Mouse & Keyboard > Controller

Despite popular belief by many dimwitted Halo fans, Halo was not the original first person shooter(FPS). The Xbox was not the original platform for FPS. FPS games started on the PC and is only played to its full potential with the PC's most common input devices; the mouse and keyboard.

With the FPS genre entering mainstream with Wolfenstein 3D back in the early 90s, gamers took some time to discover the efficiency of using a mouse and keyboard together. The default settings for early FPS games like Wolfenstein and Doom had the arrow keys for movement and space bar or ALT key for shooting. I personally tried to use my joystick to play FPS at first but when it hit me that strafing left and right are integral to staying alive when playing Doom with other people, I had to make a switch.

I played a lot of Doom. I mean a shit load a lot of Doom back in the day. Who didn't? Besides the Halo babies. Doom is the figurehead of the FPS genre, not Halo. Doom is the reason why people came up with LAN parties. Doom is the reason why some people even bothered learning DOS. Without Doom there would be no Unreal, no Halo, no Halflife, no Gears of War, no Duke Nukem 3D. The problem with Doom is that no one had good control setups for it. After tossing the joystick I used the keypad, but I could not use the keypad with my right hand and shoot with my left. Used to the arcade stick setup of arcade fighting games in the 90s, I needed movement to be handled by my left hand. So I made firing my weapon the number pad 0. Strafing left and right was handled by number pad / and *. Testing this out in Doom online against friends and random people on Kali, I started doing better. Hell I started dominating. Even if computers back then could not handle more than 3 keys being pressed at the same time, I was finally winning against my friends who were playing Doom a bit longer than me and were used to play games on the PC.

I carried this right side of the keyboard setup into the next major FPS game after Doom 2; Duke Nukem 3D. As legendary as Doom was, Duke 3D took the genre even further. There was jumping OMFG! Nevermind the strippers, interactable parts of the stage, jetpacks and the strippers, Duke 3D had jumping and Z axis aiming! Yet more controls to add to my setup. I set jump to my right CTRL button which was hit by my left pinky. Aiming up and down were controlled by 7 and 1 on the numberpad. I switched weapons with - and + on the number pad as well.

I was unbeatable. No one could touch me in this game. NO ONE! My cousin could argue that he beat me this one time when I was showing off, but that doesn't count because he kept cheating by looking at my screen. No ever got close to beating me and my uber control setup. I dominated the TEN network deathmatch games(okay so I didn't like capture the flag games on TEN). I dominated computer gaming places with random scrubs. I dominated dominated dominated. Duke 3D was my game. My controls were my secret weapon.

As godly as my controls were, something nagged me about aiming up and down faster. Even with 7 and 1 I was just aiming in the general area of my reticle. How could I be faster and accurate. Another problem that I was thinking about was being able to talk trash err type out messages quicker. Being on the right side of the keyboard for playing I had to move left for everything else and it was annoying. So I looked at my two button mouse and thought hard on how to use that other button. Left was obviously going to be shoot. FPS games didn't have an alternative firing mode nor reload back then. In the end I left it blank. Nothing seemed to fit in that spot. As for the keyboard, movement had to be on the left and be easy to type with. The feel of the SHIFT button on my pinky felt nice so my fingers gravitated to the now widely used WASD setup.

Yes I discovered it before everyone heard that Quake champion use it and started adopting it in all their FPS. It was my setup before most other people and I destroyed everyone because of it. Suck it. With my mouse sensitivity set to max no one could match my aiming speed. People already couldn't handle my strafing patterns. I was and still am unbeatable in deathmatch play. Technically I still am undefeated in 1 on 1 deathmatch play with me using my keyboard and mouse in all forms of play; tournament, online, LAN, casuals, whatever. No one ever beat me in a 1 on 1 round first to whatever reasonable amount of kills and no one ever will. It's been tried in Quake, Quake 2, Quake Arena, Unreal, UT, UT 2k3, Halflife, Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, whatever. Suck it. I'm better than everyone. When world ranked people in the original UT have to team up to make sure you lose you know you're someone in the FPS world. I may have had the most deaths in that game but I still had the most kills. You know who you are.

Anyways my little history lesson was integral to show everyone where FPS have been. When I first picked up a 360 controller to play Halo with my nephew it felt like going back to the days of Doom and Duke 3D using the keyboard to aim. That's how I feel whenever I play or even watch any FPS being played on the console using a gamepad and I will explain why;

In console FPS games, the aiming speed is limited to allow all players to be even in that aspect. Since the most important aspects of FPS play is reflexes and speed, aiming at the maximum speed that is allowed must happen at all times. The mouse on a PC allows an aiming speed far greater than any console FPS game, and the accuracy of full arm movement. The ability to slow aiming speed the analog stick allows a few degrees is negligible because if your aiming cannot keep up with the maximum speed given, you are not a good FPS player. Therefore the aiming that is done with the right analog stick on controllers is the same as aiming using keyboard keys. Console players are playing like PC FPS players used to play in the early 90s. The speed and accuracy difference between keyboard/analog stick aiming and mouse aiming is huge.

All those Halo and other console FPS leagues like MLG are filled with wannabes, scrubs, noobs and trash. Yes they are currently more popular than PC events these days, but that is why the world is filled with more ordinary people than extraordinary is it not?

Blazblue

I am a Guilty Gear fan boy. I want to get that clear. I firmly believe that the Guilty Gear series is the king of the hill in the 2d fighting game genre. In a time when 2D fighters were on the decline, Guilty Gear was the glowing white bright star in a sea of darkness.

That being said I haven't played Guilty Gear seriously since 04. My last tournament was at USC where I didn't do so hot. When I heard that Arc System Works was developing a new IP and it was coming to the PS3, which I recently purchased, I was ecstatic. Online? Money in the bank.

The time of 2D fighting games is well past its golden age. That happened in the 90s. The release of Streetfighter 4 has brought about a resurgence of interest in the genre, but I don't see 2D fighters being the most played genre anymore. There won't be people lining up their quarters at arcades. Blazblue, as much as I want this game to be a huge huge hit in consoles, won't. Guilty Gear was a niche even within the fighting game community due to its difficulty and style. The same will be said for Blazblue.

Having played Blazblue for about two weeks now, I cannot put it down except maybe to eat and go to the bathroom. The packaging for the Blazblue Limited Edition I purchased was worth it and then some. You get the game, official sound track, tutorial Blueray disk, and an artbook. I would have payed $60 for the game alone.

As an avid fan of anime for many years now I enjoy Blazblue's art direction. What gets to me is some of the criticism Blazblue get because of that. Granted not everyone out there likes anime, but to say that they prefer the styles of Streetfighter or Tekken over Blazblue is asinine. Streetfighter has an anime design. Tekken has an anime design. Soul Calibur has an anime design. Marvel vs Capcom has an anime design. King of Fighters has an anime design. Virtua Fighter has an anime design. Most games developed in Japan have anime designs. Get over it!

One of Guilty Gear's best aspects has always been its soundtrack. Daisuke Ishiwatari did a great job taking elements of famous songs and using them to bring to life the Guilty Gear environment with heavy metal and hard rock. With Blazblue Ishiwatari-sensei takes a jazz/rock fusion direction. While the thought of jazz in a fighting game does not sound very fitting, I applaud Ishiwatari-sensei for making it work. Blazblue has one of the best sound tracks ever. EVAR! Get that IN-DES-TRUC-TIBLE SF4 crap out of here.

Game play wise Blazblue is very very similar to Guilty Gear. Air dashing, instant airdashing, roman/rapid cancels all came back to me like riding a bike for the first time in years. Granted the decision to not have false roman cancels, which allowed cancelling certain moves during 1 frame in exchange for 25% of their super meter, saddens me a little but I see why it was not present. Aksys wanted more casuals to play Blazblue than Guilty Gear allowed. False roman cancels were the biggest obstacle for everyone in Guilty Gear. Some characters could not even combo correctly without cancels. In Blazblue rapid cancels are not as necessary as roman cancels were in Guilty Gear, but are still present for those who are skilled enough to use them.

Besides the anime style Blazblue has, the other major criticism has been the small roster size. One could say that Blazblue is a new IP and the roster will grow with more releases. The most important thing people have to realize is that there are no clones in this game. What are clones? Does Ryu and Ken sound familiar? How about Sagat, Dan, Sakura, Morrigan? Kyo Kusanagi and Iori? Ralph and Clark? Jin and Kazuya Mishima? Cassandra and Sophitia? Nightmare and Siegfried? Hanzo and Fuma? Blazblue has no clones. Blazblue doesn't even have cloned special moves. Therefore Blazblue actually has more characters than most fighting games.

The primary aspect of a fighting game to me is how high of a skill ceiling does a game have in order to master it. Guilty Gear is the greatest 2D fighting game series ever. Blazblue is close behind. I realize not everyone likes the huge combos and deems it as unnecessary to be a good game. I understand that people prefer Streetfighter. I loved Streetfighter back in the day. Both Guilty Gear and Blazblue can do EVERYTHING Streetfighter can. That is how deep those games are. If you just want to jump around and dominate some people with jump kicks followed by sweeps, Blazblue allows that. If you want to spam projectiles and trap with antiair attacks, Blazblue allows that. Blazblue does everything Streetfighter does but if you do not like how complicated Blazblue takes the Streetfighter aspects, it means that you are not willing to be that skilled. There I said it. Saying Streetfighter is a better game is to say that your ceiling for skill either does not go that high, or you are unwilling to take it that high. Period. Blazblue's game play is only as good as someone's skill. I've told this to people around the time of Guilty Gear's prime, I'll tell people this same thing now.

I don't even need to give Blazblue some sort of numerical score. It is the fighting game that is closest to perfection, besides Guilty Gear XX Accent Core. Yet it is still not for everyone, aka scrubs but since when did scrubs matter. So if you're not a scrub, buy Blazblue and be proud that this game will challenge your skill ceiling.

Thoughts and Impressions: Hauppauge HD PVR

For awhile now I have been looking for a capture device that will allow me to stream my PS3 and other console that I play to Justin.tv as well as record to my hard drive. Streaming being the more important of the two.

At first I bought a $15 Easycap USB. It wasn't bad but I had to play while using a program window as my screen. I needed something that will allow me to split the signal to both my pc and my hdtv.

After search thru the web I discovered the Blitzbox HD. Ecstatic, I preordered right away. Yes preordered. The HD version was not out yet and at the time of my preorder, it was scheduled to be released around mid May. "No problem!" I thought. Well May came, and Blitzcast sent me an email saying that the Blitzbox HD would be delayed another month. Fast forward to June, another email, another delay.

I was quite frustrated at this point. It was late June, Blazblue(review coming soon) was around the corner, and I was still not up and streaming anything. While I watching someone else's gaming stream on Justin.tv someone mentioned the Pauppauge HD PVR. Immediately I checked Newegg, lo and behold there she was. I ordered it right away, and also cancelled my Blitzbox preorder. I paid $223.95 in total.

After unpacking the HD PVR and actually holding it in my hands for the first time, I thought it felt very light. For something that was over $200 I was expecting something more hefty. Oh well, as long as it works right? Right?! First thing I did was plug in my PS3 HD composite cable into the input of the PVR. Another composite cable from output to my Samsung HDTV. With the power adapter and USB plugged in I turned on my PS3 and tv to make sure it works, and it did.

Next I had to install the drivers and software for my pc so I could get my stream up and running. With the drivers set I opened Flash Media Encoder but ran into a problem. When I selected the Hauppauge HD PVR has my source, FME gave me an error saying it was already in use. "Hmmmm.." I thought. Ok so I'll try using Superwebcam as the source next, but another error. Was it even working?

So I try using Arcsoft Total Media Extreme, the software that came with the PVR. On the record window, it did indeed show what I was playing on the PS3. After asking around some message boards and asking Hauppauge themselves I discovered that the HD PVR is not compatible with the 3rd party programs I use; therefore streaming with said programs would not be possible. Till I remember I can use VHScreencap to crop and capture parts of my screen. I was in business.

Going back to when I first unpacked the HD PVR, my opinion was that it felt very light, very cheaply built for something that is supposed to be over $200. When I was plugging in the cables, the female plugs on the unit felt somewhat loose, something that would probably be problematic down the line. The component cable that did come with it was solid; sturdy, long, hard, just like me.

The software that came with with the PVR ArcSoft Total Media Extreme. For something with the word extreme in the title, it is very basic. The record part lets you choose between 3 options, with a save to on the bottom. That is it. The create disc section lets you create your own movie ala Windows Movie Maker, but far less options. Play videos is self explanatory.

With the ArcSoft Mediaconverter, I was somewhat surprised. There are options that allow you to convert files into a format that fits for a few well known devices, such as; iPod, Zune, PS3, Xbox Rrod, etc. An application like this is something one would want to be easy, and it is that. Now if you want even more customization such as which audio/video codecs and resolutions you want, look somewhere else.

When I first started everything up I ran into a snag. When I had the PVR plugged in the USB port, my tv would not receive a signal from my PS3. It took me awhile to figure out that I had to start up the software first, then the signal would go thru. After that I didn't run into anymore problems. I recorded a video of a saved replay of me vs my cousin in Blazblue which can be found here. The quality, I think is fantastic.

Overall I'm happy with my HD PVR now. I was ready to return it to Newegg.com when I couldn't use my normal programs to broadcast, but that is no longer the case thanks to Hmelyoff Labs' VH Capture. Hopefully someone else will make a webcam program that reads h264 so I can stream directly.

It's up!

Going to be some time till everything is up and running. Till then, stay tuned!