What the Hell! No Southpaw Controls?!?
Posted by: James Lewitzke in Rants, Technology, Video GamesI was so happy last Christmas that I finally was able to play the next hyped up BioWare game, Mass Effect, after waiting over a year to get it. I was really looking forward to this game and now I can’t play it. 
Let me start by saying that I’m right handed, but I play all First Person Shooters (FPS) and adventure games left-handedly. I have been using southpaw control configuration ever since Rare released Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64 (It was actually the game that got me interested in FPS’s).
After reading rave reviews for Mass Effect, and the thought of actually getting to fly a spaceship throughout the galaxy in a non-linear story fashion was a terrific concept. I thought I was going to have loads of fun, then I started my search through the game menus to adjust the settings to my liking, and guess what? That’s right, only four options pertaining to gameplay.
FOUR options? THAT’S IT?!?! What a joke. You’d think in the year 2008 with all the advanced gaming technology, computer programming capabilities, graphic designs, and hard drive space, that the developers could take an hour or two and assign some user-selectable control features; but nooooooo, you can’t even prioritize what is arguably the most important factor during gameplay, you know, controlling your character.
The Bigger Picture
This is what is wrong with the Video Game industry today:
These companies don’t take their customers very seriously. Take for example tech support. You spend days searching through and posting on company forums and FAQs, spend an hour on the phone only to be put on hold for another hour so that the tech rep can tell you he doesn’t have an answer for you, and you’ve just realized you’ve pissed away a week searching for an answer to which would result in pissing away even more time (having fun) playing the game.
Accountability?
I think it’s about time for arrogant game developers to stop discriminating against players while simultaneously getting their heads out of their asses to spend a few minutes programming the features in. Don’t they realize that there’s a whole demographic of other gamers that use alternative control schemes for just about every genre?
I was able to muster through Knights of the Old Republic with the default controls, barely. (Though this is only because it didn’t require quick reflexes and precision to aim and shoot and such.) Not offering personalized customization is a bad move BioWare, a BAD MOVE for everyone.
All I’m asking for here is a downloadable patch or something to accommodate control schemes that offer players the most comfortable experience possible. How can I possibly enjoy a game if it controls like shit?
Don’t you game developers realize there is a potential win-win situation for both of us here? Not only will there be:
- Happy Customers who can play a game as comfortably as possible,
- But you’ll also get more business and increased revenue in game sales
This doesn’t go for just BioWare though, there are other games I’ve played that have been ruined by crappy controls, like Splinter Cell and Bioshock for example. To be fair though, it isn’t just the game developers who are at fault, the publishers more than likely have a hand in this as well. With the constant schedule deadlines, financial expectations, and all the developmental timelines they set, it’s no wonder great games don’t come along very often.
At least Some Understand
How hard would it be to program a few custom control schemes into the game? Not very, I imagine. This is one of the features I LOVE about Quake 4 (and Doom 3), they offer a completely customizable control system. Any button can be used for reloading or shooting, hell I could even Left Trigger to Jump if I wanted to.
I can say the same thing about the Halo franchise (my favorite shooter genre of all time at the moment). While every button may not be programmed for any feature the player wishes, Bungie still included a plethora of options for both thumbstick AND button layouts. Let me tell you, if it didn’t I sure as hell wouldn’t have played Halo’s two sequels, and I doubt the series would have anywhere near the magnitude it currently holds without these specific control features.
Allow me to give a big thanks to ID software for RECOGNIZING that there are southpaw (and legacy) players out there, and it makes sense to offer these choices because over 10% of the population are left-handed by default, not to mention the rest of us who chose to learn to play FPS’s with southpaw layouts.
Microsoft did take a step in the right direction though, by adding the universal game control feature to the Xbox 360 dashboard. However this can be easily overridden by the game’s programming, which means most, if not all, game developers can ignore it if they wish. (Thank God The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was affected by this feature, or else that game would have been shipped back to the stores too; and guess what, playing the game with southpaw controls made it that much more ENJOYABLE.)
At least Southpaw Legacy (formerly altcntrlgmr.com) gets the situation, and was a great resource of information available for use to find out which games support different controls and which don’t. Should we follow in Southpaw Legacy’s footsteps, and hold game developers and publishers to industry quality standards? I say yes.
I was thinking about purchasing a rewired game controller from Llama due to the fact I find it nearly impossible to play with the default controls. And I sure as hell knew I couldn’t solder the damn thing myself using their hardware guide, even if I tried. Besides this would violate the 360 controller’s warranty, if something were to go wrong (which definitely would in this situation, given my hot-wiring skills). But unfortunately they have been discontinued due to their high demand (gee, I wonder why?). However even if they were available, I probably wouldn’t purchase one anyway, given the high price tag these things had.
Just do the fact that a company like Llama exists should tell the video game industry something (Hint: It has to do with the horrible gamers have to choose from). Maybe if the devs put a little more thought into the economics of the industry, and just how many gamers are left behind in the dust, they wouldn’t have such a bad reputation (from my point of view, that is).
Until companies like BioWare start taking their customers more seriously, I won’t be purchasing any future video game titles from them. It’s too bad too, you could’ve earned another $50 bucks from me purchasing your game, unfortunately you chose to ignore people that have different playing styles.
Thanks for nothing, VileWare.
I’m in the same boat as you - I’m right handed but play Southpaw, because I too learned to play fps’s on on the N64 with the games like Turok and Perfect Dark. For those unfamiliar with the N64 controller, there was only one stick on the controller which was used for aiming by the the left thumb. The right thumb used the 4 button on the right for movement. I played nearly every fps on the N64.
When I played Halo for the first time on the Xbox it was extremely awkard, until I realized that the controls could be switched to “Southpaw” which allowed me to aim with the left stick and move with the right - just as I did on the N64.
I’ve been playing console shooters for 10 years now with the Southpaw control scheme. I’ve tried a couple of times, on the Xbox and Xbox 360, to switch and learn to play default, but without success. Too many years of playing a certain way does not allow change. I’ve had to pass on a number of games over the years because they did not allow customization of the control scheme. I always used Timesplitters on the Xbox as a perfect example of game controls done right! It allowed complete customization of every stick and button on the controller. You could map any function to whatever button, stick or trigger you wanted to - complete freedom! Why every game developer doesn’t do this is beyond me. They’ll spend months and years developing a game, but won’t take an hour or two to program the control scheme to allow for customization. Unbelievable!
Failure to give us customizable controller settings, at least Southpaw, equals lost revenue for the developer. A couple of recent games that I’ve passed on, but would have liked to have purchased, include Bio Shock and Battlefield: Bad Company.
It’s too bad to hear about BioShock and Battlefield: Bad Company, they looked like really fun games. Good mention of Timesplitters there also, I use to play that game years ago too.
Hopefully the developers get their heads out of there asses soon, or at least provide a downloadable patch for customizable controls or something. I don’t know what’s stopping them.