Mouse and Keyboard or Console Control Pad?

The way a player controls the game they are playing is possibly the most important part of the game itself, maybe even more so than graphics and sound. The control method is the way a gamer exacts themselves on a game. Back when the games industry was coming into it’s own, whacky new ways to control games were not uncommon- the Power Glove comes to mind. But in this current generation it’s boiled down to two options: Mouse and Keyboard or Console Control Pad.

[ashbc]

I hope control pad wins this debate. I have played a fair amount of PC games but nothing compares to the natural feel from playing games on my 360.

[TheDareDevil]

Yep. Holding that 360 controller in your hands feels awesome. The best thing about controllers is the haptic feedback that it gives, like when you shoot a gun in a FPS, the controller vibrates in tune with the recoil of the gun

[gaffyh]

Mouse and Keyboard for FPS and RTS games, controllers for everything else. Mouse & Keyboard is just better in terms of response speed in those genres.

[kneon]

Except for movement, movement always sucks with a keyboard.

[Redgehammer]

Ugh, I can't stand feedback; however, to each, his own. I agree that holding the 360 controller feels great. In my 36 years of gaming, the 360 controller has caused the least amount of hand cramping I have experienced. Even if I didn't have a negative opinion toward Sony (the company, not PS3), I would have chosen the 360 because of its controller.

[rabidpancakeburglar]

I know what you mean, I love using my PS3 and 360 controllers but the second that I hit my PC to try a game I can feel the RSI hitting within about half an hour.

[vickers500]

I love my gamepad as well. Try as I might, I just can't seem to get the same enjoyment from my mouse and keyboard as I do from my controller, and I have tried (bought a pretty expensive gaming mouse and keyboard).

When I'm playing with a controller, to me it just feels like an extension of my arm and I'm so use to my controller that I don't even really have to think about the controller anymore, which gives me a lot more room to perform better on the actual screen. I also do not like having my arms spread apart in akward positions like m/kb requires. Kb/m takes me out of the game and removes almost all immersion for me, a controller on the other hand (since I'm so used to it) does not. I hope that problem will fade away though as I continue trying.

Obviously a mouse is much more accurate than a joystick, there's no debating that, however a joystick is just much more comfortable to me and I'm also a big fan of rumble as well.

I would game on pc a lot more if pc games PROPERLY (read PROPERLY) supported gamepads. Some of them support gamepads properly, like games such as fallout new vegas, grand theft auto, but others do not, and I do know about pinnacle game profiler, but that is not proper controller support. It only has the basic functions, but since the game isn't fine tuned to use a controller, it doesn't feel anywhere near the quality as if you were using the controller on the actual console.

This is all just my personal preference though. Neither controller or kb/m is "better" than one another, it's just personal taste (and no, you cannot claim a mouse is better as on objective fact simply because it's more accurate).

[news4geeks]

Dude, the 360 controller is horrible. Clunky mess with imprecise analog sticks and slow awkward triggers.

Mouse + keyboard is superior for every genre apart from maybe racing and sports games and even then Sony's Dualshock beats the 360s abomination of a controller in these fields.

[MWH]

Shift+Delete yourself will you, kindly? good.

[Redgehammer]

@news4geeks
Your opinion is valid only in the context that all sapient creatures opinions are valid. However, my equally valid opinion is the antithesis of yours. Maybe the Dualshock is good for someone with elf hands, but that is not me.

[Redgehammer]

I agree. I was a PC gamer for 20+ years, and nothing has ever felt better to me than the 360 controller.

[BeastlyRig]

Hmm I have played console shooters most of my life & now that I play on pc I can't go back!

Playing shooters with a controller makes me tap a little to the left then tap a little to the right to line up a shot! ugh..

I can't really check both sides of the room quickly..

I would say shooters are best on the platform it was created on..

There is a reason pc players are know to be better it's becuz of better tools..

smaller DOF slow turns & aim assist is just a draw back for me..

Plus aiming a virtual gun with my right arm is more immersive than aiming a virtual gun with my right thumb..

Look at BF3! It will be the best shooter in a while! And it's based around what platform? pc...

I can understand if players feel more comfy with a controller but K/M is just the most efficient..

Since the begining this is what controller were made for..

- http://www.youtube.com/watc...

"An intriguing story has come to our notice, Rahul Sood, Voodoo PC founder and current CTO of gaming at HP, has revealed that a few months ago an interesting project was underway at Microsoft which would've allowed PC gamers to square off against console players. Well, the reason the idea of multi-platform online gaming never really materialized was due to the fact that during testing, the PC gamers cleaned Xboxers' clocks."

- http://www.gameranx.com/upd...

Remember this?
- http://www.joystiq.com/2010...

[Redgehammer]

Thx for the reply
When I play FPS's, I adjust my sensitivity to match what would be my natural head motion and my thumbs never leave the thumbsticks. By pushing and pulling the thumsticks toward or away from each other, it is possible to do precision 180 degree turns, and other things a mouse enables. All it takes is practice for either input method; however, it seems to me the barrier to proficiency is lower for the KB/M than it is for the 360 controller. Incidentally, I only am speaking for me, and my experiences.

[billyboi122]

Like you said in the article, it largely depends on the game I'm playing. After downloading Team Fortress 2, using the mouse and keyboard has grown on me a lot.

For most games though, you can't beat a control pad. (IMO)

[Fishy Fingers]

Depends on the genre. There's obviously a grey area, but say, FPS is far better with a mouse, or fighting games are far better with a pad.

Each to their own at the end of the day. There isnts a "winner" or "loser" here, lets not forget that.

[vglulz]

Gotta agree with you here. Even though I think a pad is more comfortable for FPSs, you don't get that same level of precision.

[arjman]

I couldn't believe the precision you get with a mouse and keyboard in FPS games like CoD and Battlefield, I can't play seriously with the pad anymore because of the lack of precision lol, I just can't do it!

[ZeroX9876]

fighting game = arcade stick for me!

[GoldPS3]

I grew up on controls and I will always prefer them. I tried mouse and keyboard but I never could get used to it.

[Anon1974]

I know what you mean. It's so nice at the end of a day to sit back, sink into my couch and just grab a controller. I used to game exclusively on my PC once upon a time and I can't imagine ever going back now. For the first time in years I grabbed a game off Steam. I pretty much have to force myself to play it, the keyboard controls are so awkward.

[Fishy Fingers]

Should of just plugged a pad in, 360 or DS3 (with motionjoy).

[Raven_Nomad]

Controller 100%. I know a lot of people on PC use controllers as well. I just prefer something comfortable, simple and easy to sit back and use.

[KeiserSosay4788]

Kb/M ALL DAY. I don't mind a controller for single player games, sometimes. Except for RTS games, but for online...It's no contest. Moving my wrist and forearm is MUCH more accurate than "twiddling my thumbs"...

[NoobJobz]

I think it just depends on what you are used to. Ive always played with a controller and the few times Ive tried mouse and keyboard,its just confused me. It just takes some getting used to. If I had grown up with mouse and keyboard, then I would probably prefer that instead.

[fghsjdfghjdfhgkjdf]

I enjoy both methods. I prefer the mouse for precision and control, I prefer the controller for the comfort. The thing that really influences my decision is the aim assist. There's nothing that annoys me more in shooters than having my aiming messed with. Unfortunately, that pretty much accounts for all gamepad based shooters and so I avoid them when I can.

[thelogicking]

the thing that most people dont know that the controolers are not as accurate as the mouse thus the aim assist.

without them gamers will spray bullets everywhere!

[bozebo]

Mouse/kbd for strategy/city builder, fps

Controller for hack and slash, racing game, platformer, fighter, tps

There are games that could only work with a mouse, or would just be very bad with a controller. Like Terraria or LoL.

If controllers wern't supported with aim assist, most people would think they sucked for fps. I personally turn off aim assist if possible, it can adjust your aim right when you are about to throw a grenade...
Games like Halo are designed to need aim assist though, and it works well.

[PsycheMax]

Totally agreeing with you: when I was a child, playin TUROK on my N64 was a pain in the ass, it was awful trying to aim with some silly buttons. Or, more and more ankward tryin to aim with an analogic stick.

Then, someone (Killzone / Black on PS2, Halo on Xbox) invented the AIM-ASSIST. Something that let you select the enemy and do by himself the rest.

And someone dare saying "MW is bettah on Consuole!". :O

[bozebo]

Timesplitters 1 was the first game to introduce aim assist with dual analogues, I think.

MW is better on console when the PC version doesn't have dedicated servers. Mouse just sucks with no hit reg, because you can be so sure that your shots were meant to hit when they don't. (low update rate on P2P games because the host won't normally have enough upload bandwidth, so the game hard-codes it really low to support microsoft's xbox-live certification of maximum upload speed use: 128kbps, which isn't enough for a proper game - cs:s can use upwards of 5mbps. BC2 does that even with dedis... fail port)

The aiming in GTAIV/RDR was great, that there was a snap on and also a little adjustment required for a nice headshot.

[TurboGamer]

Racing games, JRPG's, platformer, fighting games, being lazy(not meant in an offensive way) and gaming casual use a gamepad. For everything else use a keyboard and mouse witch is way faster, accurate and has more key combinations. I have love both the PC and PS3 but I only have a PC because believe it or not where I live (South Africa) Console gaming is more expensive than pc gaming. Converting the prices from South African Rand to USA Dollars, PC games: $50-$60 and console Games: $95-$100. PS3 price: $540. So why would I pay more for an in-superior product?

[Kennytaur]

Mouse / Keyboard for RTS (for now, but I bet that will change in time), controller for everything else IMO. The mouse & keyboard combo was made for writing and working (resulting in a button layout on keyboards that's far from adapted for gaming, not counting those expensive gaming keyboard that less than 1% of PC owners have) , where as a control-pad was made for gaming in the first place. I'm not saying that PC gaming sux, because it doesn't, I personally play a number of games on PC, but that gaming with a controller feels more natural and far more comfortable.

[bozebo]

How could mouse being best for rts ever change? lol.

And the button layout is fine, you shouldn't be looking at the buttons anyway, having your left hand holding a half controller would just be annoying and the mouse is essential in a lot of situations. What you forgot to mention that PC lacks is analogue buttons/triggers/sticks which can be handy (though the mouse is near-analogue). There may be peripherals with them but a game won't have much of a reason to support them if the majority of players won't have one. Racing games being a prime example (I like steering with the mouse at very high sensitivity - works really well, rather than buy a badly made wheel).

Also, most PC gamers don't care about what kbd they use. Expensive ones are only a tiny bit better than some cheap logitech kbd, and often worse (stupidly located extra buttons which cause important ones to be relocated, and non-dented capslock key, etc.).

[dirthurts]

I use a controller on most of my pc games. There exceptions, but for the most part I dig my controller. I perform pretty equally with both really, even sometimes better with my controller but that's just because it's my preference.

Now, this said the mouse and keyboard are "better". Precision, control and all of that. But I just like my controller.

[ZeroX9876]

controllers for everything except hardcore FPS and RTS. some gamers would gladly play games on the ps3/360 if keyboard and mouse was supported, but having mouse/keyboard combination VS gamepad is just unfair for the gamepad users. some of my friends are really good with gamepad (Cod,Halo,unreal), but when it comes vs a keyboard/mouse combo, we`ve tried it on unreal 3 and the results was most of the time ms/kb pwning gamepad. I'm not saying that some gamepad user couldn`t beat a kb/ms user, but if both are really good then mouse will win because of precision

[PsycheMax]

Same sillyness everyday in those articles... OMG...

What I really think is that for what you need precision skills, MOUSE is unbeatable.

But for analogic inputs, controller is the way.

Real problem is gamepad is SLOW in analogic input, obviously!

[HAF912]

kbm is superior. Dont believe me ? Microsoft wanted to allow PC gamers and 360 gamers play together. The project was killed because average pc gamers were owning very skilled pad players. Hard.

Here, read:

http://www.tomshardware.com...

You can talk about your preferences all you want. If you faced me with a pad online (while i used kbm), you will get torn to shreds.

Oh and nothing beats PC in terms of inputs. PC will take any type of controller (pad, kbm, joystick, racing wheel, FPS guns).

To those of you who will try to claim that the controller feels more natural: you lose.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Nothing feels more natural than a real gun shaped controller, and there are many variations on the pc.

[Hicken]

There seems to be a difference in people's understanding...

I got two cars: a Maserati and a Dodge Caravan. The Maserati costs more but is more powerful, faster, handles better and looks better. The Caravan doesn't handle as well or go as fast, but has better mileage and less upkeep, and accommodates more passengers.

Both do their jobs equally well in different ways. And there are people who prefer one over the other. A Maserati's better speed and handling don't make it a better car than the Caravan, anymore than the Caravan's lower price and spacious interior make it better than the Maserati. I, in this example, would rather have a Corvette or a Skyline, but that's neither here nor there.

Controller preference is the same way: Whether you like KB/M or a controller better is personal preference. Sure, you can't get the precision of KB/M out of a controller, but nor can you hook 4 KB/M pairs up to a single PC and play. Yes, the KB/M is considerably customizeable, but it's not as easy to pick up and use as a controller would be for a five year-old.