Splash Damage Hints at the Possibility of Alternate Controls in Brink

Squiffy recently touched based with Splash Damage regarding the importance of including Southpaw, Legacy, Legacy-southpaw and customization in their upcoming FPS, Brink.

Their response: Read the rest…

Bad Company 2: Legacy, Please

Today I was sent a link to a thread that one of our members started on the EA Forums requesting the inclusion of Legacy in Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

This is a good opportunity to add your two cents on the issue if you would like to see DICE offer the Legacy scheme, or better yet, completely customizable controls in this forthcoming FPS.

DICE has taken strides in the past to make their games more accessible by getting in touch with us directly for feedback on game controls, and by offering the Southpaw scheme in recent titles. Hopefully with a few gentle nudges from you folks, we’ll eventually see all four stick layouts in their products.

The Importance of Customizable Controls

While it’s always beneficial when games support the four standard thumbstick configurations (Default, Southpaw, Legacy and Legacy-Southpaw), it’s also imperative to remember that full controller customization is a necessity for some.

In fact, the implementation of completely customizable controls as a standard for console games would be helpful for many. The benefits of this would not be limited to those who prefer using the alternate styles cited above - customizable controls would be valuable for all players, including those that use the Default layout, and especially for individuals who suffer from disabilities and physical impairments.

The best way to validate this statement is to share an excerpt from a recent comment that we received from Jersquall: “I am a quadriplegic and I need button mapping on a lot of games but only a few offer it.”

He also provided a link to a thread he started on the Playstation Home forums. Here is a snippet from his post: “I had a diving accident when I was younger that left me paralyzed. Now those that have played online games know I can still hold my own as long as I have an acceptable button configuration. But if any of you know or have had any type of physical disability then you know how hard it can be. Most games I play have button mapping in the controller options.”

Ultimately, anyone who purchases a console game should have the option to adjust the controls to their liking, whether it’s being able to use Southpaw or Legacy, X or Y Axis inversion, or remapping the buttons - for whatever their reasons for doing so may be.

Please take a few minutes of your time to read the rest of Jersquall’s inspirational post.

Control Info Straight From E3

We have some information on the possible control options for a few upcoming games that made appearances at E3:

Read the rest…

Hydrophobia Controls

Being developed by Blade Interactive, Hydrophobia is a survival-adventure game that will be released sometime this year for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Squiffy recently did some investigating on our behalf regarding the control options and received this bit of info from Rob Hewsen, the game’s Senior Creative Designer: Read the rest…

The Conduit to Offer Full Customization

We don’t normally provide coverage on Wii games since alternate controls aren’t really applicable, but some important news has been posted at Kotaku regarding The Conduit’s extensive controller customization options. Complete customization is really what it’s all about:

…you can go into customization and switch to any of three presets, or you can just create your own. Every button and action is mappable. Yes, including the motion control.

Good news. This is something that should be offered in all games. And there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be the case, which is reinforced by Matt Corso, the Creative Director at High Voltage:

“None of this was really hard to do. I felt there were these old arguments about that’s not the way it’s done in console games so we shouldn’t do it.”

That pretty much says it all, no? Everyone should check out the full article from Kotaku here.

2009 So Far

We’re a few months into 2009 and we’ve had some highs and lows. Here’s how things have gone down:

• Southpaw & Scout/Legacy were both added in Socom: Confrontation via the 1.30 patch
• Armored Core: For Answer sports full customization
• F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin offered Southpaw, no Legacy
• Killzone 2 also delivered Southpaw; Legacy was left out
• Southpaw was available in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand… but Fiddy must not be a Legacy player…
• The Riddick Demo offered the four standard stick layouts (and the retail version is due in April)
• The demo for Wanted: Weapons of Fate only offered Default (the retail version is available now, and in all likelihood does not offer additional options)
• Resident Evil 5 shipped with the same control options found in the demo, as expected (4 layouts, no Southpaw or Legacy)
• ShellShock 2: Blood Trails had Southpaw, but Legacy was MIA

Other games on the horizon to be released in April include:

• Damnation (Update: Now due in May)
• Velvet Assassin
• The Godfather II

Plus I’m still trying to get a hold of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard, which was released back in February.

So overall, the year is going fairly well for Southpaw players, but it’s not the greatest start for Legacy folks. However, with Halo 3: ODST and Modern Warfare 2 on the way this year, we at least have two blockbuster titles to look forward to that will likely offer the four standard stick layouts and should therefore be (fairly) comfortable for everyone here.

Worst Controls?

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?

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?

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.