Dead Space, Meet Scarface Control Schemes

By Joe Haygood | October 20, 2008

If you are a listener to the Aeropodcast, you have probably heard myself rattle on to no end about the control issues in Scarface.  It was buggy, remaping did not work, and generally overall, it sucked to have to use a third party gamepad mapping software to make the game work.  It just seems that when multiplatform games are developed, the PC ends up getting the short end of the stick when it comes to translating controls to the mouse and keyboard.  Well, I am woefully reporting that it looks like the controls for the PC version of Dead Space have been nerfed to the highest order.

Yes, it seems that the keymaps used for Dead Space, make the game a lot more difficult, which is unfortunate for a game that really requires precise shooting to dismember your enemies.  The reports started over at Whatifgaming.com, and now have shown up in Games Radar’s review of Dead Space as well.  This is a disheartening bit of news, as I was hoping the pinpoint accuracy of the mouse would help me get through the game with some better stats.  Now I am just worried over whether I want to get stuck with another landmine of a game if the control scheme is ass.

Funny thing about all this is that it seems like controls schemes should not be all that difficult for a design team to implement.  2K Games showed how well a control scheme can work from console to PC with Bioshock.  Halo 2, Max Payne, Call of Duty 2 and many more have done it right.  And yet, a few stubborn designers, like Capcom seem to forget about the mouse and keyboard.   Looking at the companies, you can also get a sense of who does direct ports, and who gives a bit more love to their PC counterparts.

Capcom has released Devil May Cry 3 and 4, Resident Evil 4 and Onimusha 3 for the PC.  I own all but Devil May Cry 4 on PC, and it sucks, because the controls are gamepad or keyboard only.  No mouse support is there whatsoever.  Not even in the menus.  Vivendi/Sierra/whatever they are now were great supporters of the PC, but towards the end of their reign, they just released ports to the PC, with atrocious controls, including the aforementioned Scarface.

When asked about the issue with the controls in Dead Space, Electronic Arts had the following to say, “Dead Space for PC is an equivalent experience to that on consoles. The controls are different and customizable, but we feel it’s in the best ability for the players to match what the console experience is like.”  This basically translates into, “if you want to play our game right, get a gamepad for your system”.  This is just laziness to its perfection, and a stumbling block for a game that I have raved about, including the review I wrote.

I would hope for a patch to fix this problem up a bit, but I am not going to hold my breath any, as it seems now, the mentality for EA on the PC is to ship it and forget it, which up until this point, I thought was the Eidos mantra.  Well, I guess I will hold off for a few weeks to see what shows up on the patch front before committing to Dead Space on the PC, because I refuse to get Scarface’d again.