Tag: Xbox One

Play PC Games with an Xbox One controller

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, Games, MinecraftLeave a comment

XpadderMinecraft

Ok so I’ve been struggling for years with PC games and not being able to play them with a game controller. I think that’s why I love my PlayStation 4 so much, because it has a game controller. I bought a game controller many years ago, I think back when I still had Windows 98, and never could figure out how to get it to work. It didn’t work with any of the games I had, and the program it came with didn’t seem to help.

I played EverQuest with a keyboard for 6 or 7 years and got used to it because I didn’t have much of a choice. I hated that I couldn’t use a game controller, but I learned to live with the arrows for moving my character and pressing the Q button to auto attack, I for inventory, and many more buttons and button combinations.

Last year I bought Minecraft after I bought my Xbox One game controller since I figured it would work since Microsoft now owns Minecraft, but apparently that doesn’t matter since it didn’t work. It actually started to piss me off that I wasn’t able to play a simple game with a simple game controller. It’s like why don’t these things go together like Peanut butter and Jelly, or Macaroni and Cheese for crying out loud? You would think they would automatically just work, right? Microsoft Windows… Microsoft owns Xbox and Minecraft… Hello?

Ok so finally today I searched and found Xpadder. It was $10 and I just happened to have $20 in PayPal, so I used that to buy it. I’m broke and that $10 could’ve been a couple items for groceries, but that lasts 5 minutes, this lasts a lifetime. Then again so does the food, am I right?

So you will notice in the image above that I had to make the up arrow down and the down arrow up, and the reason is simple. If I use the right stick to look up, my screen looks at the ground and if I use the right stick to look down, you get the sky. I also bought the Windows 10 version of Minecraft (before I bought it from Mojang) and it looks at the sky if you use the right stick to look up. I don’t know why it doesn’t work right in one but not the other.

XpadderEQ

Here is Xpadder for EverQuest. I’m not sure if these buttons will work for me yet. The Alt 2-4 are the spell gems and I is inventory, Q for auto attack. Ctrl X I believe is camping and Ctrl S is sit/stand. I forget what C is lol. The left stick moves my character and the right stick actually controls the cursor/mouse. I will change Ctrl X to the space bar for jumping since I probably jump more often than I camp out of the game lol. I tried running around in the Plane of Knowledge, and it was a bit tricky because I’m not used to it, but I can see me starting to play EverQuest again now that I can play it with a game controller. And any time I need to change a button to something else, I can just put EQ in windowed mode and change it, then go back to the game. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I feel like Xpadder was well worth the $10 I paid. Sometimes I regret things I buy, but I do not regret this at all. It’s wonderful.

Xbox One Controller for Minecraft PC

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Minecraft PC.png

I was feeling good about this Xbox One controller to play games on my Windows 10 PC. I was able to play Terraria with no problem, I played Lego World’s, both from Steam, and I was even able to play Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta with no problem. Well, I was having one problem, the problem was getting Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta to load. The darn game just wouldn’t load properly.

So I thought ok, what now? I mean, I do have Minecraft PS4 and Minecraft PS Vita, and I even have Minecraft Pocket Edition on my Nook HD+. Now I have Minecraft Windows 10 edition, which is basically a mobile version of Minecraft, but I couldn’t play it, so I thought screw it, I wanted to buy the PC edition anyway, so I bought it and wouldn’t you know the Xbox One game controller wouldn’t work. How frustrating is that?

joy to keyI went to Google and asked how I can play Minecraft PC with a Xbox One controller and the first couple things that came up were videos. One said to install the Xbox One drivers, which I don’t need to do since my computer recognizes the controller immediately. I have yet to feel a rumble, so perhaps I will need to install that anyway. Next they said to downloaded JoyToKey and the guy had all the commands in the description for his video. It didn’t have every key correct though, so I was able to find the keyboard/mouse command so I could fix that problem. Now the Xbox controller works perfectly, except for the inventory. I can go into the inventory, I just have to use the mouse to craft with, but that’s fine. My only concern was that I was able to use the game controller to play the game.

Now, the only other problem is how slow this game is on my computer. Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta is much faster to load and gameplay is a fast as on my PS4 and PS Vita. I’ve already adjusted some of the settings so some of the graphics aren’t too high of a quality, but it’s still slow as hell. Perhaps one of these days I will reformat my computer (ugh) so I can reinstall games again so my computer will be faster. One of these days…

UPDATE: Ok so installing the Xbox One driver was an extremely bad idea. I think the driver is specifically for people who want to use bluetooth. The Xbox One logo on the controller is normally lit, but after I installed the driver, that light turned off. It’s a button, so I pressed the button and the light would blink on and off for probably a minute, then it would shut off. I loaded Terraria and the controller was non-responsive. I went into the Device Manager and uninstalled the driver, then rebooted my computer, and waited with anticipation for that light to come on. I actually started to panic when it didn’t come on because I thought great, now I have to reformat this thing, but then the light came on and I played Terraria and it was fine. WHEW!

Xbox One Game Controller for Windows

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, GamesLeave a comment

Xbox One Controller for Windows

I’ve been playing computer games on my Windows PC since the late 90’s using keyboard and mouse with pretty much success. I bought a game controller some time in the late 90’s that never really worked right. I’m sure it worked, I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work for the games I was trying to play.

In 2002 I was reunited with my aunt in Simi Valley after more than a decade of no contact, and my cousin introduced me to a new style of gaming that I wasn’t even aware existed. MMORPG which stands for massively multiplayer online role playing game. This was literally the first time I’d ever played a game where there were other people also playing. Mind blowing! That game was called EverQuest. I tried using the game controller for EverQuest, but I could never get it to work.

So recently I bought a game called Terraria from Steam which I already own on my PS4 and PS Vita, but I bought it on my PC because I wanted to see how it is to play on another format. Playing EverQuest with the keyboard and mouse were easy, but playing Terraria with the keyboard and mouse was difficult. I would place blocks in places I didn’t want to place them, and then when I tried to break them with the pick axe, I would end up breaking the pieces I actually wanted to keep.

I received this awesome Xbox One game controller for Windows that I bought on Amazon and got in the mail 2 days later with Amazon Prime shipping. I can actually place blocks in the place I want them to be, and I can remove blocks I want to remove without breaking blocks I want to keep. It’s so weird that I’m super excited to play a game with a game controller lol.

One of my other options was the Steam controller, but I read the reviews of those, which were terrible. I mean just terrible lol. Yes, it bears repeating. Many people said to just use a Xbox One controller. I wondered what about Xbox 360 controller, and many people said Xbox 360 controller works, but Xbox One controller is better. I don’t have the 360 controller to compare it to the Xbox One controller, so I’ll just have to take their word for it. I tried using my PS4 controller, but it didn’t work at all.

The Xbox One game controller for Windows that I bought came with a wire. There is an option to buy a USB , I’m just gonna say dongle. I don’t know if it’s the right word, but it sounds silly so I’m just gonna say dongle. There was an option to buy a USB dongle (LOL) to play wirelessly, but the Xbox One game controller doesn’t have a rechargeable battery, so you literally have to use 2 AA batteries that aren’t even included. LAME! I don’t care about playing wirelessly, and I’m not going to waste hundreds of dollars on batteries, so I can play with the wire.

The Xbox One game controller works with Minecraft as well as other Windows games. I considered if I bought a Steam controller, would it even work with the Xbox for Windows games? So I’m glad I bought the Xbox One controller. I haven’t tried EverQuest yet, but I would be interested to know if it works. I also used to play a game called Lord of the Rings Online, and I don’t know if it works there, but I’m sure it does. I have The Sims 3, and I tried loading that game, but it crashed after I waited literally for 10 minutes for it to load. I don’t have that much time to sit there wasting on a game to load. I have better things to do, like I don’t know, putting tape on my nose and attaching it to my forehead so I have a piggy nose.

I’m not going to switch over to Windows games because it annoys me how PC games crash all the time and how slow they are to play on my slow ass computer, I just wanted to have the option to play games on my computer with a game controller, and now I have the option.

King’s Quest for PS4

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS4Leave a comment

King's Quest

I am SOOOOO excited right now. I saw a post on Facebook earlier this year that King’s Quest is coming back to life. The person who posted it was one of the people who was working on the game who works for The Odd Gentlemen. They said it would be out later this year, but couldn’t give me a date. I was under the assumption it would be late in the year, like around Christmas time, but I’m excited that it’s going to be THIS MONTH in July instead.

For those who have no clue what King’s Quest is, I urge you to buy the original PC collection which can be found on Amazon. The original PC collection works with XP, but I’m sure it will work in Windows 8, but I don’t know that for a fact. I have the earlier version that only worked on Windows 95/98 and wouldn’t work on XP at all. I had to find a program which I blogged about that has Sierra installers to allow the games to install and run. So if you have trouble installing the XP version, try the installers. If not then awesome, but you should really play the old versions. My first King’s Quest game was King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella.

Anyway, the game is going to be out in 26 days and I will count the days like it’s my birthday lol.

What I hate about video games

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS4Leave a comment

xbox-one-vs-ps4

First off let me just say that I absolutely LOVE to play video games. I’ve been playing video games since Pong back in the 70’s. My first gaming system was the Atari 2600 and I’ve loved video games since I was a teenager. Video games have dramatically changed since Pong, and so has the thing that I hate the most about them, and that is the price.

First off, the consoles cost a ton of money. My PS4 was $400. I know they put a lot in to making these things and they should cost a lot of money, but come on, $400? I think they can come down to about $250 and still make a huge profit. God forbid you spill coffee on your game controller, that cost $60 to replace.

The thing that I hate the most though is the cost of video games. In 2007 when I had bought my PSP, I was shocked to see that the same games for my PSP was dramatically cheaper than the console version which was about $60 or $70. My PSP games (new) were no more than about $20 to $40 at the time. That’s why I was glad to have the PSP and not a console, but now I have a console and have to pay high prices.

Recently I got a $50 gift card for Amazon and I bought 2 games. They are both $40 or $50 on the PlayStation store, but they were both $19.99 on disc format on Amazon. One of them was Just Dance 2015, which by the way has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I cannot dance to save my life. I tried one dance and they were so fast, I just couldn’t keep up. I was out of breath. They have all these extra songs you can buy for .99 to $2.99. I mean, they have a lot of songs too. If the game is $50 in the PlayStation Store, how can they charge so much for extras? I checked the extras for the other game I bought Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and this is what I calculated.

shadows of mordor calculation

Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor cost $39.99 in the PlayStation Store, plus all the add-ons cost $68.83. How in the heck can anyone afford to pay $108.82 just for a video game? Video games are like stories, they eventually end at some point. You can play them again and again, but who wants to do that? Once you finish, you want to play another game, and how much is that game going to cost after you factor in all the add-ons? It’s ridiculous. I think if they are going to charge that much money for add-ons, they should just give you the game for free. It works for DC Universe Online, so why doesn’t it work for other games?

It took me a long time to even want a console, and I only wanted one because I wanted to play video games on a bigger screen, not just my old PSP or my cell phone, or even my Nook HD+ tablet. I wanted to play on the HDTV screen because it was a bigger experience. I know the game companies and the artists go through a lot of trouble and can take years of hard work and they have to pay actors to voice the characters. I know it cost a lot of money, but seriously, $109 for 1 game for 1 person is beyond ridiculous. Even if they gave the game away for free they would still make billions from the $68 worth in add-ons.

I’m just voicing my opinion. I know this is a big business and they aren’t in it to make people happy but to make themselves money, I get that, but come down on the price a bit and you will still be billionaires while your customers have to eat Top Ramen for a month to be able to afford 1 game.

UPDATE:

Ok so just a little  backpedaling lol… I received the game Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and bought up all the little .99 cent, $1.99 and $2.99 add-on’s, which left 2 of the $9.99 levels and the $24.99 thing, which turned out to be a season pass that I had no idea would have given me those 2 $9.99 levels for free. I don’t really know if it would have given me anything else, but it did say it gave me 2 other things that didn’t require a download, so I’m just going to assume I paid for those. Darnit! Next time buy the season pass and see what is left. Oh and the season pass was on sale for only $13.71, so that saved me a lot of money. I wasn’t going to buy the season pass or those 2 levels until something was on sale, and I’m glad I waited. Oh and every add-on is totally worth every dime.

PS4 for Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, Gift, Holidays, Products I Like, PSP, Tech, TVLeave a comment

ps4

My partner saw a commercial for Xbox One and asked if that’s what I want for Christmas. I told him I don’t want you to buy me an Xbox because they are way too expensive. He asked if I would play it and I said hell yes, but I don’t want you to buy it for me.

Up until that point it never even occurred to me that I might want a video game system for my TV. I mean, I’ve thought about it every now and then, but when I saw how expensive they were, the thoughts faded away. But now I can’t stop thinking about it.

This weekend is Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They are at least 23% off, but even still, they are way too expensive for me. The regular price of a PS4 is $520 and right now they are on sale for $400. That’s a lot of money to save, but $400 is also a lot of money to spend.

And I settled on PlayStation 4 because I already have PSP and they have much different selection than Xbox. For example Xbox doesn’t have Little Big Planet. I have some games that I love for my PSP that they don’t have anywhere else, like Jak and Daxter & Ratchet and Clank. It’s a brand, like Nintendo has Mario and Zelda and you can’t play those anywhere else. This particular game system has the Little Big Planet and Lego Batman 3. I mean don’t get me wrong, I would LOVE either Xbox One or PS4. I would be more than happy with either one of them.

Another reason I settled on the PS4 rather than Xbox One is because of the camera. I checked and the Xbox Kinect is $100 to $200. The PS4 camera is only $40. Huge difference in price. The only reason I would want the camera is so that I could use it for the dance games, which burn calories because it is cardio exercise. The Xbox One Kinect is more than just for exercise, in fact you can control your TV from what I understand, but I would probably never use that. In fact, if I did have that, every time I talked, Chip would ask me who I was talking to, so it’s better that I don’t have a game to talk to lol.

It’s a nice thing to think about, and I even created a Amazon wishlist for PS4, but I highly doubt I will ever be able to buy anything from that wishlist. Maybe one day, but probably not this day, or any time soon. If Santa “made” one for me, and it happened to be under the tree on Christmas morning, then I would be the happiest 44 year-old child the world has ever seen, but I highly doubt that would happen.