Look Inversion

Up is Down and Down is Up??

So for all you FPS (First Person Shooters) fans out there, I pose the question of if you prefer using the look inversion or keeping the classic default settings for your character when you run around.

First of all, for anyone who isn't into video games or isn't a fan of the shoot 'em up type of games such as Halo or James Bond, I should maybe explain the look inversion option and its great importance to the gaming world. Basically the default controls for a first person shooter is having one control stick to control your moment forward and backward and side stepping from left to right (or what some would call "strafing"). The other control stick is defaulted to move the cross-hair up and down and looking to your left and right. The latter control stick is where this "look inversion" comes into play. You see, the default for looking up is pushing up on the control stick, and down on the stick is down for the cross-hair or characters head looking down, however you want to look at it. BUT, there are a few people out there that prefer to have look inversion on, which makes the controls switch, making up on the stick make you look down and down on the stick make you look up. Crazy right? Well lets compare both.

Looking up for up and down for down makes sense logically. If you think of the screen you want the shooter to look above the screen or the radical to move higher, so you move the stick up. Same goes for down. So why would you want it the other way around? Many feel that the look inversion came from games that resembled flight simulators or pilot games. For all who don't know, the cockpit of a plane has a control stick. To lift the plane off the ground, the pilot has to pull back on the stick. To land, they must push forward on the stick. This is how any flying game is defaulted. Somehow this tactic of up being down and down being up migrated its way to shooting games too. So using look inversion can be thought as tilting forward or up on the control stick to look down and leaning back or down on the stick to look up.

So which is it? I personally for whatever reason have been accustomed to the look inversion, which inevitably pisses off all the default players. It is definitely a pain to switch controllers or use someone else's profile and find that they use the other type of look inversion than you. It really messes with you. You usually can't play as well. The ironic thing is that if I accidently start to play with inversion off and switch back after one game, I start off the game thinking the default setting is still on and am uncomfortable with it for awhile.

Well I hope you can make sense of all that and understand what possibly goes through other inversion-ist heads when playing the game. My point should be understandable so cut us look-inversion minorities some slack!

Resources: Game Trailers

What is "Next Gen"?

The term "Next Gen" is thrown around a lot these days when describing the newest video game consoles and the games made for those consoles. But what exactly is "Next Gen?" Is it something quantifiable or can it mean different things to different people and different hardware?

My opinion tends to shift towards the latter. Each of the new systems, (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii) embody the term "Next Gen" in different ways.

First there is the Xbox 360. This console was the first of the 3 to be released and the system emphasizes much improved graphics over the original Xbox. On the less publicized side, the Xbox 360 includes many more options and features that make use of Xbox Live. In these ways graphics and extensive online features make the 360 "Next Gen."

Next is the Playstation 3 (PS3) , which is similar to the Xbox 360 in many ways. The PS3 puts a lot more emphasis on graphics (which it can pull of beautifully), but it also includes many online features to certain games. However unlike the Xbox 360, the PS3 features a "Six-Axis Controller" with motion sensing hardware built in. These motion controls are built into some games to add an extra element of gamer interaction, but in many ways the motion sensing in the PS3 controllers leaves much to be desired. So with all of this, the Six-Axis controller, and the immense graphics power behind the PS3 make the system "Next Gen."

The final system to look at is the Nintendo Wii. The Wii improves on the graphics of the Gamecube, but they didn't make that the biggest change. Instead the Wii sport the most sophisticated motion sensing of all the systems. Motion is detected in the Wii Remote, or Wii-mote as it has been called, using a sensor bar and hardware inside the Wii-mote. The motion sensing has the ability to to know where the Wii-mote is being pointed, how close or far it is from the screen, and even how you hold the Wii-mote, i.e. right side up or upside down. With this innovation on Nintendo's part, they are able to pull off games such as Wii Sports. The graphics in this game could be considered basic and hardly worthy of a "Next Gen" system. However, the interactiveness of the game gives it an experience that far overshadows the game's graphics. In addition, the downgraded graphics are actually a very clever strategy for the game. It not only shifts the focus to the experience rather than the looks, but it gives the game a childish and playful appeal.

But anyway, I ramble, and quite clearly demonstrate the bias I warned you about. In summation, the Wii uses its motion sensing technology to create interactive games that make the system worthy of the title "Next Gen."

So my point is that each system has proven itself to be Next Gen, but in its own way. For this reason I find it foolish to call one system superior over another. You can't say one combination of technology is right and another is wrong, you can really only say that one system may have a single aspect that surpasses that same aspect on another system. And with technology always moving forward I can hardly imagine what they will think of next.