Tank controls are garbage!
Tank controls are very much a remnant of early horror video games as I spoke about in What Makes an Awesome Horror Game . I'm glad the trait died off as systems would better adapt to their environment. As Darwin always said, Survival of the funniest!
What are tank controls?
Instead of moving forward in the direction that your D-pad or joystick is facing it's a bit more complicated. Pressing up moves you forward, pressing left or right however, rotate you in the given direction rather than moving you left and right. Pressing down actually moves you backwards (still facing the opposite direction rather than turning in the direction you are moving).
Thankfully, this is not really a thing in modern game design. Most modern games use 1st person controls which are more intuitive. Left moves you left, right moves you right, up moves you forward, down moves you back.
Unfortunately, a lot of games in the mid '90s to early 2000s employ these tank controls, as developers experimented to figure out what would work and what wouldn't in 3D gaming. This makes things challenging if one wants to go back and play some of the classics that haven't been given a modern update. I was playing around with 2001's Alone in the Dark , which looked like a fun B-movie horror game, for the Dreamcast today. Scary dogs, weird mysterious ruins, and crazy robotic spiders oh my.... but... the controls! ARGH! #$&@! (@!#!
If I really want to tough it out for the experience, I will mash the upper half of the D-pad and kind of snake my way forward. Still, it's not as fun as 1st person control. The trouble is compounded because these controls are often found in action style games where precision of control actually makes a difference. I hope you hackers, developers and re-makers continue to come out with modifications to the old games with proper control schemes!
I think the early resident evil games used tank controls. But im not sure. If so, it didnt bother me too much as i got used to it. Never heard of alone in the dark! Will watch clips of it after i comment. Silent hill however, those games creep me out. Ive only played one game and that was enough. I guess if i was their only demographic buying their games their sales would bomb as making games TOO scary would be a poor game design! Thankfully there are a diverse enough number of humans to have an interest in these sorts of games to make them profitable :)
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