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You walk up to a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet. Which hand grabs the joystick?


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I grew up on the Atari 2600, but jumped ship to the NES as soon as it was released and quickly wasted most of my childhood in front of one. A huge chunk of my life has been spent playing Street Fighter and its descendants. All of these are left-hand controller, right hand buttons. I still play games today, and everything modern is the same way.

 

But when I go to the local arcade and visit my old regular, Ms. Pac-Man, I still instinctively play with my right hand. I don't even think about it. I guess it's the lack of buttons.

 

How about you folks: Despite decades of learning to play "left-handed" do you find yourselves switching it up in the arcade when it's possible?

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Never thought about it. But now that I am.........Left?

 

Whether that's a symptom of growing up on NES, Genesis, and the JAMMA era of arcade games, I can't be certain. But feel like my default setting for arcade games is Left = Move, Right = Fire/Attack/Action/Whatever.

 

That's how Galaga was set up, and that's good enough for me. :P The opposite--or "correct," if you ask the Golden Age hardliners--orientation feels a little strange to me initially, but certainly doesn't pose any obstacle to gameplay.

 

I never had any problems with the left- vs. right-handed thing. Especially as it pertains to pre-Crash consoles, where every controller was different and weird and had its own idiosyncrasies that you sort of learned to deal with (which is part of what makes them so interesting to me, personally). Left- vs. right-hand is just another one of those things. I'm equally at home with an Atari joystick or NES control pad. Even Intellivision and Atari 5200 controllers. :) (Not as big a fan of the Coleco and Atari ProLine controllers, but I can manage.)

 

EDIT: I'm right-handed, FWIW.

Edited by BassGuitari
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Never thought about it. But now that I am.........Left?

 

I never really thought about it either until I noticed it the other night. Spent my entire life playing with my left hand on the controls, yet for some inexplicable reason, I control with my right hand when I don't need buttons. Maybe those years of conditioning haven't overcome my natural right-handedness as much as I thought?

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When I used to see the SNL spoof, Alan: A Video Junkie, I thought my hand would actually get zapped if I played Ms. Pac-Man. :lol: (The video used to be on YouTube but it was removed due to copyright.) I probably have to find out at the MGC this week what hand I use to play Ms. Pac-Man since it was so long ago.

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I feel that buttons need more dexterity than waggling the stick ... but if there's nothing but stick, I'll use my right hand.

 

oh my

Depends on the game, fixed shooters don't need much dexterity on the stick but your strong hand on the fire button helps. Donkey Kong was backwards and felt awkward but you should be able learn whatever controls you are given. A real player can play with either hand.
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If it's a game with just the stick and no buttons then I use my right hand.

 

If there's a stick and buttons then I'll usually use my left hand for the stick and my right hand for the buttons. This is the typical layout for such games.

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It depends on what side the buttons are on, however using the right hand for buttons if the joystick is on the left side would be my preferred style. Having buttons on left and joystick on right would be awkward.

 

I just realized there isn't really any buttons in Ms. pac-man LOL. I might have to go right handed in that case :)

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I use my right hand for the Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine joystick, which is totally weird because I have a bunch of arcade sticks for my home consoles and always use my left hand with them. The only other gaming platform I operate the joystick with my right hand on is the Atari 2600, for everything else it's the left.

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I use my right hand for Pac Man, but I think I could probably train myself to play any arcade game off-handed. To me it seems like swinging a baseball bat. I can swing either lefty or righty and either's comfortable for me, although righty feels a little more natural (I am right handed).

 

I can't handwrite left-handed or anything, but when I think about most arcade games, I feel like I could probably play almost equally well with the buttons on the left and stick on the right as the buttons on the right and stick on the left.

 

In Pac-Man, where there's only one hand required, I'd probably do a little better with my right hand, but I'm sure I could do it without much trouble with my left. So, if my right arm ever gets ripped off in a bizarre gardening accident, I should be ok.

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Maze games like Pac-Man, you use your dominant hand for sure. These days, it feels stranger yet, to play maze games like this on a left sided 8-way gamepad or joystick than anything else. Or worse, trying to play Pac-Man CE using the Roku remote held in the wrong (vertical) position. And it's the only way you can play it. Idiotic.

 

If I take it slow, can actually write with my left hand (cursive or print) but haven't gone out of my way to practice or anything. And as mr_me says: real gamers should be able to learn any controls given. Just a matter of tolerance or preference at this point. Sure, I can play Pac-Man CE on my Roku with its back-asswards control stick, but I choose not to and it goes unplayed. Want my money back! :mad: :lol:

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Right-handed. I'm still troubled by the fact that modern arcades, and modern arcade controllers like the X-Arcade, all give the joystick to the left hand. I don't think I'll ever get used to playing that way.

 

Modern?! That layout has been standard since the 80's. :lol: Especially for any machine that had multiple buttons. Rampage, Playchoice 10, 1943 etc...

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Dang, I thought that said WAKE up to a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet! That'd be pretty cool. Ooh, free arcade cabinet!

 

But to answer the question... I dunno. I'm right handed, but years of Nintendo has conditioned me to use controllers with my left hand. Ms. Pac is kind of an ambidextrous machine... you can really do it either way.

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