03-26-2006, 08:33 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-26-2006, 08:34 AM by Rhydderch Hael.)
I don't know if games have gotten any better. Two of my XBox 360 games, the big bad hi-def effects superfest machine thingy, are spectacular hi-def effect superfestivals of frustrating gameplay through lackluster or shoddy game design.
The first offender, Full Auto, had to have been designed by a team of six-fingered men. You need that extra digit in order to successfully use the control schemes they devised for the game. The kicker is that the one control scheme that would have workedâmapping the accerlator/brake to the Y axis of the left stick so that both triggers are freed up to fire the weaponsâis the one scheme they never put in. Instead, you end up with your middle fingers glued to the triggers, index fingers on the bumbers to, steer the car with your left thumb, aim the gun with your right thumb, and to shoot that gun youâyouâwell, if you can't crane your pinkie finger up and over to press the button, you can always mash down on the right stick (the stick you're deflecting so as to aim accurately at a maneuvering target) and hope that you didn't upset your aim as the gun pops a round off.
The second offender just came out. No, I'm not talking about Oblivion. I'm talking about Blazing Angels. Funny, that. You'd assume that when a game company that makes its name with flight sims such as IL-2 Sturmovik decides to market a WWII flight game for the XBox, they could have assumed that part of the target audience might just happen to have an interest in flight gamesâ people who would assume that we still live in a world where airplanes are controlled with the right hand and the throttle is controlled by the left hand! But nooooooo, we're in Gamerzville, where we have to have primary controls mapped to the left stick and secondary controls mapped to the right stick. And, of course, this just happens to be the one and only control setup that's available for the game, a combat flight game that can be flown only by those who have never studied nor contemplated the genre of aviation before. Anyone else would be in for a rude surprise as they instinctively tried the throttle up and find themselves instead doing a nosedive into the beautifully-rendered high-definition earth.
The first offender, Full Auto, had to have been designed by a team of six-fingered men. You need that extra digit in order to successfully use the control schemes they devised for the game. The kicker is that the one control scheme that would have workedâmapping the accerlator/brake to the Y axis of the left stick so that both triggers are freed up to fire the weaponsâis the one scheme they never put in. Instead, you end up with your middle fingers glued to the triggers, index fingers on the bumbers to, steer the car with your left thumb, aim the gun with your right thumb, and to shoot that gun youâyouâwell, if you can't crane your pinkie finger up and over to press the button, you can always mash down on the right stick (the stick you're deflecting so as to aim accurately at a maneuvering target) and hope that you didn't upset your aim as the gun pops a round off.
The second offender just came out. No, I'm not talking about Oblivion. I'm talking about Blazing Angels. Funny, that. You'd assume that when a game company that makes its name with flight sims such as IL-2 Sturmovik decides to market a WWII flight game for the XBox, they could have assumed that part of the target audience might just happen to have an interest in flight gamesâ people who would assume that we still live in a world where airplanes are controlled with the right hand and the throttle is controlled by the left hand! But nooooooo, we're in Gamerzville, where we have to have primary controls mapped to the left stick and secondary controls mapped to the right stick. And, of course, this just happens to be the one and only control setup that's available for the game, a combat flight game that can be flown only by those who have never studied nor contemplated the genre of aviation before. Anyone else would be in for a rude surprise as they instinctively tried the throttle up and find themselves instead doing a nosedive into the beautifully-rendered high-definition earth.
Political Correctness is the idea that you can foster tolerance in a diverse world through the intolerance of anything that strays from a clinical standard.