I wasn't planning to buy Silent Hill Downpour. From the information we were
given early on, it appeared to be another Homecoming. Homecoming, to me, was
very bland. It wasn't particularly scary or interesting, it didn't make me want
to play through the entire game to see how it would end. And it was mostly fan
service. Pyramid Head, Robbie the Rabbit. The way the real world changed to the
otherworld was very similar to the Silent Hill film...And why they would do
anything based on the film rather than the actual source material is beyond me.
You're creating a game that is already part of a game series. Why are you
bringing the movie into it?
The more I thought about it though, the more I knew I couldn't ignore
Downpour. I love the Silent Hill series. As a fan, I need this game. I
pre-ordered it and since then, I've been getting progressively more excited
about the game's release next week. I've also decided to stop being so negative
about it. I thought Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was going to be awful when
it was announced. I was so against that game. Imagine my surprise when I played
it and it was actually pretty amazing. It's one of my favorites in the series
now. If Shattered Memories turned out well, there's still hope for
Downpour.
In my excitement, I thought it would be a good idea to attempt playing
Homecoming today, in preparation for Downpour. I haven't played anything even
remotely survival horror-ish recently and I could use the practice. Well,
practice didn't help. Because when I went to attack one of the nurses, I hit L1
rather than L2 and ended up using all my Health Drinks instead of slashing her
with my knife.
Oh, you thought this was going to be a post about Silent Hill? It's
not.
This is a post about how in 2012, there is no reason console gamers should
not have the option to fully customize their controls.
Every game implements different control schemes. Resident Evil 4 expects
you to aim with the left analog stick (unheard of) and shoot with the square
button. The Uncharted series has probably the best (and most used) combat
controls, using L1 to aim and R1 to shoot. And then there's Silent Hill
Homecoming, which is almost there, but not quite. Homecoming requires you to
hold down L2 to get in the combat stance and R2 to shoot. Do you understand what
a tease that is? It's very close to the L1/R1 control scheme that so many other
games use and that's why I was so easily thrown off by it. Not to mention that
holding down those buttons is not as easy as holding down L1/R1, it's very easy
for your fingers to slip off of them.
Switching between games becomes very confusing when you constantly have to
change control schemes. It would be better if we could customize the controls to
suit our personal preference instead of having to adapt to clunky controls that
have no possible reason for existing other than to annoy the people who are
playing these games.
How long do you think it will be before game developers realize this and
allow us to decide which buttons we would prefer to use while we're
playing?
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