Worst Controls?

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So we have already discussed which games we all think have the best controls. The natural follow-up would be to determine which games sport the worst controls.

In my opinion, Frontlines: Fuel of War takes the cake for this prestigious honor. Legacy players will recall that while a “Legacy” setting was offered, it didn’t alter the sticks at all and only changed some of the button mappings. Unfortunately, many Legacy folks around here wasted their hard-earned cash for an unplayable game, or as SAKY said, “$60 coasters.” Well put!

To add, er… fuel, to the fire, Kaos mentioned on the official Frontlines blog that they were “investigating mis-mappings with the Legacy control scheme” while working on the release of a patch for the game. Well, the patch came out and no changes were made to the “Legacy” configuration. Aside from that, using a Legacy mod was a pain in the ass, thanks to the circular weapon selection menu. Anyone who has used a Legacy mod knows how annoying circular menus can be. You cannot select any items that are located in the upper left/right or lower left/right sections of the menu.

So for these blunders, Kaos gets the nod from Alt-Controls.com for offering the worst controls around in Frontlines: Fuel of War. Well done and congrats!

That’s just my opinion of course, so what do the rest of you have to say? Which games have the worst controls?

PS- I’m terribly sorry that this picture is not nearly as enjoyable as the previous one.

Best Controls?

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There, now that I have your attention, I’m curious which game (or series) you folks think offer the best controls, out of first and third person shooters of course.

I decided against holding a poll for a couple reasons. The first being that I don’t feel like setting another one up. How’s that for honest writing? And second, with this question the answers from each of us could vary so much that it would be really easy for me to leave out someone’s choice in a voting situation.

For me, no game’s controls could compare to GoldenEye for years. But nowadays, I find the controls in the Call of Duty series to be the most comfortable. Other games tend to feel pretty clumsy in my opinion compared to it, with the exception of Halo.

So what gets your pick? It can be from this gen, last-gen… whatever.

*Image courtesy of Spike.com (where else?)

Poll Results: Do you use inverted aiming?

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So it seems as though a slim majority of you folks (55.07%) prefer to use inverted aiming, while 43.48% don’t. And 1.45% of you weren’t sure what the heck I was talking about. Guess I’ll be nice and briefly explain: Think of inverted aiming as being very similar to flight controls - you pull the analog stick back to look up, and push it forward to look down. Much like Legacy controls, I became accustomed to inverted aiming thanks to GoldenEye 007.

Could it finally be?!?!

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Loved the first so I hope this is real because rolling over zombies in human hamster balls is just too awesome! The original had Southpaw aiming so it’s fair game on this site. Enjoy, it’s Vegas or bust!

KILLZONE 2 SCREEN SHOTS

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Many of us like to bend the rules in our personal favor and as you may recall I did just that, two months ago….to the day in fact!

This time it’s the demo for Killzone 2 and my newly created European PSN account has allowed me to gather the screenshots you all know and love…or hate. As is always the case, when a demo is made available in such close proximity to the a retail release you can bet that controls shown represent the the entirety of the final game’s options.

In addition to the pictures below are the options to change X and Y axis sensitivity, and inversion of both X and Y axes. The later of the two I find both hilarious and frustrating. I mean C’mon, we can invert looking left and right but Legacy gets excluded. I know I should be the last person to question the inclusion of ANY control options but seriously, who the heck inverts the X axis?! I want to meet these people and learn how they came to use that option. I’m not judging here, just laughing myself into a straight-jacket. Read the rest…

NYC Comic Con: DICE touts two new Battlefield games

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In addition to the cell-shaded Battlefield:Heroes for the PC, EA’s DICE has two more itterations of the Battlefield franchise in the works for the consoles and PC in the form of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and a high-def remake of BF1942 known as Battlefield 1943: Pacific, the later of which is playable in the floor of Comic Con.

While no official release date has been given for BC2, 1943 is scheduled for release in the “Summer time” on XBOX 360, PS3, and PC according to the official DICE press release.

So the reason for this post is the below screen shot, Read the rest…

Warhammer: “Most Accessible Mainstream Game” - AbleGamers

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AbleGamers has cited Warhammer as the Most Accessible Mainstream Game of 2008, thanks to Mythic addressing (and correcting) their concerns with the game:

Upon Warhammer’s September 18, 2008 launch date, the game had accessibility features covering a wide range of disabilities right out the box. This includes options for the physically disabled such as mapping nearly all actions to the keyboard, or playing the entire game just by using a mouse or special controllers. There is also text for all key events to aid the hearing impaired and the game has also been made accessible to the colorblind.

Despite the features available upon launch, members of the disabled community still had one concern: Warhammer did not work with the On-Screen Keyboard. This is a tool gamers with physical limitations use to type data on screen with a mouse. It is one of the few MMOs that missed this feature.

According to Mythic, a new patch will be released within the next two weeks taking care of the On-Screen Keyboard.

The problem was first addressed on the AbleGamers forum. A registered user who had purchased Warhammer brought up the issue regarding the On-Screen Keyboard shortly after the game’s release. Mark Barlet, Editor-In-Chief of AbleGamers, wrote Mythic regarding the issue on several occasions.

In case you’re not familiar with AbleGamers, they are a community for disabled gamers and push heavily for accessibility in videogames. You’ll find that much of their mission overlaps with ours, and they have been extremely supportive of this website.

Please go visit Mark and the crew from AbleGamers to read the complete story and press release regarding their naming of Warhammer as the Most Accessible Mainstream Game of 2008. I’m a big fan of their new design, and they have a lot of interesting things going on over there these days.

Gears 2: Customizable Buttons Thread

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I think everyone can agree that fully customizable buttons in Gears of War 2 would be pretty helpful. It’s great that we have configurations available for Southpaw & Legacy, but there are many people that would like to be able to customize the button layout for various reasons.

One of our readers has explained his thoughts on this over at the official Gears of War boards. Please head over there to post your thoughts as well and back him up. A number of you have expressed the same concerns to us… so express them to EPIC now as they frequent their boards often, looking for feedback from players. You’re all aware that UT3 offers button mapping, so perhaps voicing your concerns to EPIC may get some results for future Gears of War games.