Controller 101

Welcome to the Non-gamers' Corner where I try and take the myth and mystery out of the video gaming past-time. I find that technical words like spawn, button-mashing, aggro, modding, etc. can really keep some people who are interested in the whole hobby at bay. The many acronyms don't help either: FPS, MMORPG, RTS, HUD, etc..

So I'm going to try and go back where video games were a big scary world for me and where I had to learn so much as I went along. Granted I was like 5 but I think that's where a lot of the innate understanding of the whole genre came from. So please give me the chance to demystify and debunk somethings for you, gentle non-gamer reader. Our world isn't that scary, just very strange at times.

A game controller or gamepad is a device that's usually wired to the game console (the thing that you put the cartridge/CD/whatever) and controls the action for the game. All game controllers have directional buttons or d-pad (usually in the shape of a cross or a joystick) that move the character that's on the screen. The left side moves the character left and up moves them up and so forth.

The game controller will also have buttons to the right of the directional buttons. These usually are the start and select buttons. The start button is confusing as it actually stops the game by pausing the screen. It works just like a DVD or VCR pause function. Pressing start again will restart the action. Select generally acts as a method of selecting options from a list. It can sometimes work like the up and down directional buttons as it will scroll vertically through said list. Select is really not used that much in games surprisingly enough.

The buttons on the far right are action buttons and range from 2 to 6 circles. As the name implies these fancy coloured protrusions (and often named after letters, numbers and even shapes) control the action of the character on the screen like jumping, swimming, shooting, punching, stealing a car, blah blah blah. The use of the action button differs wildly from genre to genre which is something I will cover later. To give you a small example, one button would control the gas pedal for a game featuring cars and that same button could make the main character jump in a game featuring a someone hunting treasure.

The last aspect of modern game controllers are the bumper or shoulder buttons. This name derives from the fact that they are located on the top of the right and left sides of the controller, where the shoulders would be on a person. These are extra protrusions that you can press in conjunction with the d-pad and action buttons (as your thumbs operate the first two and the your index finger controls the bumper buttons) offering more abilities for the character to perform. The actions allocated to this area of the gamepad are usually blocking attacks, scrolling through inventory that your character has picked up whether it be weapons or items and stuff such as that.

That is the anatomy of a game controller. Are you non-gamers still with me? Are you gamers bored senseless? Who thought I was patronizing? If you actually learned something look out for more Non-gamers' Corner for more lessons and theories in gamingology. Yeah, I totally just made that up.

Retro is the new retro

Retrofitting,

Behold a new buzz word for the video game community.

When I was younger I didn't just want to make video games, I wanted to make an entire damn system. I actually cut out a console made out of cardboard and made a slit in the top to put in my literal paper thin games (I think I ended up designing some game covers too, but alas all of that has been long discarded). My console was only going to be able to play 16 and 8bit games in an era of 3d graphics and spinny CD thingies instead of good ole catridges. This would make the games easier to make when I finally figured out how to... er, make games.

Point is that with the advent of Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and WiiWare the idea of taking long running series back to their roots has become popular. We'll see where it goes from Mega Man 9 and Bionic Commando Rearmed but my guess is that their will be a small community of developers and publishers that will jump on this ban wagon.

There is nothing inherently new about retrofitting; back in my day it was just referred to as being gameboyized. A more recent example of this would be the New Super Mario Bros on the DS. Some series continue to create hand held graphical downgrades (Zelda for instance) while some oddly continue to stay away from nostalgia based games (I'm looking at you Metroid). Other series like Castlevania find shelter in the 2d sprite games while cautiously courting the 3d realm once more (A fighting game? Seriously?)

So strong is this meme of 'old is the new new' that The Independant Gaming Source held a demake competition where newer games/series get the Atari/NES/SNES (/Genesis for those Sega fans out there) makeover. This includes well known titles such as GTA, Silent Hill, Super Smash Bros, and God of War to name a few.

Go here to view TIGS competition and if you want some more superfun look through the games and see if you can figure out the originals.

Retrofit... demake... graphical 8bit overhaul... whatever you want to call it... video games have caught up with fashion, interior design and music where we in the community can now say, "Retro is so in right now."