A little while ago I was going through the PS3 trophy lists for the games I have, trying to find out a challenge that might be interesting to do. I noticed that I had Uncharted: Drake's Fortune with about 2% completion. I haven't played the game much since I got it; I completed two or three chapters. And I thought, why not? So I put the disc in and started playing. The first thing that came to my mind was that I had forgotten how to play it because the last time I touched it was in January. It took me about a minute of experimentation to figure them out again and less than five minutes to start using the controls unconsciously. Though the graphics may have been a little out-dated and I had a hard time spotting the enemies (due to my poor eyesight) I still had loads of fun. The game was just easy to get into.

In my experience, few games manage to make you forget that you're playing on a controller. Almost all of them have at least one moment when you stop uncertainly, wondering which button does what in this situation. The best control schemes, however, feel natural to the player. You don't think about pressing the buttons. You just do it.

Some games which has extremely good controls, in my opinion, are the Call of Duty games. While heavily criticized in other aspects, their controls feel flawless. Aiming is easy, switching guns is easy, transition between walking and running is easy. There's hardly a moment where you stop trying to find the button which throws the grenades. It completely immerses you, control-wise.

Other games, like Bioshock and Dragon Age: Origins (both on the PS3), have controls that either require you to pause to select a specific move or spend some time cycling through different weapons and plasmids. Such delays can be forgiven, but they take away part of the immersion. But they can be irritating, detracting the player from the action, and in my opinion, the radial menus these two games use aren't very precise and you'll find yourself with an unwanted weapon in hand or using up precious mana on something useless.

I wouldn't mind if a game had bad voice-acting or simple graphics, or even a loosely held-together plot. But controls are an extension of the player's body in the game. It's how we interact with the game. Bad controls taint every good thing in the game and distort the player's experience of the game, in my opinion.

What do you guys think? What are the worst controls you've ever experienced?