so ... um ... I'm not that good at this ...
I must preface this post with a little confession. During the initial training for this game I don't think I really got the hang of the controls. Instead of WASD, I've basically been playing one handed using the arrows. When it comes to using weapons, I take my right hand off the arrows and move to the mouse to use whatever weapon I'm using. In the beginning, when the action has been slow, this wasn't that bad. But now that I'm in "We have Hostiles" and the action is picking up, it's becoming a bit of a problem. I know I should have conquered this before I got so far into the game, but I didn't and now I'm struggling.
So, when I left off last time I was here:
It took me a while to get past this point, as I didn't have much health. I was able to run past these aliens and then look back and shoot them.
* The rest of the screen shots I took came out black, so I don't have anymore *
The next big room had some of those stationary laser gun shooting thingies. After dying several dozen times, I finally realized that there were trip lasers that were setting them off. So I was able to shoot them, and also get by them, by jumping and ducking the trip lasers. After climbing some crates, I was faced with more of them, but I was able to take them out and get some much needed health. After getting by some more I got through a fire door, went up a large elevator and was quickly killed.
Where I'm at has some "soldiers" wearing back packs, packing guns, and apparently throwing grenades. This was the most action I've seen as I couldn't seem to get adjusted to killing them before they killed me. So basically, I feel screwed since I was so lax in learning the controls.
I stopped right here so I could re-adjust my strategy.
I know I need to get more comfortable with the controls if I have any prayer of getting by actual human enemies shooting at me. The aliens were no big deal because they were slow enough for me to react. But, the soldiers are going to take more fluency of the controls and I've got to get better with that.
OK - so I'm exposed!
I'll figure this all out. More to come ...
So, when I left off last time I was here:
It took me a while to get past this point, as I didn't have much health. I was able to run past these aliens and then look back and shoot them.
* The rest of the screen shots I took came out black, so I don't have anymore *
The next big room had some of those stationary laser gun shooting thingies. After dying several dozen times, I finally realized that there were trip lasers that were setting them off. So I was able to shoot them, and also get by them, by jumping and ducking the trip lasers. After climbing some crates, I was faced with more of them, but I was able to take them out and get some much needed health. After getting by some more I got through a fire door, went up a large elevator and was quickly killed.
Where I'm at has some "soldiers" wearing back packs, packing guns, and apparently throwing grenades. This was the most action I've seen as I couldn't seem to get adjusted to killing them before they killed me. So basically, I feel screwed since I was so lax in learning the controls.
I stopped right here so I could re-adjust my strategy.
I know I need to get more comfortable with the controls if I have any prayer of getting by actual human enemies shooting at me. The aliens were no big deal because they were slow enough for me to react. But, the soldiers are going to take more fluency of the controls and I've got to get better with that.
OK - so I'm exposed!
I'll figure this all out. More to come ...
Labels: control troubles, fps, half-life, overcoming obstacles, owned
10 Comments:
The first time I played an FPS with mouse and keyboard simultaneously was Redneck Rampage. The demo had come out, and I played against a friend online. He used mouse and keyboard, while I used just the keyboard, and he kept killing me over and over.
I decided to simply load up an empty map and practice moving around. I would do that for ten or twenty minutes at a time--just practice strafing, moving forward while looking around, and so on.
I eventually moved on to playing the single-player portion of the demo while using mouse and keyboard. Once I got the hang of that I went back to playing head-to-head against my friend, and it went much better.
So, annoying as it is, you might just try loading up an empty multiplayer map (if you can figure that out) and running around by yourself for a while. If you can't do that, then maybe just try running through the training thing again, while focusing on using mouse and keyboard simultaneously.
When I first played half-life I didn't know that you could use the WASD keys for movement, so I used arrows. I still played two handed, I used my right hand to control the mouse, and with my left hand I used the arrow keys.
You might want to try that, if you're finding the WASD keys too difficult. It isn't the best solution, but it's easier to find the "up arrow" than the "w" without looking at the keyboard.
I had sort of the same problem when I played Halo for the first time. I'd done WASD+mouse pretty easily in PC shooters, but translating to 2 thumbsticks on a console for the first time completely flummoxed me.
My friends were kicking my ass on a pretty regular basis and I must have looked like a spastic trying to move and look in the right directions. It probably took me 2 or 3 playing sessions to get used to it.
Stick with it, you'll be glad you did!
Anyone who started playing FPS games before 1997 has pretty much gone through the same. For me it was with Jedi Knight (Dark Forces II). Takes a while to get used to, but you'll get the hang of it.
Funny, now how you mention it, I can't even remember which game it was which forced me to go mouse/keyboard. Guess something like Jedi Knight.
It was tough at first, but you get used to it, and then it comes naturally. Now it's the same with gamepad 1st person shooter.
I can't even imagine playing without the mouse. It sounds like you are choosing between moving or aiming. I empathize with the learning curve of mouse+keyboard, but just thinking about playing an FPS when you could only aim or only move, but never both, sounds so incredibly difficult.
The game becomes SO MUCH EASIER if you can get used to aiming while moving.
I remember playing Quake (back in the day) using only the keyboard. Me and a buddy went online as we heard there was this game mode called Deathmatch, so we hopped on a server and instantly got our asses handed to us. I remember some of the people on the server were making comments like "are you using the keyboard?" and "your not using the mouse are you". To be honest i dont think we even knew that we could use the mouse in the game.
I totally symphathise with what your going through, it may take a while to get used to mouse+keyboard but when you do you'll wonder why you never did it in the first place.
BTW, i started with using the arrow keys (to move around) and mouse (to look and shoot) at first then a few years down the line i progressed to WSAD.
Great blog, keep it up.
This reminds me of when I finally switched from the numpad to wsad for movement. Then came grappling hooks and I had to take up the mouse too.
I played for years on cursors & and mouse, it can actually work pretty well:
rctrl - duck
kp_0 - jump
kp_1 - reload
end - use
rshift - walk
mousewheel for picking weapons - what else do you need in Half-Life?
When I first picked up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (for the PC) I ran into a problem - in all the other games, you'd use WASD+Mouse when you were out of the car, but just WASD when you were driving. The camera would keep up with you, and look where you needed to (mostly).
In San Andreas that changed - the camera now lagged heavily behind my movements, and I had to use the Mouse to direct which way I was looking. I've been gaming for years, but this was incredibly frustrating, and took me a while to learn. When I started out I'd often turn a corner, only to slam into somebody's front end.
Maddening
Eventually I figured out how to use it properly, and I have to admit it's a far better system than in the previous games. Once you figure it out on Half-Life I'm sure you'll feel the same - and wonder how it was such a frustration in the first place!
Great blog, keep it up.
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