[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i have to correct you, or who else will. if you want to do this, than lets go. the first fps to get it right was golden eye, and perfected by perfect dark wich worked VERY well with that consoles limitations. i also hear good things about timespliters, a good game with fantastic controls. now back to golden eye, i believe one button layout was c buttons to move and analog souly to aim, an evolution of that would be one analog to move and one analog to aimand the reason that it hasnt had a good going yet would be because how could you make it better with only a controller? well i have an idea. as anyone played metroid prime on the wii knows, you almost cant improve the combat, but i know how. a wii mote or a move, with an analog stick, and a numbchuck with a stick, that handles movement and moving the screen, and the opticals determine where on screen you are pointing. this setup could be the best way to experiance a fps, the control of a mote, and the movement of sticks, it would rival, and for some people surpass what is possible with the keyboard mouse combo. but this wont happen this gen because the motes are all made for casual games exclusively.[/citation]
I was going to comment anyway, but after seeing the fact you have been down-rated to -2 just before I started typing, I figure this will also serve as a useful explanation.
Now, let's first of all start off with Golden Eye and Perfect Dark, and how your comparison between them and Halo is way off. GE, and particularly PD, were mind blowing, and for good reason. However, while the controls were as good as possible on the controller (and you are correct in stating that at least the control scheme I used was C buttons to move and analog to aim), I'm pretty sure other FPS games on the console had the same or very similar controls. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't remember ever thinking the GE controls were miles ahead of (say) Quake, and I would be very surprised if they weren't simply the same.
Possibly even more importantly, within a year or two of the N64's launch, Sony had released the Dual Analog controller for the PSX. While technically still trailing the N64's first proper analog stick, it did have the advantage of being a "Dual" and I don't remember it being long before it was using them both in FPS games. Point is, I don't think you can give the N64 much credit for being the a major step in modern gaming controls when the PSX actually DID popularise it first, still within the N64's lifetime. Games have been using forward, back, strafe and turn for years, and while the N64 had the first analog stick, I think dual analog sticks was going to happen anyway. I even thought that back then (at age 10 or whatever). It just seemed like common sense.
Anyway, while GE/PD were outright amazing, they were controlling just like any other FPS; melee as a seperate weapon to equip and use (making it much more of an emergency weapon when out of ammo than a useful ability like it is in Halo ), same with grenades. Hell, they didn't even have jump. And it was only in PD that they implemented actual reload animations. Hell, Timesplitters didn't even have them! And that even got on to the PS2 and original Xbox! (I stopped playing/caring after 2 though, so I don't know if they ever got implemented).
To be honest, it was archaic and inefficient, and I'm surprised it came as a shock to me how amazing Halo felt when I first started playing it. It should have been obvious how much better console FPS games could play, but it wasn't. And to be honest, it must not have been to many people, because I truly think it is what sealed the deal for Halo. Amazing graphics for the time, silky smooth and good animations, interesting story (if not overly original), great characters and fast, twitchy gameplay. It had it all, and the show stopper was a set of controls that were certainly at least my first time with a one button grenade and one button melee scheme.
Every single FPS game nowadays follows this set up, and even if Bungie didn't create it (which I assume they did but I may simply be ignorant to the truth here), they sure as hell made it popular and brought it to the masses. Not only that, but when did you first ever see a health regeneration mechanic that wasn't a powerup in an FPS? Madness at the time! And yet it's the modern blueprint for a console FPS game. I dabbled little in PC leetness at the time, so I don't remember the state of PC health mechanics (nor whether dedicated keys to throw grenades or melee existed) at the time, but I am sure anyone would have a hard time arguing Halo didn't help make it popular even on PC.
And that is why you can not compare GE/PD with Halo; Perfect Dark was a perfection of the near perfection of the FPS genre that was Golden Eye. At the time. And while they will always be in my heart (especially PD, as I spent most of my early teens on the Combat Simulator), they were not game changing. At least not to me.
Halo was different. It mixed up the mechanics and the controls, and came out with a format for fast, action based FPS that is used even today. It was the revolution to Perfect Dark's evolution.
And in closing, in regards to you talks of motion control and the future of FPS games; I think the accuracy loss from dropping to a controller from a mouse is about as much as I can deal with. I don't know about you or anyone else on this forum, but for me, waving my arm around is never going to afford me the same accuracy, response and control I get from a pad.
And at the end of the day, you are never going to convince a bunch of people who relax in their living room or on their bed, and game (as opposed to play, like with the Wii's majority of titles) with their consoles, to adopt a less accurate, less responsive system that requires more exertion.
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