The call to standardize gamepad button layouts.
Almost all of my gaming these days is done on the Xbox 360 (Halo 3, Puzzle Quest, Blue Dragon and Bomberman Live) or the Nintendo DS (Picross DS, Etrian Odyssey, and Phantom Hourglass). This causes a small bit of confusion whenever I'm learning a new game for what may very well be a stupid reason. That is, on the Nintendo DS the face buttons are arranged like this:
X
Y A
B
While on the Xbox 360 controller, the four face buttons are arranged like this:
Y
X B
A
Four face buttons, arranged in the now-essential diamond shape, and even using the same letters, but the letters aren't in the same places. Note that the 360 has a disadvantage here since the DS's pattern is the one I've been conditioned into since 1991; the Super Nintendo uses the same pattern.
What ends up happening is, in the heat of a game, my brain might form the sentence "You need to press the X button now," only to have my thumb reach in the wrong direction (up, instead of left where it needs to go).
This is aggravating. The gaming industry should come up with standard button names and placement, since they're all using basically the same controller anyway. There's no possible way in the universe the designers of the Xbox controllers didn't know that another game controller had already used that exact same layout and those exact letters. I think these guys just label their controllers different for the sake of being different.
Take, for example, the PlayStation controller. It's been the same since the original PS1, and it is the only input device in history labeled with shapes. Shapes? Jesus. Outside of the arcane machinery in contrived adventure games like Myst or Rhem, who the hell labels their buttons with shapes? Why was it okay to label two of their buttons "Start" and "Select" (Nintendo mainstays since the 1980s), and the shoulder buttons "R/L", but it wasn't okay to label the face buttons "ABXY"?
Microsoft is particularly bad because it gives every widget on its controller cute little names like "bumpers" and "thumbsticks". Okay, trigger I can buy, since the buttons FEEL a bit like triggers. But bumpers? They're not bumpers, Xbox people. They are buttons. It would be fine to call them "R/L Buttons" and "R/L Triggers". Also, it's a control stick. It used to be a joystick, back before controllers were called controllers, but then the N64 went and put a joystick on their controller, and called it a control stick. You calling it a thumbstick doesn't make it not a control stick. (Hey Nintendo - same goes for your C-stick.)
They do a good job with the colors, though, and that's how I end up identifying buttons in my Xbox games.
So here's my proposal for a standard game controller:
- Analog shoulder buttons can be called triggers. Otherwise they're just buttons. These can be labeled "L1/L2/R1/R2", with the "2" versions being analog, and referred to as "Left/Right Trigger" respectively. We absolutely don't need any of this "ZR/ZL" crap on the Wii classic controller.
- The d-pad goes below the left control stick. BELOW IT. Come on, Sony, get with the program here. (Wii classic gets a free pass since most of the games you play with it use the d-pad.)
- Start and Select. Microsoft, your "Back" button isn't fooling anyone.
- Face buttons. These get labeled with letters with X on top, B on bottom, Y on the left and A on the right. Label them with colors too: X = yellow, B = green, Y = blue, A = red.
So yeah, gaming industry. Let's get on that. I'm sick of having to memorize different layouts for different games. IT HAS CAUSED ME TO DIE IN HALO. Yeah.
The Wiimote is an abomination unto god as far as this goes, I suppose. But really, for that you don't need labels at all. You basically just have "THE BUTTON" and "THE TRIGGER", and then two little buttons, already labeled 1 and 2. When you throw in the nunchuck you have "THE STICK" as well. Works for me.
X
Y A
B
While on the Xbox 360 controller, the four face buttons are arranged like this:
Y
X B
A
Four face buttons, arranged in the now-essential diamond shape, and even using the same letters, but the letters aren't in the same places. Note that the 360 has a disadvantage here since the DS's pattern is the one I've been conditioned into since 1991; the Super Nintendo uses the same pattern.
What ends up happening is, in the heat of a game, my brain might form the sentence "You need to press the X button now," only to have my thumb reach in the wrong direction (up, instead of left where it needs to go).
This is aggravating. The gaming industry should come up with standard button names and placement, since they're all using basically the same controller anyway. There's no possible way in the universe the designers of the Xbox controllers didn't know that another game controller had already used that exact same layout and those exact letters. I think these guys just label their controllers different for the sake of being different.
Take, for example, the PlayStation controller. It's been the same since the original PS1, and it is the only input device in history labeled with shapes. Shapes? Jesus. Outside of the arcane machinery in contrived adventure games like Myst or Rhem, who the hell labels their buttons with shapes? Why was it okay to label two of their buttons "Start" and "Select" (Nintendo mainstays since the 1980s), and the shoulder buttons "R/L", but it wasn't okay to label the face buttons "ABXY"?
Microsoft is particularly bad because it gives every widget on its controller cute little names like "bumpers" and "thumbsticks". Okay, trigger I can buy, since the buttons FEEL a bit like triggers. But bumpers? They're not bumpers, Xbox people. They are buttons. It would be fine to call them "R/L Buttons" and "R/L Triggers". Also, it's a control stick. It used to be a joystick, back before controllers were called controllers, but then the N64 went and put a joystick on their controller, and called it a control stick. You calling it a thumbstick doesn't make it not a control stick. (Hey Nintendo - same goes for your C-stick.)
They do a good job with the colors, though, and that's how I end up identifying buttons in my Xbox games.
So here's my proposal for a standard game controller:
- Analog shoulder buttons can be called triggers. Otherwise they're just buttons. These can be labeled "L1/L2/R1/R2", with the "2" versions being analog, and referred to as "Left/Right Trigger" respectively. We absolutely don't need any of this "ZR/ZL" crap on the Wii classic controller.
- The d-pad goes below the left control stick. BELOW IT. Come on, Sony, get with the program here. (Wii classic gets a free pass since most of the games you play with it use the d-pad.)
- Start and Select. Microsoft, your "Back" button isn't fooling anyone.
- Face buttons. These get labeled with letters with X on top, B on bottom, Y on the left and A on the right. Label them with colors too: X = yellow, B = green, Y = blue, A = red.
So yeah, gaming industry. Let's get on that. I'm sick of having to memorize different layouts for different games. IT HAS CAUSED ME TO DIE IN HALO. Yeah.
The Wiimote is an abomination unto god as far as this goes, I suppose. But really, for that you don't need labels at all. You basically just have "THE BUTTON" and "THE TRIGGER", and then two little buttons, already labeled 1 and 2. When you throw in the nunchuck you have "THE STICK" as well. Works for me.