1) Cause not all FPS games are multiplayer deathmatch games, Half Life, Portal, Metroid Prime, Etc.

2) Dude, seriously, you must have issues holding your hand steady. I play advanced controls ALL the time and I have NEVER had that issue. Maybe you just need to practice more, y'know, like you say I need to do with the wasd keys.

3) A graceful arc means that I can keep shooting at the bastard the whole way through my turn.

1&4) also, you keep on making this goofball assumption that you always have to be facing directly at your opponent. I generally don't have my opponent right at the center of the screen. Sometimes I like to have my opponent off to one corner of my screen while the camera is actually letting me see more of where I'm going. then I simply snap back occasionally when I feel I've got a decent shot to take.
Even if you don't use that strategy, if your opponent isn't directly in the center of your screen, then pure left and pure right aren't actually the perfect way to strafe that opponent. What if, perhaps you have TWO enemies, if you want to shoot at one, he's the one you're going to strafe, but what about the other guy? I'd rather split the difference and strafe both at 80% efficiency than strafe 1 at 100% efficiency and then only be strafing the guy NOT getting shot at with 60% efficiency.

4) Uh, yes, I have numerous times, but not with dual analog, rather with Wiimote and Nunchuk, or with analog+mouse. Of course, I have never brought up dual analog, so why do you keep bringing it up?

I mainly use PC for shooters and the like, and i had a go the other day at Halo 3, and i found it so hard to snipe. I dont know how you aim accurately, because it was hard to aim fast while getting it to move tiny incraments if you want to. I guess im just not accustomed to it, but (@ OP) im quite the opposite

yes, analogue movement is a bit superior to the kind of movement you can do with a keyboard, but mouse aiming is waaaaay superior to aiming with analogue sticks+help of aimbot (which every "good" console shooter has)

btw this is only my opinion, so no need to feel too offended

No, they don't need analog control. If you were to move straight and you wanted to keep your cursor on a single point somwhere behind you, you'd have to practice a long time to get it right in either setup. The problem is that the player needs to remember where he or she is headed with respect to where he or she is looking. This can easily be compensated in both setups, but like I said it requires a lot of practice and exposure.

I thought it was generally agreed upon that keyboard without mouse is worse than a single analog stick. I guess not, though. :-/

Analog control helps when you want to look around while moving though, since you can just roll your thumb to counter the direction you're aiming without any jaggy as you shift from forward to side motion. It also helps cause you can recorrect side motion with less overshooting, especially useful on narrow ledges.

I think most people actually HAVE come to the consensus that single analog is better than just keyboard, but you still have a few diehards that don't want to admit that they aren't at the pinical of hardcore gaming or something. Not totally sure. So far, the only people that have attempted to say that keyboards are better either site the mouse(which isn't part of the equation), the hotkeys (which aren't always needed, and could still be implemented with most controllers using any extra buttons), or they come up with some odd excuse that it's not important in mouse+keyboard games.

Other than this, it seems to be fairly consistent that Analog is better at movement, but mouse is FAR better for aiming, and most PC gamers are simply are willing to put up with the crap movement in order to have the better aim, in the meantime the keyboard movement is "good enough"

Of course, that just makes me even more certain that the Wiimote + nunchuk is eventually going to become the icon of unified gaming.

Jeez its simple...

Analogue movement is marginally better than keyboard (if you use W = forward and left/right are strafe and you steer with mouse). And that difference will make almost no difference in any FPS (which is going to be combat orientated).

The main point is the movement advantage is small and makes no difference to gameplay that I've ever noticed.

Mouse aiming is much more accurate that analogue stick. And it makes a huge difference to gameplay and allows for more open level design - FPS design for console always tries to minimize extreme use of Z vertical, keeping you mainly in a level combat environment or slight height differences. With a mouse FPS can have extreme Z combat.

The main point is aiming with a mouse is a big advantage over analgue.

Therefore overall for FPS K&M is better as what you gain is much more than what you lose and is more integral to the gameplay of an FPS as well.

As for Wii mote and nunchuck are you kidding me? For FPS it slightly edges dual analogue but the aiming is way below mouse yet again - probably better for your wrist muscles though if you want to play a long session of very fast paced online MP FPS...

1) Half-Life is EXACTLY that type of game (Maybe you didn't multiplayer,  but even so maybe you missed the monsters trying to rip you apart?) , Portal's movement was extremely inconsequential to the actual game, you didn't need to be moving while looking around at all, you only moved so you could move from one point to another and there was no requirement for any precision at all, everythign else was handled by the aiming. Metroid Prime is an Adventure game with a few shooting elements and not a FPS by any stretch of the imagination. The only plus I see of the analog stick over the WASD is in tactical shooter where you need to move slowly to not be heard, but that's easily fixed with a nice walk or crouch button. As for the platformer elements in Half-Life, just let go of the button at the edge, it's really not that hard, you don't need to crawl to the edge.

2) It's not so much the centering but the fact that the way to get it dead center and stay there endlessly I'd need to rest my arm against something, limiting my aim sginificantly in case something jumped at me while I wass staring at the sky.

3) Now you are bringing up aiming, and I hate to break it to you but there is no reason why you should be losing your target when you strafe. In this the mouse excels. Also how is it a graceful arc when you go through the whole thing in a matter of miliseconds? It's still the sharp left or right as if I had pressed A or D.

1&4) Yet again you bring up aiming so I guess I will too. I don't know what you are looking at when you to see where you are going, unless the area has hazards in which case 2 quick wrist flicks scans the area and puts you back on the monster and then you can navigate just as easily with the WASD while actually shotting the target at the same time. Also if you have 2 enemies, you point the mouse in between them and you press the keys, voila, you are now dodging both enemies' fire at the same time.

4)You've done this in MP3's Advanced mode ? Because given the fact that the turn speed changes variably depending on every single pixel you are from the center somehow I doubt you'd manage to mimick the view's acceleration with the analog well enough for you not to fall off that 2 pixel wide beam. I call busllshit on the fact that you can walk a straight line with the analog while looking around in Advanced Mode, meaning your turn speed is extremely variable.

As for the hotkeys, how many can you put on a controller before they all start feeling the same? Also having to do a combination takes twice or three times as long as just pressing a hotkey.

@ Reasonable )

thx, that is exactly what I was going to post ;)

Im not sure how your setup is, but i can mimmick any movement with my mouse/keyboard to a console controller...

This is usually how my setup is:

Left Click = Move Forward
Right Click = Move Backward
X = Strafe Left
C = Strafe Right
Mouse Movement = Aim left/right/up/down
Hold Shift = Disable Aim Left/Right/Up/Down and move player Left/Right/Forward/Back

Its all a matter of perfecting the strafing & forward/backward movement

All pretty simple :)

I guess I'll just put all my thinking into an organized post:

You say wthat with analog movement you can move and look at the same time, alright fair enough. Now there are only 2 situation in which you could be in, 1) someone is shooting at you or 2) no one is shooting at you. If 1) then why the hell are you bothering to look around at all other than a quick glimpse to make sure there's no holes or any hazards around (which is done the finest with a mouse). If 2) then why are you moving? Stop and look around and stare at the glory of the scenery all you want, nothing is rushing you. Equal here.

You also bring up the fact it's analog control and you can move at different velocities so you can creep up to a ledge or a mob. Well alright that's true, but I don't see how a walk/crouch key fails to do the exact same thing, it gets me to the edge or the mob safely and that's all that matters. Very slight win for the analog movement here.

And finally the hotkeys. With your fingers on WASD in the proper position you have instant access to all of these : E,R,F,Q,Caps, LShift, and Space. With very minor movements you have access to the entire left side of the KBD and with a little bigger move the entire KBD is at your disposal. With the analog stick you don't have any of that. Your entire hand is taken up by holding the controller with maybe the exception of your index and middle fingers. And even then they have very minimal movement capabilities. This above all else puts the KBD well above an analog stick where you are wasting so much capability just by having to hold on to it.