It fell on a Sunday so naturally I never checked my calendar and didn’t realize it, but yesterday was International Lefthanders Day. How did I (unknowlingly) celebrate? I bought a copy of Metroid Prime: Hunters for the Nintendo DS, and got frustrated enough learning the controls that I almost returned it. In fairness, this isn’t a left-handed/right-handed issue, as the game designers included control setups for both, but if you’ve played this game and been frustrated by the controls, it’s similar to the clumsiness lefties experience elsewhere in life.
The controls of Metroid DS are similar to a PC first-person game, except that you use the stylus to look around where you’d use a mouse on a computer. The problem is that means you have to support the entire DS with your other hand, and you have to hold it on the edge, which is not its center of gravity. In doing so it makes it hard to support the weight of the unit and be able to read the L/R buttons to fire your weapon while also moving. Eventually I figured out how to support the other side with the pinkie of my stylus hand, but it’s not quite strong enough for the job.