Why didn't more games use the keyboard?

[sammyfox]

I tried games like Mortal Kombat (both of them) on my amiga and I can't believe people tolerated such butchered and limited controls back then. Was there a technical barrier to using keyboard controls like on PCs? (on msdos I liked to use a ASZXQ and arrows scheme that is basically an inverted snes pad layout)

[sammyfox]

Fighting games are horrible with a keyboard. They're one of very few cases where keyboards don't work well.

I beg to differ. the MK games always had simple motions for their special moves, like down and forward and such. On a keyboard these are much easier to pull off than say, anything in street fighter.

[sammyfox]

Are you for real? My PC owning 'friends' would attempt to play Mortal Kombat on the PC with an analogue joystick back in the day :laughing:

The only thing the Amiga was missing was CD32 support. 2-button joypad support was present on MK2 which was better than most. Why we had to tolerate pathetic single button fighting games back then I'll never know. The keyboard should not even be considered for fighting games. PC gamers were morons in the early 90s and even preferred Commander Keen to Amiga platformers :lol:

Commander keen was tons of fun though :c