Usenet Criticism of MW2 Mercenaries

Index

• On the Forced-Centering of Joystick Torso Control
  • From Mechwarrior II (1995)
  • From MW2 Mercenaries (1996)
• On Salvage
• On Forced-Retirement
• On the Priority of Graphics over Gameplay
• Comparisons with Mechwarrior I

From Mechwarrior II (1995):

• Jul 27 : "The forced-centering is an arcadish approach to torso control", Will Day
• Jul 27 : "It's a pain if you want to hold the joystick steady", Kevin Yeh
• Jul 28 : "Toss me in with the folks who'd like relative positioning", Chris Taylor
• Jul 28 : "I have to fight the joystick for fine control", N Wilson
• Jul 29 : "Tough for fine aiming control", Barry Hales
• Jul 29 : "Taking my hand off the stick to aim with the mouse is a very bad move in the heat of battle", Will Day
• Jul 29 : "My crosshairs jitter when I'm zoomed all the way in", Kevin Yeh
• Jul 30 : "Hitting anything from a distance is IMPOSSIBLE", B Masc
• Jul 30 : "The targeting system is just INCREDIBLY jumpy", Todd Wesley Thompson
• Jul 30 : "Please release a patch soon", B Masc
• Jul 30 : "I am continually frustrated with the joystick-torso forced-centering", Will Day
• Jul 30 : "Fighting the joystick is just too tough", Barry Hales
• Jul 31 : "The advantage of not recentering", Nick Vargish
• Jul 31 : "Autocentering is very annoying", Gary Eastham
• Jul 31 : "EarthSiege and the VWE BattleTech Centers did it right", Will Day
• Jul 31 : "Providing a choice for the gamer sounds like it's in order", Will Day
• Jul 31 : "Precise torso aiming with the joystick is just impossible right now", Will Day
• Aug 1 : "Makes the game unplayable", B Masc
• Aug 1 : "This is exactly why most people prefer the mouse controls - because the joystick control is terrible", B Masc
• Aug 1 : "You just can't achieve any kind of precise aim", Will Day
• Aug 1 : "The crosshairs wouldn't stay where you put 'em", Darrin Lee Bright
• Aug 1 : "Allow centering to be toggled", Barry Hales
• Aug 2 : "Give the player the option of turning off auto-centering", B Masc
• Aug 2 : "It's fine as long as you don't care where you hit", Will Day
• Aug 3 : "Joystick control is unmanageable", Braden McDaniel
• Aug 3 : "The turret is so bloody hard to control", Todd Burns
• Aug 3 : "This is a terrible way to fight", B Masc
• Aug 3 : "Please optionally turn off the aiming recenter", Klaus Breuer
• Aug 3 : "I don't want to use the mouse for aiming, and I don't think I should have to", Will Day
• Aug 4 : "I tried using the joystick, but forget it", Casey Robinson
• Aug 4 : "How can I destroy my competition with controls like this?", Stephen Lemon
• Aug 4 : "I can't place the cross on my target", Alex Jacocks
• Aug 4 : "Get rid of auto-centering", Darrin Lee Bright
• Aug 5 : "Tim says they will fix it", B Masc
• Aug 5 : "Non-centering is something all other sim games support", B Masc
• Aug 6 : "Practically IMPOSSIBLE to play with", B Masc
• Aug 6 : "Nearly impossible to precisely aim", Dave Nagy
• Aug 6 : "I don't at all care for this 'feature'", Henry Bailey
• Aug 7 : "Activision may be working on a patch", Will Day
• Aug 7 : "Biggest downside to the game", Christopher Bolin
• Aug 8 : "Have a toggle switch for this", John Horner
• Aug 8 : "Have it stay on target!", Barry Hales
• Aug 14 : "Send email to Activision", Will Day
• Aug 16 : "Not as precise as the keyboard", Chaim Krause
• Sep 12 : "Essentially unusable joystick torso targeting scheme", Edward Thommes

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  From MW2 Mercenaries (1996):

• Sep 27 : "I find it extremely difficult to aim", Russell Howard
• Sep 28 : "Forced-centering is unnatural and unrealistic", Will Day
• Sep 29 : "I HATE the forced-centering.", John Horner
• Oct 3 : "Has there been a fix? NO.", Doug Gould
• Oct 4 : "Very primitive, hard to use, impossible to aim", Doug Gould
• Oct 4 : "Go to a Virtual World BattleTech site", Doug Gould
• Oct 5 : "Non-centering yields immeasurable rewards", Will Day
• Oct 8 : "This isn't really my idea of a good time", Ron Christian
• Oct 8 : "Totally unworkable feature", Stuart
• Oct 9 : "The forced-centering wouldn't be acceptable to any semi-serious simulation fan", Will Day
• Oct 9 : "Activision made a very poor decision not to respond to consumers' desires for an option", Will Day
• Oct 10 : "You lose massive precision mapping from a 45 degree controller to a 180 degree virtual device", Will Day
• Oct 10 : "Auto centering should be included as an OPTIONAL setup for turret twisting", Don Halloran