game. But to try to spin this as “it’s better with spinner” is just ridiculous. It’s like saying, Leonardo Da Vinci shouldn’t have painted the Mona Lisa with a sfumato technique, layered painting is better. Or Picasso should have done Impressionism rather than cubism because people can digest it easier.
negative1:
i wonder if anyone got good at the crystal castles joystick version, which came after
the original trackball.
i tried the emulated version, and did ok, but it made it harder.
marble madness had a trackball, and the plan was for marble madness 2 to use joysticks.
but that didn't pan out.
some games feel more natural with certain controllers, others, the limitations of them,
can complement the game.
later
-1
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: opt2not on August 11, 2019, 12:03:35 am ---Except it’s not different strokes. It’s just plain wrong.
The original designer didn’t intend to use a spinner for those games. This is especially true with Gyruss. It’s apparent to how positioning and spawn patterns cater to an 8-way joystick, and memorizing the spawn locations with the ability to quickly move your ship to a specific location is a major part of the game. You don’t get specific location movement with a spinner. In Gyruss Down-right will always move your ship to the 4-o’clock position. Up, will always move your ship to 12-o’clock. If you are truly familiar with the game you’d know that being able to get to these locations quickly for enemy spawns is 80% of the gameplay.
Let’s not construe this more than it is. It’s a neat hack to mess with the game. But to try to spin this as “it’s better with spinner” is just ridiculous. It’s like saying, Leonardo Da Vinci shouldn’t have painted the Mona Lisa with a sfumato technique, layered painting is better. Or Picasso should have done Impressionism rather than cubism because people can digest it easier.
--- End quote ---
I did say it was a hack because, well, it clearly is and it's also pretty obvious that "it's better with a spinner" is my opinion.
Your points about Gyruss are well placed. You zeroed in on the one game where game play was designed well for a joystick. I don't like the game all that much, but I did enjoy it with the spinner. That's why I prefer it with a spinner - I just liked it and would actually play it. The more random games, such as Time Pilot, Star Castle, Asteroids - those work much better out of the box with a spinner than Gyruss.
We had a version of Track'n'field with trackballs at our local bowling alley. That was a total blast and I really pumped some quarters into it. To me, that's a good example where controls were switched and it made a different, and some would say, better experience.
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