Hey, Games With Cars In – when did it become okay to put Accelerate on the right trigger? Did I miss that memo? For years (basically forever) Accelerate was bound to A, or X, or whichever button was the easiest to push with your thumb for extended periods of time without other buttons getting in the way. Right trigger was for handbrakes, or launching weapons, or nudging opponents with the right side of your car/ fist of fury / rolled up beach towel, depending on the game.
I’d never experienced anything else until I played Just Cause on the Xbox 360. In that, right trigger makes the car go forward and A, of course, makes you jump on top of your car and stand ready to launch your revolution-startin’ self onto another vehicle (all whilst somehow remaining able to steer, presumably through a Heath-Robinson string contraption attached to your knees).
The problem came to a head when I’d shot my way through a prison to free a rebel leader (or… something, plot’s not really a strong point in Just Cause) and after a furious gunfight and a pained extraction I managed to bundle him into a truck, jump into the driver’s seat, and under a rain of bullets from understandably upset guards I promptly jump on the roof and get shot to death.
That earned me my nickname – The King of No Buttons – amongst several of my closer friends, and to this day I can’t handle switching between games without a decompression period of at least an hour.
Grenades are the biggest problem. Maybe because they’re always a limited resource or maybe because they explode in my face distressingly often, I can’t tell which – but it’s as though there’s been a deliberate attempt not to put the button that throws miniature lumps o’ suicide around the arena in as many different places as possible.
Halo, for example, binds grenades to the left trigger which in almost every other game is used to squint down the end of your gun – an action which I’d forgotten was impossible in the venerable father of the console action FPS, and quite often I’d try to line up a shot from my assault rifle and instead lob a bomb fruitlessly into the centre of the arena.
I’m more of a PS3 man, though, if I’m honest. The recently-released Starhawk has Run on R2 and grenade on L2, meaning that instead of hustling along to an objective when I’m already in a rush, I throw an explosive device through the doorway and make myself even more late than I was previously.
FEAR 3, inexplicably, puts grenades on R1 which as we all know is the button that makes bullets come out the end of your gun and which I’d frequently press in a panic to unload the contents of my shotgun into a baddie but, of course, end up essentially punching them with a live grenade.*
I think we’ve reached a point where we can standardise this, can’t we? Henceforth, if you’re making a PS3 game with shooty bits in, here’s what the shoulder buttons do. No need to thank me, just use it. That’s thanks enough:
R1: Makes bullets happen. Binding the action of shooting to anything other than this (I’m looking at you, Red Dead Redemption) is perverse and clearly just a cry for attention; it’s the button that our trigger finger naturally rests on at all times. If the controller was a gun, this is the button that would kill people. Any other button is equivalent to rubbing the handle or, at the very best, ejecting the clip.
L1: Squint down the end of your gun and make your eyes work a bit like binoculars. If your game doesn’t support squinting, you could also stick Melee attacks on this and I’ll let you off with a warning, but really all games with guns in should support aiming.**
R2: Hold to pull pin, release to throw grenade. That’s it. No variation. I’m sick and tired of accidentally lobbing high-explosive around the Battlefield like a maladjusted Easter rabbit.
L2: Hit people with items held in your hand or, alternatively, just your hand. If you’ve already put melee attacks on L1 then put BIGGER MELEE ATTACKS on L2 because everyone loves melee attacks so WHY NOT GIVE US MORE OF THEM.
*Although, hell, there’s a game in that isn’t there
** For the love of Jesus, though, stop putting Melee on R3. Stick buttons are NEVER FUN TO PUSH. Circle is good. Let’s just all use that and be done with it.
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