Table of Contents
8 Tomb Raider (1996)
A large jump in the original Tomb Raider requires a whole routine: walk Lara to the edge, hop back once, run forward, jump at the last second, and hold the grab button in midair. You’re jumping roughly every 15 seconds in this platformer, and most jumps demand single-pixel precision. The source’s complaint is that this elaborate preparation becomes a constant requirement, not an occasional challenge.
Tank controls explain much of that friction. Pressing up moves a character forward in the direction they’re facing, while left and right rotate them. With the stick alone, you can’t sidestep or turn on a dime. A hallway can make that manageable; sneaking past a guard, aiming a weapon, or clearing a pit exposes its limits. The source argues that this scheme caused trouble in just about every genre during the PS1 era. These eight classics are its hardest games to revisit, whether because of tank controls or a different obstacle entirely.
Tomb Raider’s controls were meant to support precise platforming, but doing so means pressing buttons in a particular order with exact timing throughout the game. You also count blocks and learn separate button combinations for standing, running, and walking jumps. A wrong calculation can mean game over. For the source, the problem is the repeated demand for flawless execution, rather than simply movement that feels different from modern games.
Aspyr’s 2024 remaster offers both the classic scheme and modern controls, with the camera on the right stick. The full remake, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, is scheduled for February 2027. In the original, walking provides a useful safeguard: Lara won’t walk off an edge, although she can run straight off one.
7 Fear Effect (2000)
A fear meter replaces the usual health bar in Fear Effect, a shooter that also punishes you for running out of ammunition. Being spotted or taking a hit raises your character’s fear, and the danger rises with it.
Three mercenaries pursue a supernatural conspiracy through Hong Kong in 2050. What begins as an assignment to retrieve a Triad boss’s daughter becomes a descent into a surreal version of hell. Their enemies include Triads, zombies, and demons.
The source finds that tank controls trap the characters more often than they help them escape. Limited Run Games’ 2025 re-release makes those controls optional and adds widescreen support, rewind, and save states. That choice directly addresses the source’s central complaint about movement.
6 Resident Evil (1996)
In Resident Evil, you can be trying to shoot a zombie the camera won’t show you. The source recognizes why: keeping threats around the corner out of sight makes the game more frightening. The same decision also makes combat harder to read.
Jill and Chris belong to the Raccoon City police’s elite S.T.A.R.S. unit and become trapped in a zombie-infested mansion. Whichever character you choose, tank controls make “forward” relative to their facing direction, not the screen. That gives movement consistency when a doorway triggers a camera cut. Those fixed views helped Resident Evil define survival horror, but they also leave players lining up shots at unseen enemies. As the source notes, stiff, complicated movement makes matters worse.
Director’s Cut adds analog-stick support and is available on PS Plus Premium for those seeking the original experience. The source’s preferred way to play the first game is the 2002 remake or its 2015 HD remaster, citing the rebuilt mansion, new graphics, new lighting, and revised layouts.
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid separates looking from shooting: Snake can scout in first person, but he can’t fire from that view. The source argues that this seemingly small restriction becomes a real problem when you’re trying to sneak past a guard.
A legendary soldier called out of retirement, Snake must infiltrate a remote nuclear weapons facility in Alaska. Once you need to aim, you return to the top-down camera, often at an angle that leaves your target out of sight. The source describes the stealth as extremely unforgiving, making that disconnect between scouting and shooting especially awkward.
The sequels improve on the handling. You can play the original through Master Collection Vol. 1 on PC, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series X. The source finds it unwieldy but credits its brevity: finishing it can take a handful of hours.
4 Dino Crisis (1999)
Scripted “DANGER!” prompts in Dino Crisis take control away when you most want to move. Once the prompt flashes, staying alive depends on button mashing rather than steering. The source objects to how these sequences discard the turning, aiming, and running skills you’ve practiced, then punish you if your reactions aren’t fast enough.
Special-operations agent Regina travels to a secret research island to rescue the missing scientist Dr. Kirk. A government project has gone badly wrong, leaving dinosaurs in the mix. The source calls the setup enjoyably silly and compares it to Resident Evil with dinosaurs. Unlike Resident Evil’s fixed views, though, the camera follows Regina as she moves with tank controls.
Capcom added a quick-turn button to ease that movement. For the source, however, it doesn’t resolve Dino Crisis’s biggest frustration: losing direct control at the moments when escape feels most urgent.
3 Syphon Filter (1999)
An armored guard reveals the weakness in Syphon Filter’s aiming system. Lock-on is available, but it doesn’t help against body armor. To target the head, you must switch to slower first-person aiming, even as enemies shoot at you from off-screen.
This Sony stealth-and-shooting spy thriller stars secret agent Gabe Logan, whose mission is to stop a deadly virus. The source argues that its intended fast-paced spy-movie action clashes with the controls. They aren’t quite tank controls, but Push Square’s review describes awkward, unresponsive handling, particularly when you try to shoot.
The source’s verdict comes down to speed: a shooter depends on landing headshots quickly, yet Syphon Filter makes the precise action it demands most against armored enemies its slowest aiming option.
2 Parasite Eve 2 (1999)
Parasite Eve 2 replaces the first game’s turn-based RPG battles with real-time shooting and tank-style movement. The source considers this a strange reinvention, arguing that learning the stiff controls is harder than any boss or random encounter.
Aya Brea, a former NYPD officer, now belongs to an FBI unit hunting creatures created by mutated cells. A monster outbreak takes her from a Los Angeles shopping tower to a deserted town in Nevada. Players navigate pre-rendered backgrounds, lock on to enemies, and dodge during the investigation.
Getting comfortable with those actions is the main hurdle in Parasite Eve 2, according to the source. It quotes a reviewer’s description of “the stiff and stubborn playcontrol”. The source acknowledges that movement becomes easier after an hour or two, but stresses the cost of that improvement: you still have to spend those hours building muscle memory.
1 Silent Hill (1999)
Finding a way to play the original Silent Hill is the main obstacle, not necessarily its unusual controls or unforgiving gameplay. The 1999 game follows a man searching a fog-covered town for his missing daughter, but revisiting that search on modern consoles is difficult.
The game’s publisher has acknowledged that its source code was lost, as covered in the report cited by the source. The source explains that this loss prevented official ports or remasters for a very long time, leaving the original out of reach on modern consoles.
A fan decompilation project has finished reconstructing the original code, which could allow unofficial ports someday. For now, the source identifies two ways to play: an original PS1 disc or, while it remains available there, the PS3 store.
Modern-console entries include the Silent Hill 2 remake, 2025’s Silent Hill f, and Townfall. For the first game, the source’s recommendation remains a PlayStation, a disc, and plenty of patience with the fog.
