You actually couldn't look up and down more than about 45 degrees from center, but you could still hit people directly above you because of the autoaiming.

Prety sure that wasn't auto aiming, but instead because the engine was 2d...

Yup. The Duke3D engine was more advanced than the Doom engine, in that you could fake true 3D in it (ie, have an area that you could both walk on AND walk under, though from what I remember this involved placing windows into wide open spaces and pretend they were walkways) but where aiming was concerned it was all 2D.

I think in the end, whatever system you've practiced a ton with you're going to be best at. Ray gives a good example of how you could be skilled with a keyboard shooter, then switch to mouse and after awhile can no longer even hit anything with a keyboard.

If I try to replay the old Doom and Doom 2 on Ultra Violence with just the keyboard, I get my ass handed to me on a barbwire pillow. If I use one of the many conversions that allow mouse control, I do far far better. But back when the keyboard was the only thing I knew (and the only thing that was possible in Doom), I ran through both games on Ultra Violence without ever really running into any trouble. I even finished Final Doom on Ultra Violence with the keyboard.

I think that if you compare them on a universal playing field, the mouse will come out on top simply for its incredible precision and accuracy. But if you become skilled in a game's environment with a gamepad (albeit with whatever aid the game chooses to give you) and go up against someone skilled with a mouse in their special environment (ie, adapted to mouse use), and against someone skilled with a keyboard in their environment, the difference won't be as profound as we might think.

I remember the first game that made me switch from kb to mouse was Jedi Knight, because it was a fucking bitch to aim at stuff that was above and below you, and with a keyboard it took forever. I started using the mouse, sucked for a few hours, then discovered the Circle Strafe. Heaven had revealed itself.

The poor AI in Jedi Knight never knew what to do against circle strafing either, even the final dark jedi could easily be circle strafed to hell.

Creston

Edit : Btw, we like to pretend all haughtily that where console games give auto aim, the PC has "no need" of such cheating ways, and yet it feels like most PC shooters nowadays have auto aim, or at least a hitbox that's larger than their model would suggest. Especially in FEAR I've fired shots that I KNOW were misses and would still take guys out, especially with the sniper rifles.

This comment was edited on Aug 14, 02:03.