What If: A First Person Shooter on PSP

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I know these kind of games do exist already, but I'm curious of what you guys would think for a control system for a fully featured first person shooter would be on the original Sony handheld.

It doesn't even have to be the most obvious control schemes. I think this would be an interesting thought exercise to see what people would come up with.

We know the limiting factor here: The PSP only has one joystick, and it itself was only a small disc-like nub. What would be a way to get around this?

Obviously we need to do some imagining here, since a first person shooter on a handheld wouldn't likely sell well, but that's not what this topic is about.

Required button commands:

Aim
Fire
Reload
Weapon select
Interact/Use
Movement
Camera Control

Other commands can be decided at your descretion

 

[Lightspeaker]

Aim
Fire
Reload
Weapon select
Interact/Use
Movement
Camera Control

Put moving the camera around to aim on the stick.

Then use X, Square, Triangle, Circle for back, strafe left, forward, strafe right respectively.

Right trigger to fire. Left to reload.

Left and right D pad buttons to switch weapons. Down on D-pad to toggle crouch. Up on D-pad to 'use', could also make it a contextual use button/jump button combo.



Lets you both move and aim at the same time without being too awkward (like doing something daft like putting aiming on the stick and movement on the D-pad) whilst preserving all crucial functions and still keeping the fire and reload easy to access whilst moving and aiming. Straightforward way to overcome the issue of only one joystick. Although as a PSP owner I'm not sure how much I'd trust that little thing for aiming purposes anyway (then again I very much dislike joysticks for aiming anyway).

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Aim
Fire
Reload
Weapon select
Interact/Use
Movement
Camera Control

Put moving the camera around to aim on the stick.

Then use X, Square, Triangle, Circle for back, strafe left, forward, strafe right respectively.

Right trigger to fire. Left to reload.

Left and right D pad buttons to switch weapons. Down on D-pad to toggle crouch. Up on D-pad to 'use', could also make it a contextual use button/jump button combo.



Lets you both move and aim at the same time without being too awkward (like doing something daft like putting aiming on the stick and movement on the D-pad) whilst preserving all crucial functions and still keeping the fire and reload easy to access whilst moving and aiming. Straightforward way to overcome the issue of only one joystick. Although as a PSP owner I'm not sure how much I'd trust that little thing for aiming purposes anyway (then again I very much dislike joysticks for aiming anyway).

That's how I would set up FPS controls on a PSP. It's pretty much the only reasonable way to do it with only one analog nub. I know MDK 2 on the Dreamcast (and probably other shooters on the DC, too) had a similar setup, since the Dreamcast didn't last long enough to get a twin stick controller after they became the best proven console FPS setup. It was kind of awkward, especially when coming from twin stick controls, until you got used to the rearrangement and the spacing of the face buttons. I don't have a DC controller, but my fuzzy memory of one tells me the PSP with this scheme would be easier to learn and use due to the closer face buttons.

Although, with the PSP's flat profile, it would still be cumbersome for most people to use for more than a few minutes, even adults with small hands. My hands aren't huge (American large size gloves, if that helps), and I wouldn't want to play that way for long.

OT: The next method I would suggest is the default Goldeneye 64 scheme, where a button is held for precision aiming with the analog stick. That won't work with a fast paced shooter, though. I don't know for sure since I avoided any PSP shooter, but anything with tactical elements may have used similar controls.

Metroid Prime Hunters had a stylus-free option (for when you couldn't fight the hand cramps anymore). It mapped forward, backwards, and strafing to the d-pad and looking to the face buttons. Digital Aiming... Boy, was that awkward.

Some GBA ports of oldschool FPSes (DooM, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem) put strafing on the shoulder buttons. Those had the benefit of no vertical aiming, though, so they could somehow work on the GBA's limited button layout. (I wouldn't recommend buying a cart to play on your GBA if you find one, though. They aren't pretty and the controls are still very awkward.)