The Witcher 2 - Preview @ IGN
 

IGN was flown to Warsaw to see The Witcher 2 in action. They were given a "brief" demo and wrote about the results, with added comments from the dev team:
More information.

"You can play The Witcher 2 with joypad - it's implemented. The whole interface is designed with console in mind, in fact."

I'm not sure that's good news.
Time will tell, though.

As long as they kept the PC in mind as well, I'm sure it'll be fine :)

I`m afraid days of keyboard/mouse as the Only True Solution are over. Analog sticks are unsurpassed when it comes to third-person games, and increasingly even first person - the more exploration-oriented ones at least.

Eh? I find analog sticks to be vastly inferior to keyboard and mouse, especially for first-person titles.

FO3 controls, as you know, are a joke - partly due to a bad port, of course, but also because you need to hit the Walk button every time , uh, you want to walk. And even then it`s a set speed (atrocious btw). In a game like this, where exploration/sneaking is crucial it`s not acceptable anymore.

After spending a year with 360 - where you have a smooth transition from v.slow to fast I just can`t go back.

It`s different for competitive/twitch FPS games -no doubt. In these you must be able to do 180 in a split sec, impossible on a pad.

In third-person games I find it much more comfortable to operate camera by moving a thumb by a fraction of a millimetre than constantly shuffling mouse around. Just feels more intuitive/easier.

Theyre obviously aiming for the consoles so Im happy if UI is the only thing that changed. PC version sold good but consoles would sell so much more.

Call me nostalgic, but you can give me a mouse and a keyboard every day. :)

Mouse/Keyboard > everything else for games like this.

Says the prime fighter for innovation :P

I think it might just be a language issue and they simply mean consoles are being kept in mind, but that doesn't mean it will suffer on PC at all. This would be consistent with what they've said up until now (e.g. designed as a multiplatform title, but PC comes first).

I love that with analog gamepads, but that's also the only thing i love about them (ok, they're also more comfortable to use..). I'm pretty sure it works the same if you connect the 360 pad to the PC though, havent tried it myself yet but i've tried many other 360 ports and it always works the same on PC..

I'd rather (and will) play it with mouse and keyboard. That pretty much goes with any game that releases on PC & 360…I'd (almost) always choose the PC version (not just for the controls).

With this game I think the controller would work just fine. The only games that really suffer from it (that I play) are FPS games…this is not an FPS. You do not need precise aiming of the crosshair (at least I don't think you do). So to me, as far as the controls go, it's just a matter of preference…not one being "better" than the other. Of course I still prefer mouse & keyboard but in this case I just don't see how it matters.

Since the 90's Doom offered Joystick controls that allowed this, no need of a console. I never heard of any player coming back from keyboard with mouse to Joystick. For me the problem with a joypad (I mean analog gamepad) is the direction changing just doesn't match a mouse from very far.

It's not a problem of precision it's a problem of a controller that doesn't do exactly what I want because of its imprecision.

It's like gamepad (I mean digital pad), I just need look at turn based games and how they avoid as hell design the game requiring precise diagonal movements, it's just because the controller isn't functional to do that.

The point is many generations has been trained during years of their childhood to use gamepads so now they have a different point of view. Myself I never used much consoles and never during my childhood nor even during teen, so I just can't imagine how it is for players that spend years of gaming with gamepads.

It would help if you read the original post with attention if you intend on replying.

I only mention pad`s superiority in certain cases.

I`m also a person that has OCD when it comes to KBM combo - old Quake multiplayer vet that few days ago was editing Windows system files to get the elusive 500 Hz mouse rate on XP SP3 ( and is still not happy). Also, one of the biggest defenders of this control scheme for years.

Alas, times they are a-changing`.

:)

I suppose you don't expect any answer from a post starting like that…

Anyway to make it clear for you, I >tried< explain why >for me< in any cases joypads and gamepads are much less good than keyboard+mouse.

But I also highlighted how my past experience is different than many players because I never used any gamepads nor joypads during my childhood, teen and not even young adult time.

Your explanation seems to regard FPShooters/turn based games. Which I agree with. It`s obvious.

Not at all, Turn based strategy games (diagonal problems, menus problems I didn't highlight and coming from a lack of mouse), Diablo like game, Adventure games & puzzle games (ability to point and click), anything, because from my point of view gamepads and joypads don't do their job well, in general for anything.

I don't see a single example where they are better, car driving and plane simulators, simulation games requiring a lot of panels and interactions, brick breakers, shmup, and many more. Even platformers, there's been many on PC recently through indie and they just show how keyboard+mouse is better even for those games.

But yes it's my point of view, ie from a player that never played much on any consoles.

Coming from a recent in deep dive in touch gaming I believed keyboard + mouse couldn't rival dual stick games, but just one indie PC game showed me how I was wrong. The only thing is few touch controls for few games that could be better for me than mouse but it's very rare, and tilt controls that are surprisingly fun and pleasant for first person driving.

I'm sorry, but the platformers, driving games and third-person action games where the emphasis is not on shooting are way better with gamepads than with keyboard and mouse. These games benefit from the analog controls, and the keyboard÷mouse don't have that. I don't know how much did you play these kind of games with a controller, but if you get used to the controllers, there is no way the keyboard and mouse feels better. I bought a gamepad to my PC a long time ago, just for these kind of games.

I grew up mostly playing pc games so when it comes to using a game pad for an action of fps titles I cant. Most people say you will get used to but I haven't. Using a mouse to aim and look around feels more comfortable to me. On the other hand some pc games are terrible ports that require you to use to many keyboard keys. An example is assassin creed it has terrible controls.