This weekend I bought Street Fighter HD Remix since it has just now been released on PSN here in Europe.
Being unable to pull much of any special move consistently on the d-pad, I decided to dig out an arcade-stick of mine to use with it.
It may be older but it works well enough
This monstrosity on the left my arcade stick which I've had for a couple of years.
It's actually a PS2-stick, but it seems to work well enough with an ps2-to-ps3 adapter.
Actually I've read somewhere that using the controller-adapter-solution to cheap out of buying all new hardware for your console, ads some marginal lag to the control-inputs. I am however not good enough to notice or care.
Actually, I've already bought an PS3 specific arcade stick. It has all sort of problems though - like wonky buttons and the stick mapped to the left analog stick. The latter problem making it useless for use with MK vs DC, since up/down makes your character sidestep... and the first problem making it useless all around.
So my PS2-arcade-stick is the best choice for me.
But to get to the point of this blog-post:
I've never actually been comfortable using sticks with that design.
They actually seem backwards to me.
I would rather use my right hand for controlling the stick and the left hand for the face-buttons. Which is exactly what I tried this weekend...
I tried crossing my arms - and much to my surprise it actually worked for me. I was suddenly able to pull off pile-drivers like it was nothing.
I figure I must be the oddball and that every arcade stick out there actually isn't designed for left-handed people. It's pretty apparent that the design mimics the controls of standard gamepads, with directional controls on the left and buttons on the right, and (of cause) the controls of arcade cabinets.
However I think I've figured out WHY the standard design doesn't feel right for me.
It's pretty much sprung out of habits learned from a young age...
Would you honestly grab this joystick with your left hand without prior conditioning?
Being from Denmark it's not actually game consoles that were the most predominant source for video games when I was a kid.
Certainly nobody I knew had a Nintendo og Sega console. So I wasn't actually exposed to the traditional controller for these consoles.
Instead I grew up with with home-computers like the Commodore 64 and later the Amiga 500.
The controllers for these computers were indeed very simple: 1 stick and 1 button.
There is nothing about the joystick-controller that signals which hand goes where, so as a kid I just did what felt most right to me.
Which was grabbing the stick with the right hand, and pushing the one button with my left.
It wasn't actually until getting a PS2 myself I've began learning to use a gamepad. Well, guess I did pick something up with what little PS1 I played at friends and whatever...
But even though I today am pretty comfortable with gamepads - If presented with a joystick-like controller, I would much rather control the stick with my right hand.
Guess I'm wondering if I'm alone in this.
I figure there's bound to be other people who didn't grow up with gamepads in their hands.
This weekend I bought Street Fighter HD Remix since it has just now been released on PSN here in Europe.
Being unable to pull much of any special move consistently on the d-pad, I decided to dig out an arcade-stick of mine to use with it.
It may be older but it works well enough
This monstrosity on the left my arcade stick which I've had for a couple of years.
It's actually a PS2-stick, but it seems to work well enough with an ps2-to-ps3 adapter.
Actually I've read somewhere that using the controller-adapter-solution to cheap out of buying all new hardware for your console, ads some marginal lag to the control-inputs. I am however not good enough to notice or care.
Actually, I've already bought an PS3 specific arcade stick. It has all sort of problems though - like wonky buttons and the stick mapped to the left analog stick. The latter problem making it useless for use with MK vs DC, since up/down makes your character sidestep... and the first problem making it useless all around.
So my PS2-arcade-stick is the best choice for me.
But to get to the point of this blog-post:
I've never actually been comfortable using sticks with that design.
They actually seem backwards to me.
I would rather use my right hand for controlling the stick and the left hand for the face-buttons. Which is exactly what I tried this weekend...
I tried crossing my arms - and much to my surprise it actually worked for me. I was suddenly able to pull off pile-drivers like it was nothing.
I figure I must be the oddball and that every arcade stick out there actually isn't designed for left-handed people. It's pretty apparent that the design mimics the controls of standard gamepads, with directional controls on the left and buttons on the right, and (of cause) the controls of arcade cabinets.
However I think I've figured out WHY the standard design doesn't feel right for me.
It's pretty much sprung out of habits learned from a young age...
Would you honestly grab this joystick with your left hand without prior conditioning?
Being from Denmark it's not actually game consoles that were the most predominant source for video games when I was a kid.
Certainly nobody I knew had a Nintendo og Sega console. So I wasn't actually exposed to the traditional controller for these consoles.
Instead I grew up with with home-computers like the Commodore 64 and later the Amiga 500.
The controllers for these computers were indeed very simple: 1 stick and 1 button.
There is nothing about the joystick-controller that signals which hand goes where, so as a kid I just did what felt most right to me.
Which was grabbing the stick with the right hand, and pushing the one button with my left.
It wasn't actually until getting a PS2 myself I've began learning to use a gamepad. Well, guess I did pick something up with what little PS1 I played at friends and whatever...
But even though I today am pretty comfortable with gamepads - If presented with a joystick-like controller, I would much rather control the stick with my right hand.
Guess I'm wondering if I'm alone in this.
I figure there's bound to be other people who didn't grow up with gamepads in their hands.
Maybe it's just a lifetime of conditioning, but trying to imagine using my right hand for the control stick and left for the buttons makes my hands feel just backwards somehow.
But, as mentioned by the OP, I'm not really good enough to where it would make a difference.
I am a righty and I prefer to have arcade sticks that way. I guess the fact that they never gave you the choice for both has conditioned me to accept that as the right way to do it. I guess if you were desperate you could use that stick upside down if you could recondition the stick. But that would make the button layout and the shape of the base feel awkward I would imagine.
The set up you are asking for is actually "left handed" the sticks out now are "right handed". But it's a lot like the NFL... the Right Defensive End plays over the Left Tackle.. it depends on perspective
"I play with my arms crossed. My right hand rests on my left hand. "
I remember playing a ton of the arcade version of Trojan with my arms crossed, when i was a kid.
Could only ever get to Level 4 I think, right after where you go down that tower building with all those knife throwing dudes on each side of the screen.
It had the right or left buttons setup with the stick in the middle, where you could go either way, but the "normal" way had a broken button.
the weird thing is that seems the more natural position to have your hands in. i seem to remember arcade machines being laid out with right hand controlling movement and left for buttons but i could be wrong. weird how i didn't think about it until you mentioned it. good blog.
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