And I feel we lefties haven’t been properly represented in the Halo games. Not just in terms of characters, since up until Reach we had Jackals, but in terms of our personal characters.
You see, as a lefty, when I hold a gun IRL, like a Paintball gun, or whatever I happen to be using. I have my left finger on the trigger, not my right. This immediately throws me off from the norm of Video Games, which is the right trigger.
Now Halo did include a Lefty control scheme that swaps triggers so we can shoot with our left hands, and it has been in there since Halo CE. But it has one really important flaw: When my gun still appears on the right side of my screen, and the LEFT trigger is the shoot button, all that accomplishes is visually confusing my hand-eye coordination. And thus, since Halo CE (well, to be fair I started playing in Halo 2, but other lefties have played since the first game), we’ve been kind of forced to use standard right handed controls, which instantly puts us at a disadvantage, that being lack of comfort.
Now, with Halo Reach, we began turning our multiplayer Spartans into Halo renditions of ourselves. It is supposed to be US, OUR Spartans. OUR career. So I must ask, can I make my Spartan left handed? It really wouldn’t take more than a mirror image of the player model/hitboxes, and a few aspects of the HUD (weapon and grenade ammo counters reversed. Weapons/hands mirror imaged, some weapon details modified as makes sense, like Ammo counters ON the guns). Doesn’t matter much to me if it’s not “canon” for Halo weapons to be ambidextrous. I’d just like to use my natural trigger finger when I play, for the sake of comfort, without feeling dislexic and confused by my Spartan remaining right handed.
> only about 10% or so of the human population is left-handed I might add.
>
> as for them changing if from right-hand advantage to lefty-flip I have to agree, its really obnoxious you can’t just hold your gun in the left hand.
How about you try using a gun in your left hand. See how it feels.
> The Xbox 360 controller is designed for a right handed person and to play games for right handed people.
Actually the Xbox 360 controller is designed ambidextrously. Anyone can hold it comfortably. But the button layout of the game is what affects whether or not you are comfortable. And pressing RT to shoot is VERY uncomfortable for me.
It’s up to game designers to keep the game fair to play for anyone. And until I can shoot with my left hand without being visually confused by the gun still appearing in the right hand of my character I will always feel awkward playing the game.
MANY games in the past took this into account. most classic games, for instance, placed weapons in the center of the screen, as if it could go either way (though reloading animations were generally right handed, it wasn’t a huge deal).
More late-90’s games actually had the ability to let you play with a left handed character, like Unreal Tournament, and Quake III. So on your screen your weapon would appear on the left side, which makes it alot more visually acceptable to someone using a mouse with their left hand instead of their right.
> > only about 10% or so of the human population is left-handed I might add.
> >
> > as for them changing if from right-hand advantage to lefty-flip I have to agree, its really obnoxious you can’t just hold your gun in the left hand.
>
> How about you try using a gun in your left hand. See how it feels.
Damn comfortable for me. On the other hand (lol cwatididthere), I feel awkward as hell when I hold a gun in my right.
I am also left handed and never really felt uncomfortable at all playing any of the halos. i use default control scheme. i think it would be cool if we could make our spartans left handed but i dont find it a big issue. I could see it being confusing though if you did use a left controller scheme.
I’m left handed and it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s probably different for you since you’re actively shooting guns in real life with the paintball gun.
> I’m left handed and it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s probably different for you since you’re actively shooting guns in real life with the paintball gun.
Well, it took me a very long time to get used to the controls. Especially since I also couldn’t use lefty sticks (looking with left stick, and moving with right), because looking with the left stick, when my weapon was on the right, was also confusing.
I was basically one of those players who couldn’t move and aim at the same time for alot longer than I think I should have been. And to this day in most games I have a hard time lining up my shots.
I mean, it’s so simple to implement, but noone does, except apparently the Wii, and only in some of their games.
As per what was said about your 3rd person Spartan: I can be fine with the 3rd person model being right handed still, so long as in 1st person I’m left. Though with turrets that’d be kind of odd. And when sitting in the passenger seat of vehicles.
I don’t really see how flipping the player model would really make a big deal though, so long as the hitboxes were also flipped so they line up with the model. I mean, it’s just a reverse Spartan, the head is still in the same place, the gun is just on the right instead of the left (looking at player).
It’d be like adapting from shooting a Jackal in Halo CE-ODST, to shooting a Jackal in Reach. It was the same thing, just the other hand.
Also left handed here, but it hasn’t really bothered me. I’d be a nice feature to have and if they did implement it. I would defiantly use it. However I don’t see that happening.
Most left-handed people should learn to hold guns with their right hand, as some weapons are built for right-handed people. For example, the shells and cases may eject out of the right side of the gun, so it won’t hit the user.
> > I’m left handed and it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s probably different for you since you’re actively shooting guns in real life with the paintball gun.
>
> Well, it took me a very long time to get used to the controls. Especially since I also couldn’t use lefty sticks (looking with left stick, and moving with right), because looking with the left stick, when my weapon was on the right, was also confusing.
>
> I was basically one of those players who couldn’t move and aim at the same time for alot longer than I think I should have been. And to this day in most games I have a hard time lining up my shots.
>
> I mean, it’s so simple to implement, but noone does, except apparently the Wii, and only in some of their games.
>
>
> As per what was said about your 3rd person Spartan: I can be fine with the 3rd person model being right handed still, so long as in 1st person I’m left. Though with turrets that’d be kind of odd. And when sitting in the passenger seat of vehicles.
>
> I don’t really see how flipping the player model would really make a big deal though, so long as the hitboxes were also flipped so they line up with the model. I mean, it’s just a reverse Spartan, the head is still in the same place, the gun is just on the right instead of the left (looking at player).
>
> It’d be like adapting from shooting a Jackal in Halo CE-ODST, to shooting a Jackal in Reach. It was the same thing, just the other hand.
The problem with switching the 3rd person player model is that you can assassinate players from the left shoulder but not the right by default since your left hand is farther up the gun. If the models were flipped, it would be very strange. As for the Jackal’s, they didn’t have right and left handed one’s in one game. I actually never knew that they were flipped to be hinest.
I am a left handed too! The only thing I do with my left hand is write. Everything else I use my right hand for because I learned at an early age that it would just be easier adapting to what everyone else does.
> Most left-handed people should learn to hold guns with their right hand, as some weapons are built for right-handed people. For example, the shells and cases may eject out of the right side of the gun, so it won’t hit the user.
It isn’t just your hands, but which eye you aim with too. I’m left handed and left eye dominant. I have tried firing weapons with my right hand, and it wasn’t too difficult for me, however despite that I kept on trying to aim using my left eye, which just wasn’t going to work, it’s too damn awkward. My right eye just cannot focus as well as my left can, which causes me to be less accurate no matter how used to holding the gun in my right hand is.
So basically what I’m trying to tell you is: No.
Besides, I can fire a right handed weapon just fine in my left. I’ve never got hit in the face with a spent casing nor has one ever messed up my aim.
And just to be more on topic, I never had any trouble adjusting to having right handed characters in FPS games. But that being said, it’d still be pretty cool to have a lefty FPS.
hmm… im left handed too, and ive thought about this since Halo 2 came out, im just so used to playing with RT, and even so, Spartans are ambidextrious, fire with right arm, throw gernade with left