The Legacy Player’s Survival Guide

Written by 2Three // Filed in General // Viewed 436 times

[June 17, 2008]

Legacy: The control style that many of us used to learn how to play console first person shooters. For the Legacy player, this is the only way to play shooting games. It’s seen as awkward and archaic by many other gamers; but for us, it’s all we know and what we need in order to play a first person shooter comfortably.

goldeneye.jpg

With the way things have been going lately, you have to seriously consider if the Legacy control scheme will even be around in the next couple years. Less and less games are supporting this control style and some series that used to offer this option, such as Quake, no longer do. And even Free Radical Design, who worked on GoldenEye 007 while employed at Rare, has moved away from including a Legacy option in their recent flop, Haze, for the PS3.

Which brings me to the purpose of this article: It is a compilation of some of the better titles, in my humble opinion, that support Legacy – past, present and (hopefully) future.

Current-gen:

  • Halo 3
  • TimeShift
  • The Darkness
  • Gears of War
  • Unreal Tournament 3
  • Call of Duty 2, 3, and 4
  • Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2
  • Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2

If you ignore the many disappointing times that Legacy has been omitted from high profile games such as BioShock, The Orange Box, Frontlines, Turok (I’ll stop there…) and stick with the games mentioned above, well, it’s not quite so bad for us.

gears.jpg

Legacy in Gears of War was far from perfect of course. There were issues with Roadie Running, as the only way to steer your character was to shift your left thumb over to the right stick. It was somewhat awkward, but manageable. Of course while aiming, it could be difficult to stay in cover, as both sticks are needed for precision targeting. It took some practice, but you learned. And thankfully it was available, otherwise we wouldn’t even bother trying to aim at all… we’d throw the game in the “No Legacy” scrap heap.

And I know what some of you are thinking:

“Call of Duty 3? That game stinks! Infinity Ward makes much better games than Treyarch!”

Well, you’re right about Infinity Ward, but we’re Legacy players… what else are we supposed to play? COD3 wasn’t that bad. Sure, I’ll take 2 and 4 over it any day of the week, but I would recommend 3 to Legacy players that are scrounging around looking for another shooter to play amongst the piles of games that leave us in the cold instead. As for the rest of the batch, they are all decent games that Legacy players owe it to themselves to at least try out.

Legacy games to avoid:

  • Call of Juarez
  • Far Cry Instincts: Predator

Just because the game has Legacy, it doesn’t mean it’s worth playing. Avoid the above games at all costs. Call of Juarez has bad graphics, bad dialogue, bad voice acting, bad sound effects… it’s just bad. Far Cry Instincts of course offers graphically enhanced versions of a couple last-gen Far Cry games, and it’s really not worth your time. You should consider playing the games listed out above instead.

Last-gen:

  • Halo 2
  • TimeSplitters 2
  • GoldenEye: Rogue Agent
  • TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

Halo 2 is self-explanatory (it’s Halo 2 for goodness sakes). And if you’re still into playing some last-gen shooters, any game from the TimeSplitters series is a must have for its fast paced, addictive game play. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was panned by critics simply because EA touted it as “The Next GoldenEye.” It sure wasn’t. That coupled with the fact that it came out around the same time as Halo 2. It had no chance.

rogue-agent.jpg

But it was actually a decent game that offered a “Classic” control option for Legacy players and for that reason, plus some neat tricks that you could use via your “golden” eye, such as a shield, x-ray vision and magnetic field, it’s worth mentioning.

Old School

For some old school Legacy fun, there really aren’t many options aside from GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark… the games where it all began. And I’ll take those two games any day over some of the titles of today that lack Legacy support!

The Future?

That remains to be seen. Many game companies are seriously neglecting support for the Legacy option in this day and age. But hopefully there will always be a few developers that keep an eye out for us.

Some upcoming games that should support Legacy based on past titles include:

  • Far Cry 2
  • Gears of War 2
  • Quantum of Solace
  • Call of Duty: World at War
  • Unreal Tournament 3 (Xbox 360)

A word to the wise though: don’t quote us on this. These are games that we suspect will offer Legacy support, based on previous titles and past efforts of the development companies behind them. You just never know these days, so we’ll have to wait and see…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 9:12 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

16 Responses to “The Legacy Player’s Survival Guide”

  • Mclovin says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 4:36 am

    here, here, I agree with everything except Goldeneye: Rogue Agent was shocking!! Farcry was good for xbox 1, I loved that, but it wasnt up to standard to be on 360. Call of Jurez was a bit of a shocker but i found the graphic to be fairly impressive, especially the foliage. Just as you figure, I think the five games for the future you have posted will have legacy, though im a bit iffy with farcry 2 seeing its a different dev this time. Also I wouldnt be surprised if UT3 does the same even if it does support legacy on ps3. Unreal Championship 2 did this to me and that was a big waste of $75 seeing I assumed it would include legacy just like the 1st did.

  • 2Three says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 7:59 am

    I was waiting for someone to disagree with my inclusion of Rogue Agent! ;)

    I know a lot of people hated that game, but it was a guilty pleasure for me… I just liked it for some strange reason.

    Call of Juarez, I just didn’t like… so many times I would walk behind a building and there would be tons of clipping and “broken” graphics. And the voice acting just grated on my nerves! Every time you walk by a character, they would yack at you and you had to stop and listen… just let me shoot something…! :)

    As for the future games, I would say everything is up in the air right now with the way things have been going.

  • SumPA says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    2Three, I agree with McLovin– ROGUE AGENT STINX!
    I agree with the rest of your picks though…

  • 2Three says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

    It appears to be unanimous… no one in the world likes Rogue Agent but me…! :)

  • Kula says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 8:29 am

    I’m a left hander who used to be a legacy player back in the PS2 days of Timesplitters. However, when I got Resistance: FOM for the PS3, there was no legacy option. I either had to switch to southpaw or not play it at all. So I practised with southpaw for a while and ended up getting used to it.

    I honestly can’t imagine playing games without southpaw now, and I definitely prefer it. If you’re a legacy player, I would seriously recommend that you at least try southpaw. I was frustrated with it at first, but it now feels like the most natural control scheme to me.

    Don’t misunderstand me, I still fully support getting legacy controls into new games, it’s just that switching to southpaw is certainly easier than switching to your right thumb and you should at least be willing to try it for a while.

  • 2Three says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 8:45 am

    I can say that I definately prefer Southpaw over Default controls as well.

    I suppose Legacy and Southpaw are similar in the sense that you use the left stick to turn, and the right stick for straffing in both control styles. I just have a hard time moving forward with the right stick… I need that mapped to the left. I do find aiming to be much easier in Southpaw than Default though.

  • Mclovin says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    I always thought about that with Southpaw, but I guess I am way too attached to legacy these days. Oh well I dont have to worry now I have modded my controller :o) though you were right 2Three, it does stuff some things up in games, like hacking guns and machines in Bioshock (soooooo hard), damm i need to get this switch happening

  • 2Three says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    @ McLovin

    I’ve got SAKY on the telephone now (yes, that’s how dedicated we are) and he’s saying that he’s pretty sure that you can use the directional pad for machine hacking. Try it out!

  • SAKY says:
    June 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    @McLovin
    @2Three

    Yes, you can use the directional pad during the machine hacks. I just checked. (That’s how dedicated we are)

  • Mclovin says:
    June 21st, 2008 at 12:27 am

    thanks so much guys, I didnt even think to try that. There’s another problem though in switching weapons when you hold down right bumper, its a circular setup. Luckily you can just press the button to swap to next weapon. Ive heard that this is a common problem with a modded controller with other games that have a circular direction setup for putting in names, etc (Mass Effect). Ill let you know when I work out this DTDP switch setup. I think I can do the same with a southpaw mod, but there will have to be 2 switches, one for x-axis and one for y.

  • 2Three says:
    June 21st, 2008 at 12:38 pm

    Circular menus for weapon selection = not good for Legacy mods. I ran in to the same snag with Frontlines.

  • Mclovin says:
    June 21st, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    DAMM, that sucks. Lucky I pawned off that game, I was starting to get annoyed that I had now that I have this legacy controller.
    p.s. Turok is great! So glad I can play good games now.

  • Kula says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 am

    If you had a legacy mod, wouldn’t you just use both sticks for a circular selection system?

    e.g. left on the left stick / up on the right = top left

    Wouldn’t it eventually become automatic with practice?

  • 2Three says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 am

    @ Kula

    It’s not a matter of needing practice because you’re only able to move in four directions (North, East, South, West)) in circular menus with a Legacy modded controller.

    It’s not possible to access the NE, NW, SE, SW portions of the menu due to the rewiring of the controller, which is why the circular menus are so problematic with Legacy mods.

    Just another reason to support your switch to Southpaw, I guess ;)

  • elusivemite says:
    October 25th, 2008 at 4:52 am

    brought a copy of Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars after noticing they do support legacy only problem was the controls were very ropey and jerky wich made the game unplayable. oh well

  • 2Three says:
    October 25th, 2008 at 7:14 am

    I don’t recall seeing a Legacy option in Quake Wars..

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