First Look @ Shadow Harvest

It’s definitely been a slow summer. There hasn’t been many applicable releases lately for us to cover, but there are a number of new shooters on the way that we’ll be looking at. Speaking of which: Shadow Harvest was announced recently at GC 2008. Being developed by Black Lion Studios, this game is a third person shooter set in the future where it appears that you will utilize two different characters at various points of the game: One that’s more of an aggressive brawler, and one that prefers a stealthier approach.

Take a look at the debut trailer, after the hop. Read the rest…

Microsoft E3 Press Conference Round Up

I’m not even going to bother trying to summarize all the exciting announcements at the Microsoft E3 Press Conference. Instead, I thought I would round up some of the highlights from the alt-control player’s perspective. Or in other words, show you a bunch of trailers that our community should find interesting… after the click, of course!

Read the rest…

Unreal Tournament 3 Controls

Yes it’s official, I can confirm that Unreal Tournament 3 has all four thumbstick configurations (default, southpaw, legacy & legacy-southpaw) plus three button mapping options (came out in Australia on 1/7 much to my surprise).

This is great news for us legacy and legacy-southpaw users who have only seen one other game (R6V2) this year to include our thumbstick configurations. Keep up the good work Epic!!

FREE HALO3 MAP, LEGENDARY PACK ON SALE

I’m sure all of you Halo fans, that frequent Bungie.net, have already heard that Monday July 7th will see the release of a new map for Halo. The reason for this free map….July 7th is “Bungie Day”. Yeah, I have no idea but Bungie seems to be real fond of the number 7. Seventh Column, Master chief is the lucky spartan, I dunno maybe Squiffy can answer a question that nobody is asking. The FREE map Coldstorage is a remake of that crazy teleporter-infested map, Chill Out, from the original Halo multiplayer playlist.

In addition to a free map, the Legendary map pack see a 25% price reduction from 800 to 600 MS points. If you buy the Legendary map on or before the 7th you will still get the “Pro Bonus” which allows you to share up to 24 files as opposed to the standard 6 slots allotted to each player normally and is normally priced at 750 points.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!!!! (always wanted to say that)
Read the rest…

Free RSV 2 Maps

Following the trend of free dowloadable maps…

Content: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2: Gift Pack DLC
Price: Free
Availability: Not available in Germany
Dash Text: [ESRB: M (Mature) BLOOD,INTENSE VIOLENCE,STRONG LANGUAGE] As a thank you gift to our community, Ubisoft Montreal is pleased to announce free Multiplayer DLC for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Vegas 2. This free map pack includes reworked versions of familiar favorites to storm your way through: Calypso Casino, Murdertown – Dark and CQB Training – Dark. Experience your favorite game modes in a whole new light!

Source: Major Nelson

Correction: It’s Halo, Frontlines and Map Week

Looks like Frontlines has some new maps on the way as well:

“…if a company wanted to re-energize (create?) a game’s fans base, we can think of few ways to do it better than this: Five maps are being doled out for the game, all for free. The first one hit Xbox Live today, according to Microsoft mouthpiece Major Nelson.”

Source: Joystiq

Halo 3 week at Alt-Controls.com?

Two postings in a row on Halo 3, so it must be! And I guess it’s the game that keeps on giving, because a new map is on the way yet again and this time, it’s another remake of an old school favorite. Read the rest…

Hope for HALO 3

As many readers may know I am an honest to goodness HALO 3 freak. I love the game, to be honest it never leaves the disc tray of my 360 (and if it does it’s straight back in when I’m finished playing other games).

Now like many of you guys I struggle when it comes to jumping and melee attacks while in the heat of combat. But there is hope, I have now started to use the button layot ‘BUMPER JUMPER’ - this is a small configuration difference to the button layout which I’ve listed below.

Read the rest…

FRONTLINES PATCH 2 RELEASED A.K.A YOU AREN’T VOICING YOURSELVES

Yesterday Kaos Studios released the second patch for the 360 version of Frontlines: Fuel of War. You guys remember this one right? Well apparently you don’t because it would seem that people didn’t make enough commotion to coerce Kaos into fixing their broken control options for Legacy and Southpaw-Legacy.

I must say that again I am disappointed…but not in Kaos Studios…no, I feel that the blame lies solely on the majority of our own readers. Now before you send us a bunch of hate mail please try to understand that I am only stating what I believe is fact and I am not just attacking you readers out there. In case you folks don’t understand the point of this website, I’ll explain.

The purpose of Alt-Controls.com is not to help you all to avoid purchasing a developer’s game because of a lack of control options; it’s not even about getting Legacy or Southpaw controls included in every first or third person shooter. It’s most defiantly not about any one game. No, the idea here is to get the developers understand that “not every FPS player sees a developer’s default or numerous layouts as the best option.” Getting developers to understand this simple point is vital to many of us, whether you play default, legacy, or southpaw. I would imagine that even folks over at AbleGamers could get behind our ideals. The point being that, if you get developers to understand this simple idea, they have only one recourse: controller mapping. If Fred wants to aim upwards with the A button, dammit he should have that option. Sure, we provide control information about every new release in the genre but that is all intended to be secondary; a “fall back” if you will.

The point of this rant? 2Three and myself see the numbers, we see the traffic from our readers. What you folks aren’t aware of is that you are part of bigger community than you may think. You come from all corners of the planet. The problem is that too many of you sit on the sidelines and watch each disappointment unfold. You make no comments on this site, no attempts to contact developers, no effort towards making your voices heard.

Be helpful, get some help:
If you make a post on a developer’s forum, post here to let the Alt-Controls.com community know and vice versa, if you see someone has made a forum post get over there, sign up, and chime in. I believe this community can make a difference, you just have to put forth the effort.

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!