A Warm Welcome is in Order

Let’s all please give a warm welcome to our newest editor: Simms. He’s been a long-time supporter of the push for alternative and customizable controls in gaming. Simms will be giving us an extra hand with reporting on the available control styles in games, so we can get information out to our community even faster. Thanks everyone and stay tuned for more game reports in the coming days.

Cheers!

Internationial Game Developers Association

Hey all,

Check out my thread on the IGDA.org Forum. While they have pay per yr tiers, you can join for free and it’s open to all.

Thanks.

Borderlands

Gearbox Software are releasing this game Q4 2008, looking at the trailer on 360 marketplace it looks awesome.  When I found out about this game I immediately got onto Gearbox and started asking questions about control options.  Below is the link to the question asked on the forum, somebody from the development team has gotten back to me so contact has been estabished. Read the rest…

GTA4 TO INCLUDE NUMEROUS MULTIPLAYER MODES

As the highly anticipated GTA4 reaches ever closer to it’s April 29 release, details of the game’s features start to be leaked to the press. Anyone who frequents gaming news sites (me) can tell you that Rockstar is including quite few, 15 to be exact, multiplayer modes that support up to 16 players including multiple Deathmatch, Co-op, and racing variants. Sounds like Rockstar is packing tons of potential game time into the latest GTA installment. I don’t know about you folks, but I’m psyched!

Point of all this is to get you fence sitters excited and get you all to make your voices heard to Rockstar Games and GTA4’s publisher Take Two, because now is your last chance to help make our community’s voice heard and make the hope of inclusion of alternate controls style a reality. Signing our petetion helps but individual effort won’t hurt either. Everyone together can make a difference but we all must chip in for the common goal.

Happy gaming eveyone!
Read the rest…

Alt-Control Players Condemned by Monolith

This morning I had an email from one of our users informing me that Condemned 2: Bloodshot only offers a Default control setting. No Southpaw or Legacy.

Very disappointing, as the first Condemned in fact offered Southpaw. I contacted Monolith several times for information on the availability of alternate controls in this game. Now I know why my emails were ignored. Let’s just say Monolith now joins the prestigious Alt-Controls.com Developer Naughty List. Note to developers: If you offered Southpaw in the first installment of a game, put it in the second! Add more control options in sequels (like Legacy!) but don’t take any away! Sheesh.

Anyway, thanks to Conor for the information. And just a note to everyone else: Always feel free to send us information on games if you try them out before we have the chance. Both SAKY and I looked for this game in the rental stores this week without any luck, so it’s great when you guys help out like this as there are many games to cover. The faster we can get information out to the community, the better!

Cheers all and my apologies for the crummy news.

BIOSHOCK 2 on the way, start bitching NOW!

I just found this article from Kotaku.com today reporting that BIOSHOCK 2 is currently in development and scheduled for a Q4 release in 2009.

For me, the original 2007 title was the reason I finally shelled out the cash for Southpaw modded 360 controller and I found, despite the continued control issues, that the game was worth every penny.

The environment in BIOSHOCK is tops and just pulls you into the twisted story surrounding the underwater city of Rapture. Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to the sequel’s (or prequel?) release.

If you’re interested in playing this game when it’s released I STRONGLY recommend contacting 2Kgames, which houses the development studio 2K Marin, who is currently working on development of the next game in the BIOSHOCK series.

I’ll tell you all right now that a southpaw modded controller doesn’t completely rectify the control issues of BIOSHOCK and Legacy/SP Legacy is even worse!

Since the game is in such an early stage of it’s development, now is the time to start contacting 2Kgames for the inclusion of our control styles of choice. You’ve all been warned and no whining will be permitted on this site if BioShock 2 has no alt-controls and you haven’t even sent 2Kgames an email about it at the very least!

FRONTLINES: Causing KAOS at Alt-Controls.com

In our recent posting for Frontlines: Fuel of War, we noted that all four standard stick layouts were available.

Well, we messed up about Legacy being included and if you look at the picture below, you’ll see why. There is a setting for Legacy, but it only changes some of the button mapping. Note how the left stick is for movement while the right stick is used for looking. That’s not Legacy… and why KAOS would call this Legacy is beyond me:

Infantry Controls
“Legacy”

So everyone, we’re sorry for the mistake. We’re only human, and I think you can all see why this error was made. Thanks very much to those of you who brought this to our attention.

In summation, Frontlines: Fuel of War offers a true Southpaw option, but not a true Legacy setting. This frankly is the worst move a developer could possibly make in calling a control setting Legacy when it’s not. KAOS is now on our developer naughty list.

Sorry again everyone. We try very hard to ensure that you are all provided with accurate information and we do appreciate when the community points out any errors made.

Two Month Status

Today marks the two month point for Alt-Controls.com. In some ways it feels like we’ve been here forever, yet in other ways the two months have flown by and it’s hard to believe the amount of information and game data we’ve managed to compile in such a short time.

In our two short months of being officially launched on the world wide web, we’ve come a long away. We have new visitors daily, and new members are always signing up. It’s safe to say that we have become a great resource for alt-control players. There are not many sources for gamers like us, which is why we came to exist in the first place. And in our first two months I feel that we have accomplished our goal of providing alt-control players with a great database for their reference.

Speaking of which, please take a look at our revised Xbox 360 and PS3 control lists. I have reorganized these pages so that games now appear in alphabetical order with the available control options listed in bullet form underneath each game title. I hope that these revisions will make the lists easier for everyone to follow.

Moving on, thanks are in order to my team members for all of their help thus far in establishing our site and for taking the time to provide information on games for everyone. We’d also like to thank all of you for your continued support and interest. It’s always great to have comments on our postings and I enjoy getting emails from everyone as well. This includes your words of support, and also the times when you’ve needed to vent about the lack of alt-control support in the gaming industry. That’s what Alt-Controls.com is all about: We are a resource and database first and foremost, but this site also offers a way for all of us alt-control players to stick together.

Finally, for anyone who has not joined the community yet, it would be great if you could kindly take a moment of your time to register with us. The more members we have, the stronger the alt-control community’s voice will be.

Cheers everyone!

Frontlines = Fun For All **Update - No Legacy/SP legacy

Supported control styles

- Southpaw
- Legacy
- SP Legacy

**Well geez I am just a royal F’up as of late, but I am human (maybe) and I have made a huge oversight with Frontlines. Apparently this game does not support Legacy or SP Legacy control schemes but it DOES support Southpaw, I garauntee it!

I have the game loaded in my 360 right now and as 2Three mentioned it was easy to make this mistake. NEVER is my 20 years of gaming have I seen anything like this, I don’t understand who KAOS studios was talking to and perhaps there was a crossed line in development but the options for Legacy and Southpaw Legacy are anything but. Again what you’ll find is these options only switch a couple of button functions essentially creating button map variations of Southpaw and default control styles.

Although my apologies do not make up for the loss of your hard earned money, I offer it to all of you Legacy players that purchased this game only to be let down. I would also like to thank the members that brought this issue to our attention, without all of you maintaining accurate data would be next to impossible.

I am currently attempting to contact someone at KAOS studios regarding this issue because I really believe this is a crossed wire in develpment and KAOS Studios had every intention of including these neglected control options. Expect updates to follow.
Read the rest…

Portal Cleans House @ the Game Developer’s Choice Awards

Portal has made quite the splash at this year’s Game Developer’s Choice Awards. In this event of course, the game development companies themselves judge their peers and pick what they consider to be the best games of the year in a variety of categories.

As one of the games included in The Orange Box, Portal was hailed as the Most Innovative Game, Game of the Year and was also given the nod for Excellence in Game Design. I personally have not played Portal yet. Although I can say that from the footage I’ve seen and what I know about the game, I would definitely agree that it was the most innovative title of the year, without question. Read the rest…