Shut up, I know I’m a terrible blogger.
To make up for it, I will post at least FOUR blogs this week:
1. Volcano cake part 2
2. Chicken “tempura”
3. Assassin’s Creed II Review part 2
4 And one of the following: Part 3 of Assassin’s Creed II, Part 1 of South Park Tower Defense, or….Beautiful Katamari.
But before I dive into all my owed posts I have to report on a rather interesting dilemma I seem to be facing: I don’t know how to play video games.
I was playing the Force Unleashed when I believe it started. I hadn’t played a video game where I controlled a character for a few months. It’s been RTS and TDs, puzzle games and shmups, social games and rhythm games. But now, I was in control of an actual character.
I don’t recall actually choosing this setting because I didn’t even notice I had this issue until I finished The Force Unleashed and picked up Assassin’s Creed II. I couldn’t navigate because the camera was backwards. It took quite a bit of switching back and forth between inverted and …not… inverted X and/or Y on the camera to get comfortable.
Somehow, I had managed to get to a place where inverted was normal. But have I always been like this? You see, it’s actually quite logical to have it inverted, in third person. For me, the left stick controls the camera, not where I want to look. The camera swings around the player, the vector between its LookAt and Position drawing a merry line through the character’s head. This means, if you want to look left, the camera has to swing right. If you want to look up, the camera has to move down.
Now, this can’t be an overly unusual way of thinking because most games give you the option of swapping the axes. Its rather disconcerting, however when I pick up a game demo and try to play with normal axes because suddenly the very simple act of looking around is a massive failure. Additionally, I use the camera A LOT. I’m very picky about the camera placement.
Here’s the big problem though: games that let you use both first and third person. You see, the inverted axes only make sense in third person. First person, I no longer require the axes inverted because I’m not controlling the camera in this case but controlling the actual character’s head. This means, I look left when I want to look left. This means that I basically flail around like someone who has never picked up a controller when I make the switch.
It’s not just cameras either, it’s any steering mechanism where I am steering on a pivot. As I navigate a gondola down the canals of Venice, I am always hitting walls as I steer from the back of the boat and expect that steering left will nudge the front of the boat right.
Have I always been like this? Or is it new? Am I forever doomed to rely on swapped axes? Will I ever be able to swap between first and third person without getting disoriented? Will I ever be able to master any gondoliering games?
