I fired up TimeSplitters 2 for the first time in like two decades and immediately went not-built-for-this at the aiming controls

Firing from the hip, there’s no crosshair on the screen, which would be fine, but instead of a zoomed-in aiming mode or iron sights, aiming your gun roots you in place and gives you this light gun game-like pointer crosshair. Usually, aiming in an FPS game decreases your sensitivity to make it easier to make finer adjustments but this is the opposite. The crosshair is essentially a super sensitive mouse cursor that you control with a stubby little thumbstick, and it feels terrible to use.

Halo had been out for almost a year by the time TimeSplitters 2 came out so why didn’t they just crib Bungie’s homework whywhywhywhywhy

I quickly went back and checked TimeSplitters: Future Perfect and sure enough, it just had a regular Halo-style crosshair as the default, called “fixed crosshair” in the options, with the old control style called “moving crosshair.” I guess by 2005 Halo had established its control scheme as the de facto standard for console FPS controls

    • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      18 hours ago

      tbf that’s a function of dual analog controllers not even existing until the dualshock

      turok had the core concept down 3 years earlier using the c-buttons as one stick, and goldeneye had this hilarious dual analog option using two n64 controllers, one in each hand, also 3 years earlier

      • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        16 hours ago

        Most companies also probably didn’t want to release a game you couldn’t play with the original non-analog controllers, AFAIK there are only a handful of PS1 games that require analog sticks.

        the-more-you-know There was a PS1 controller with analog sticks called the Dual Analog Controller before the DualShock.