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Killzone 2 update fixes controls?

Since Killzone 2 hit shelves there have been a small number of complaints regarding its controls. Well, a patch has recently been released, version 1.2, that has been rumored to slightly alter the controls.

Gamezine reports that the update has effectively elimnated the problems which included input lag issues.

What about you guys? Have you a little more peppiness in the Killzone 2 controls ever since 1.2 was released?

Killzone 2 controls under investigation

Word has been circulating the internet that there are several players out there experiencing some issues with the control scheme implemented into Killzone 2.

Well, after initially denying the fact, Guerilla Games has announced that they are currently looking into the problem. 

Destruction quotes Producer Seb Downie to have said the following:

Okay, before I start crying.

 1. We have not decided if we are going to do anything to the controls.  We are investigating.

2. If we change them, we have not said how.  No reason to get upset.  We are not going to turn them on their head.  It would not be sweeping changes.

3. Any potential changes made will be carefully analyzed and tested to ensure they do not negatively affect players who do not experience any issues.

Let’s just hope this problem is squashed before it escalates any further. I mean, Killzone 2 is pretty much the killer app for PS3 currently, right?

Alone In The Dark–All About Control, Or A Lack Thereof

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I had to finally dig up a lousy game on the midst of my local video store’s shelves to fill you in on, and you’ll be amazed at just what lousy game I’m talking about. It’s none other than the latest installment of Alone in the Dark, also called Alone in the Dark: Inferno.

Split into episodes like a TV show, Alone in the Dark joins us once again with perennial hero Edward Carnby, who’s had a lot of different incarnations over the years. This time around, he’s plunging through the underground tunnels beneath New York’s central park, chasing down cult activity and trying to prevent nothing less than Satan himself coming to take over the planet. Apparently there’s plenty of weird stuff going on in Central Park, if the game’s website is to be believed. Everything from mutating trees to unusual bird migration patterns is going down in Central Park, so there’s plenty to figure out.

And indeed, starting the game makes it look like it’s going to be a real party, with random things bursting out of the walls and swallowing people for no clear reason. Also for no clear reason, they seem to have a problem with fire, something that’ll come back repeatedly throughout the game. The story is deep, rich and involved, with all sorts of lunacy happening on a regular basis, and a multi-branched plotline partially determined by your own choices. Good voice acting, good sounds, decent graphics–everything that should make a good game is right here.

And then some, really–for instance, there’s even a section where you have to regularly press your right stick to blink and clear your vision. When’s the last time you had to control BLINKING in a game? I can’t remember the last time I actually got to handle my own autonomic functions. Next time maybe I can do breathing, or food digestion.

But there’s one critical flaw in Alone in the Dark: Inferno’s otherwise solid profile–control. I’m not alone on this one; I’ve read several other reviews on this one and just about everyone’s with me that the control on this game is buggier than a New Jersey tenement. Trying to get Edward Carnby to move from place to place is a slow and tedious process that involves lots of camera juggling and just a little bit of sheer blind luck. I couldn’t believe it–even the ORIGINAL Edward Carnby didn’t handle this sluggishly, and that was about twenty years ago! The game also suffers from a lack of intuitive play–at one point, a chunk of the building I was in peeled away, and I went over to investigate, figuring this was the game’s way of showing me where to go next, as is so often done in these kinds of games. Imagine my surprise when, just a minute later, a large chunk of BURNING CEILING fell on my head, killing me. At that point, after I put my jaw back where it should be, I wondered…what was next? Would I go to use the restroom and a giant jack-in-the-box would pop out? Perhaps there would be bananas in my coffee. The world no longer made sense…and that was a problem for me.

Yep, when a game starts to completely divorce itself from things like Being Possible and Making Sense, I’ve got a problem. Especially when I have a hard time moving from point A to point B as it stands–it’s bad enough Edward Carnby moves like he’s wearing concrete thigh-high boots, but it gets worse when the laws of physics suddenly decide they hate me.

All this is a shame, really, as Alone in the Darkwas a wonderfully written, tautly plotted piece that controls like someone’s taken my lovely wireless controller and replaced it with a brick with decals on it. Had they taken a bit more time with it they might well have made a masterwork. But that’s one for the “what might have been” column.

Dead Space PC Controls Suck

Confirming the PC gamer’s worst fears, WhatIfGaming has a post about the controls of the PC version of Dead Space, after playing around with a prerelease version of the sci-fi horror game.

The site notes that the controls are not as smooth as the console versions – which are already out – and that “from what we can tell it doesn’t seem like a patch can fix most of the issues.” They further note that “inventory stack access becomes frustrating when fighting with monsters and aiming for on-the-fly changes.”

Reviews for the PC version are yet to appear, so it is not yet known just how badly gamers will respond to the controls.