You can't avoid it though. So there's no excuse.

Movement and combat are fine, the rest is not: attack+direction for combat moves is all nice and dandy, but why not a single key for interactions? Hey Mr. Developer, you choose to design a keyboard-only interface, i'm cool with that, but please remember that the damn device HAS OVER 100 OF THEM.

Same with the list based inventory; i feel it is often a subpar choice for an RPG, but at least in, say, Oblivion and Fallout 3 it is done decently... in G1 is an unecessary chore, both for the small screen space devoted to it and, again, for the keyboard controls.
Myself, i found Darksiders quite enjoable with mouse&keyboard... i was just ready to fire up the gamepad, knowing it was a straight console port, but was surprised of how smooth i was doing with the mouse and stick to that.

Me too. The horse took a little getting used to but otherwise I had no problems playing through Darksiders with mouse and keyboard (my 360 gamepad emulator wouldn't cooperate). This was quite shocking as Devil May Cry 3 & 4 are unplayable without a gamepad.

I found the key for me was to make extensive use of the lockon function. I would toggle it on and off like a madman while using my mouse's ability to move the camera very quickly and precisely.

S p a c e s i e g e

If anyone ever played it then you know im right... the game would have kicked ass, but its a space combat game ALA Shadowgrounds with ONLY mouse movement...

For console games I would say the gamecube remake of Resident Evil 1 does this for me. The game is absolutely beautiful but I hated the controls with a passion. Mind you I am mostly a PC gamer so certain analog aiming in console games is a complete nightmare for me. :P (I do love my consoles, but can't do precision aiming for shit with analog)

oh the legend of zelda release for the Gamecube.. there were parts of OOT that cannot be passed using a game cube controller. My wife has beaten oot atleast 15 times and she was unable to play it on the GameCube.

To be fair, i have to add that i got some help from my G11 keyboard macro functions, so that i could remap some CTRL+button secondary power to a single keypress

Wow, a good topic because this is a mistake that is all too often made:

- Gothic 1 had some very weird design choices where extra buttons were needed for performing simple tasks

- Dragon Age 2: the way the camera is no longer floating means that you lack the ability to properly oversee the area, makes using area spells a chore (you can't scan ahead) and makes it harder to guess how far enemies are apart

- Resident Evil 4 for PC: oh DEAR. This game is totally destroyed by poor controls. Even the mouse aim hack doesn't save it from being shit! And when you consider I didn't enjoy it that much on my PS2 exactly because it felt all wrong to aim ...

- Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness: well more than just the controls were wrong, but they were sluggish, no longer felt intuitive and the entire game just ... SUCKED. But if it had had tight controls, it might have had a saving grace at least.

- Grim Fandango & Escape from Monkey Island: controls designed for consoles translated to keyboard where your character bumps into invisible walls constantly making him run the other way .... ugh. Not to mention you had to walk close to anything to see if it could be used, meaning getting stuck was a terrible "game" of walking over every inch of the map just in case you missed a vital item. Grim was a 10/10 reduced to a 8/10 just because Lucas Arts sold us out to consoles.

- In Cold Blood: a very good game that, unfortunately, has some badly thought out controls.

It's funny but most of these games have bad controls because they were designed with consoles in mind. Need we more proof that cross-platform games tend to suck in that area?

Okay, I have not touched that game since 2003 so the memory is kind of fuzzy. I only remember that I hated the combo, the inconsistent camera movement that was not responsive to the control, and I just sucked at the chasing sequence (chasing Vulture especially). To make it worse, there is no save game feature so if I made a mistake I would be forced to repeat the level or something (can't remember the detail either). I have no game pad and do not play console, so maybe that is my problem. If a save game feature where I can save anytime anywhere is present, I might be persuaded to stick to the game, but as it is I had to give up.

Off-topic: Similar situation (regarding the no save game feature) happens with Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb. Oh why can't they retain the save game feature from Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine? *sigh*

Doesn't help that this game was just plain awful in general.

Regarding the no save game feature, it's because they were made for consoles. And consoles at the time couldn't have system that saved everywhere (due to the limited space for saving). And having played those two games, it would've made them way too easy in my opinion.

But I take it your mouse cord and desk make it so you can place your mouse to the left of you.

Because both controls on the right hand side are awkward to deal with.

So you reach your left hand across the desk to the mouse?

I can kinda work with this if the pull the keyboard to left so that the arrows are almost under my left hand and pull my desk chair to the right.

Interstate 76 deserves a mention too. Using the Mechwarrior engine wasn't without its disadvantages it seems.

I seem to remember spider things in narrow caves where you couldn't hope to avoid them. Also the first dog thing was kind of unavoidable too.

Oh and good on you for using arrow keys. WASD sucks. I'd never use it.