Customizable Controls at the Firmware Level?

One of our members, soulwarrior, has written an excellent post on the behalf of Alt-Controls.com and AbleGamers regarding the implementation of customizable controls at the firmware level.

I know that a number of you have mentioned the need for this, so now would be an excellent time to voice yourselves. If this is something that interests you (and why wouldn’t it?), please head on over to the PS3 Forums to lend your support.

He has also opened up an online petition here as well. Thanks, soulwarrior!

COD4 DOUBLE XP WEEKEND RETURNS

From 402, much to my excitment, ‘Double XP Weekend’ is back for a second round in Call of Duty 4. From Friday morning until Monday, players can earn double experience points for the online matches across ALL playlists, so even if you don’t have the new maps you can have your chance to get a different nifty medal next to your screen name. This will apply to both XBOX360 and PS3 players. Needless to say you should expect no posts from me this weekend.

Happy gaming!

BIOSHOCK FINDS A NEW HOME ON PS3

Word from publisher 2KGames, a Take-Two Interactive subsidiary, confirmed today that Bioshock is headed to the PS3 in October, making the jump from being a Windows and 360 exclusive. There is a lot of speculation around the net of new content for stellar 2007 title but there is no official word from 2K Marin on what, if any, content will be added to the new release. Either way this should be great news for those of you that only have a PS3.

Read the rest…

Our final word on Haze: No Legacy in the full version

Sorry Legacy fans. It has been confirmed by Derek Littlewood of Free Radical Design that Haze will not offer Legacy controls in the retail version of the game.

The interview is posted over on the official Haze boards, and you’ll note that the first question is regarding Legacy controls. Now he has stated that Legacy could be included, depending on the reaction of gamers.

So this is a bit of a set back for us all - not just Legacy gamers. Remember, this game is published by Ubisoft. Many of you in this community fought hard for the inclusion of alternative controls in GRAW, and since then all of their games have been accessible to us all thanks to those efforts.

I’m already over on the boards as ‘Legacy_Player.’ I wasn’t able to sign up as 2Three (Ubi board names can’t start with a number). I hope that some of you will join me to see if we can’t get this fixed.

We all need to band together here, even you Southpaw guys should come over and show some support. Otherwise, the successful GRAW campaign will no longer be relevant, and the game developers that got us started with Legacy will likely not include this control style in future games - unless we all speak up as a community.

Haze Demo: No Legacy! But isn’t this game by the GoldenEye crew?

Word around the official Haze forums is that the recently released demo supports a Southpaw setting – but Legacy and Legacy-Southpaw are missing.

But how can this be? These are the guys that worked on GoldenEye 007. We all use Legacy because of them and their fine games of the past. This game is also published by Ubisoft. What’s happened here? I thought they changed after the GRAW situation.

The Official Haze FAQ has stated for months that this game would support full customization. Well, you all know that could simply refer to button re-assigning. A nice feature, sure. But for many of us, if we don’t have Legacy we certainly won’t care that we can set the reload function to any button of our choice.

Hopefully the retail version will end up supporting all four standard stick layouts: Default, Southpaw, Legacy and Legacy-Southpaw. What a blow this could be to our community though should the full version omit Legacy. It would mean the crew that got as all started with Legacy thanks to GoldenEye has turned their back, and that Ubisoft games are no longer a sure thing for alt-controls in spite of the GRAW uprising and its success.

We are only a couple weeks away from Haze’s official release, so I guess we will have to wait and see. But I’m not encouraged because you all know from our past experiences that demos and betas usually reflect the final controls of a game.

Come on, Free Radical and Ubisoft. We are counting on you! Include Legacy!

TimeSplitters 2 in HD? Up to you

Recently, developer Free Radical Design has been contemplating the re-release of their classic last-gen shooter, TimeSplitters 2 - in HD.

The TimeSplitters series is one of the best first person shooting experiences that you never had. These excellent games were sadly overlooked by many gamers in favor of bigger franchises from the era such as Halo and Medal of Honor.

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (the third installment in the series) is probably one of my favorite shooters of all time. However, all three titles from the series provided a great FPS experience with excellent visuals and tight controls. The single-player campaigns were well-crafted and engaging, while the challenge and multiplayer modes could keep you occupied for months.

Throw in some British humor, quirky characters and monkeys to top off the solid game play, and you have yourself one of the most fun FPS experiences that you could ask for. It would be a real treat for loyal followers of the series if Free Radical decided to go ahead and re-release this game in HD, which would be available for download via the Playstation Network.

However, there are currently no definitive plans for this to occur. Free Radical would like to hear from gamers themselves before they go to all the trouble of polishing up a game if no one will download it. So, if you would like to see an HD reinvention of TimeSplitters 2, all you need to do is send an email to PSM3 Magazine to show your support, as they are behind the campaign for an HD version of this game. David Doak of Free Radical Design has confirmed that should this campaign garner enough support, a TimeSplitters 2 HD is very possible. Read the rest…

MGO beta: Metal Gear (alt-controls) Omitted

Well, after downloading the Metal Gear Online beta, waiting for the 1.01 update download, then the 1.02 update download, and registering a “Konami ID” and “Game ID” (separate from your PSN ID), I’ve come to find that no Southpaw or Legacy options are offered.

As a Southpaw user, I can get by during general third-person movement, but the first-person and over-the-shoulder views get awkward. There are options to “invert” the X-axis (horizontal) on the right camera stick, so maybe that will help some folks (not me). Inverting X/Y for the three camera modes are the only customizable control options; there’s only one button config available. While the single-player MGS4 may have some variations in weapon/item selection, I’ll assume the move/look options will be the same as those provided for use in MGO.

It is only the beta version, so maybe more options will be provided in the final release, but I won’t hold my breath.

Metal Gear Solid 4: The Snake Is Creeping Ever Closer

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the much anticipated finale to the MGS series, is almost upon us. Snake continues his unrelenting hunt for Liquid Ocelot across five geographic locales, including the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe.

Snake has come a long way since his Nintendo days (that’s right folks, Metal Gear was a Nintendo game prior to the PlayStation manifestations). Innovations such as the stress and psyche gauges, the status of which affect your ability to maintain steady aim and agility, the SOP (Sons of Patriots) system, and a stealth agent’s best friend, the OctoCamo suit, add new dimensions to the typical creep-n-kill mechanics. Read the rest…

Haze Demo: Early May

A demo of the long-awaited Haze by Free Radical Design will be available for download via the Playstation Network in early May.

Haze looks to shake up the FPS genre by offering some very unique game play elements. You assume the role of Shane Carpenter, a Mantel Soldier who is “fighting the good fight” against a rebel uprising by a group known as The Promise Hand. While part of the Mantel Army, you have access to a wide range of high-tech weaponry and a nutritional supplement known as Nectar that increases your strength and improves your overall skills in combat. Read the rest…

And Then Along Came the DualShock 3…

Alright guys, you all know the story of Sony’s DualShock 3. The marketing and commerce machine that is Sony wouldn’t have it any other way. So let’s just clear the air right now and get this out of the way: My intention for this piece is not to bash Sony, the DualShock 3, or rumbling controllers. As a matter of fact, I like rumbling controllers. And the PS3 is becoming more inviting by the minute thanks to the price drop, Blu-ray winning the format war and some very enticing games that are on the horizon.

However, I would like to pass along a simple observation about this whole DualShock 3 situation. And that observation is this: With all this fuss about a controller, it doesn’t mean anything to me if alternate controls are left out of a game. It can rumble, light up, heck it can even get up a do a dance - but if I don’t have my Legacy controls in a shooter, then it makes no difference to me. Read the rest…